Rudy by Rudy Ruettiger

Author:Rudy Ruettiger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2012-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

12

Twenty-Seven Seconds

My parents drove in from Joliet with my brothers Frank and John. I knew I wouldn’t see them before the game. I’d be sequestered in the locker room, right where I needed to be. The stadium was packed, fifty-nine thousand strong, as it was for every home game. The noise of that crowd filtering in echoed through the tunnel and down the hallways into my ears every time somebody opened a door. And there I was, standing in front of my locker, looking at my first-ever game jersey—and a gold helmet.

I held up that shirt and just stared at it—45. At first, I fell into that old sense of feeling sorry for myself: everyone else’s jersey had their names on it. Not mine. It was just a number. And for a few seconds, that’s exactly how I felt.

I picked that helmet up off the bench and held it in my hands for a moment. Just a couple of years earlier I had broken the rules and snuck in here as a Holy Cross student to help touch up the paint on game helmets just like this one. Now here I was, about to put one on.

Nine years had flown by since I first stepped foot in this very locker room as a high school student, an overzealous fan rolling with the flow as the team filtered in from practice. Nine years since Ara Parseghian first laid eyes on me and told me to get out of there. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.

I wished Coach Parseghian could have been there right then.

I remember looking over at the brass plaque on one of the columns— a plaque featuring the famous quote from the film Knute Rockne: All American, starring Ronald Reagan as George Gipp: “Rock, sometime when the team’s up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got, and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock, but I’ll know about it; and I’ll be happy.”

So much history. I just took it in. This one chance, this one shot to run out on that field, to be not just a part of the team but a part of the team’s history—it was overwhelming. I was so grateful. I pulled that shirt over my head and caught a glimpse of myself wearing it in one of the mirrors, and suddenly any feeling of disappointment I felt over that silly notion of not having my name on my back went flying right out the window. This was it. I was part of the Notre Dame tradition. Me!

I basked in it for as long as I could.

In some ways, I wished it could have lasted forever—that feeling right before the payoff, right before the goal is reached, right before the dream comes true, when you know for certain there’s nothing left to stand in your way, but before it’s all over.

Nothing lasts forever, of course, and I was starting to feel the rush.

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