REAL RUDY'S CAMEO + Roosevelt speech

In the final scene of the movie, the real Rudy Ruettinger is sitting in the stands, right behind the movie Rudy's parents.

I think this is one of the best sports movies ever. Like "Bang the drum slowly" and the Gale Sayers movie, its light years away from the glitz and big bucks of the athletes we are used to seeing portrayed on screen. Instead its about hopes and dreams, and risking all in pursuit of a dream.

Brings to mind one of the speeches of our president Teddy Roosevelt. He could have called it the "Rudy speech," had Rudy predated him.


It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.