Notre Dame has been playing football for 135 years and along the way some momentous decisions were made to shape the history of this storied program now entering a daring new phase of college sports. This off-season, we look back at the 10 best decisions made for the Fighting Irish in the decades past.
#7
Allowing Rudy to be Filmed on Campus
A movie, really? In the case of the 1993 biographical (with some Hollywood liberties) film Rudy you better believe it’s had an enormous impact on Notre Dame football. There are people in the world who became fans of Notre Dame based off this movie and plenty of others who don’t know much about college football but have absorbed knowledge of Notre Dame through this film.
And if history was any evidence, the movie wasn’t going to happen and was destined to fail.
If you know any backstory to the creation of this movie it’s that Notre Dame initially wouldn’t allow any filming on campus, a move that would’ve effectively killed the whole project. The school hadn’t allowed anything to be filmed since the 1940 release of Knute Rockne, All-American and the project for Rudy wasn’t having a great time getting off the ground.
Some other interesting notes:
- Hoosiers screenwriter Angelo Pizzo wasn’t interested in the project initially because it would be based in Indiana again and he didn’t like Notre Dame (he attended Indiana for undergrad and USC film school).
- Notre Dame executive vice president Rev. William Beauchamp agreed to the school’s participation in the film at the last minute after reading Pizzo’s “heartwarming” story that embodied and embraced many of Notre Dame’s values.
- Filming began in the fall of 1992 with home games against Boston College (54-7 win) and Penn State (the Snow Bowl 17-16 win) used for footage in the movie.
- N.F.L. Films was brought on board to film the football scenes.
The secret that makes Rudy so great is that it encapsulates–perhaps better than anything else in popular American media–the period of time in history when the mythology of Fighting Irish football was its strongest and its most potent. The struggles of the early-to-mid 1980’s looked like a blip on the radar by 1993, the program was 5 years past a National Championship, and the team was a machine on the field.
You could try to pull off this movie in 2024 although it wouldn’t quite be the same. Things like “hanging with the greatest team in the land for 2 years” would have to be removed from the script, for example. Plus, Rudy is a great time capsule to an earlier and more original Notre Dame, specifically in regards to the stadium before renovations came soon after.
Lastly, I have to shout out the incredible composer Jerry Goldsmith for his score in this movie. He pulled off something similar with Hoosiers and a score mixing with Indiana Americana cinematography vibes, although I think he nailed Notre Dame’s campus in this era and it’s why prospective students should always watch Rudy to pick up some of the magic.
Think we’ll ever get a rewatchable podcast from this one? Definitely high up my list, but probably not simmons and ringer crew
Quick half ass internet research/what aged the worst. isn’t rudy mormon now?
Simmons would need the right people around him for that podcast, but I would enjoy it.
Rudy has been a mixed bag for ND. As a feel-good sports movie, it’s great, and there’s no question it produced tons of new ND fans (along with a generation of uncreative Gameday signs from opponents).
But it’s almost entirely fiction. Even by Hollywood standards, the movie is pretty disingenuous selling itself as a true story. Plus, it makes two of our greatest coaches look like doofuses.
The real Rudy is, of course, a self-aggrandizing fraudster. Not exactly our proudest alum.
But more than anything, the movie embodies the Notre Dame Is Magic And Everything Just Works For Us thinking that infected the program in the late 90s and 2000s. It also reinforced the perception that ND is some sort of Catholic Disneyland, which is neither true nor helpful to anyone.
On balance, I’m fine with Rudy existing, but it’s hard for me to say that it was one of the best decisions in the program’s history.
Okay. I thought it was a good movie and that it left a positive impression of ND
IMO, the movie is great at making Notre Dame seem like college football/campus beauty Disneyland and it’s had a massive positive effect for the school.
I think it handles religion really well, it’s a small part of the movie and doesn’t hit you over the head with it.
In other news, quite a few “3*” commitments recently with impressive offer sheets.
OK movie, but still clearly the 4th best movie about sports in Indiana after Hoosiers, Breaking Away, and Knute Rockne All American.
Speaking of, the writer for Rudy and Hoosiers is supposedly working on a movie about the first running of the Indy 500, but the only news blurbs I see about it are from almost two years ago. Anybody heard anything about the last leg of the Indiana Sports Triple Crown?
Sorry – the last leg of the Indiana Sports Triple Crown is Rik Smits buzzer beater over the Magic in the ’95 ECFs.
It’s interesting to contemplate a counterfactual world without Rudy – i.e., what percentage of current ND fans would not be ND fans but for the movie? My guess is some but not a huge portion. And, obviously, no national champions since then, so it’s not like it’s helped lead to a bunch of football success. IMO, then, this one might be slightly overrated, especially since we already have had “build ND stadium” – hard to think Rudy is more of a milestone in ND football history than that.
(For context, my view on Rudy is it’s fine but I haven’t seen it in 15 years so I guess I don’t view it as crucial.)
i am unabashedly a huge fan of rudy although i don’t watch it nearly as much as i used to
i did watch it at like 2am after the 2022 clemson game though