This is the story, and we’re doing a little bit more on the history versus Hollywood. We’re doing a little series on this. We’ve done a few, I think they were pretty good. Actually, Jorge wasn’t here, he was on a vacation, going on air quotes. I mean, I haven’t been on vacation since the night. Damn, I want to go on a cruise. We should go on a podcast cruise.

That’d be awesome, man. That’d be so much fun, as long as it’s not Carnival. We’ll do a Ritz-Carlton one. Honestly, I mean, elite. I’m not even joking. We bring the gear, a little ride off. We could bring the gear and a couple things. This is a great idea. Okay, you’re onto something there. I like it. I really do.

Okay, so this is history versus Hollywood, and this is the story of Rudy. Rudy Ruettiger. Now, this is going to be very new to our over the pond mates. What the heck is college football? Who the heck is Rudy? Actually, what’s funny is Gamer Dave does a lot for us, he does a lot behind the scenes that nobody even knows about. He was helping us create some of the images and stuff for this episode, and we put it on the schedule, and he was like, is this like Rudy Giuliani? Had no idea. What is Notre Dame?

So this story is a little bit for him. And this story is a little bit special because I have been involved with it. Not intimately, not sexually. Not really intimate. I’ll tell you mid story, but I don’t know him anyways. We crossed paths. I was an investor. I thought I was a big investor in a little story.

Okay. For millions of people, the story of Daniel Rudy Ruettiger is a simple one, but an inspiring one. A small, undersized kid with big dreams refuses to quit, earns a spot on the roster at University of Notre Dame, and in one unforgettable moment gets carried off the field by his teammates. It’s framed as one of the greatest underdog stories in sports history. It’s immortalized in the 1993 movie Rudy. You guys have seen this, of course. Multiple times.

But like many Hollywood stories, and the whole freaking purpose of this miniseries that we’re doing, so how real was this? What audiences saw on screen wasn’t exactly what actually happened. Here we go with Eric always taking the other side. So this is where the story splits. The dream begins. Rudy is portrayed in this movie as a struggling student from a working-class family who dreams of one day attending Notre Dame. But he lacks the grades, the money, the size, the physical, and the support.

Everybody, including his family, his teachers, even his girlfriend says, you’re not going to make it. They’re like, you’re not smart enough, you’re not strong enough, you’re not talented. You’re like five foot two, like 170. You’re not going to be a D lineman at Notre Dame, bro. You’re five foot nothing, a hundred and nothing. You ain’t got a speck of athletic ability. I almost did that verbatim. That was incredible. I’m impressed with myself.

How many times have you seen it? A lot of times. I’m going to have to watch it again. It’s a great movie. Vince Vaughn is in it. No, not Vince Vaughn. The other guy. He’s Happy in Marvel. His name’s Happy. He’s the driver of Tony Stark. You know what I’m talking about? What’s his name? He’s in Swingers. He also directs a lot of the Mandalorian, I think. I just watched a good movie with him where he’s a chef. It’s called Chef. It’s a great movie. John Favreau. It’s Favreau.

So the movie frames his journey as nearly an impossible feat from the beginning. Okay. So Rudy did grow up in a blue collar family in Joliet, Illinois. And I want to tell this story because there’s a lot of people who actually don’t know this story, including our English folk. So essentially the story of the movie is that against all odds he wants to go to Notre Dame and he wants to play on the football team.

So just so you know, Notre Dame in college football is the most winningest college football organization in all of college football in America. And it’s a very storied experience. It’s like historic and it’s like prestige. Prestige is a good word. You made it. So in the movie he wants to go. He grows up watching it and he’s never going to be able to go. It’s really expensive and it’s the best of the best. Just to give you an idea, Joe Montana was on the same team as him. So it’s the best of the best. Elite.

And in the movie he is so resilient, and is played by Sean Astin, who is Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. Mr. Frodo. And basically the movie is him just running up against walls, like he’s not smart enough, he’s not big enough, he’s not strong enough, none of that. And he’s so persistent that he just keeps going and going and going. Wasn’t his dad like the janitor? That wasn’t his dad, but like a mentor or a father figure. Father figure.

But he gets on the team, he only gets on the backup team. He basically just practices, just gets run over. And so it’s just this story of him. He’s the only one with heart and persistence, and he keeps going and going and going until the final game, the final play. But they’re up the entire season, they’re crushing. And then they finally put him in and he does one play and they carry him off and they’re all like, so the whole team carries him on their shoulders.

But right before that it’s also really cool how the team starts chanting Rudy, Rudy, and then the whole stadium goes wild. His dad’s in the crowd and his dad has never been to a game. So that’s the very heartwarming version. It’s a great story, it’s a great movie, you should watch it. But that’s the movie version. Let’s get back to reality.

So Rudy did grow up in a blue collar family in Joliet, Illinois. And he did dream of Notre Dame. He also had academic struggles, including what had been described as a learning disability. Of course. Did they show that in the movie? I don’t remember that. Not really. Right. Also, he didn’t have no support. That was exaggerated. Everybody wanted him to succeed, including his own family. But they made it seem like the parent was like, shut up, you idiot, you can never do anything, you loser.

Rudy applies to Notre Dame multiple times and gets rejected over and over, only gaining admission after relentless persistence and sacrifice. Like he’ll never stop in the movie. In real life, this is partly true. Rudy attended a junior college and worked to improve his grades before eventually transferring to Notre Dame. Okay, so pretty standard standard. Pretty standard pathway.

Number three, in the movie, Rudy walks onto the football team and is immediately dismissed as too small, too weak. Coaches doubt him, teammates overlook him, but he survives through grit. Heart, heart. That’s not how it works. When you walk in, they’re like, you don’t make the team, try again next year. Rudy did walk on as a walk-on for the Notre Dame scout team. Walk-ons were not as rare or shocking as the film suggests. He was part of a system that regularly used practice players to do scrimmages.

And you can walk on at any college anywhere. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make the team. All he wanted was just to be around. For example, you can go to a college with no scholarship, no nothing, but you want to play football there, you can try to walk on and try out for the team. And you can still make the team. One last point on that is that he was five foot six, 165. Without hardly a speck of athletic ability.

Just to show you, I’m six foot three, like 220 pounds, and you would get, I would get literally annihilated. He’s playing D line. I’m looming over this guy. And Eric’s a totally average size man. I mean, five ten’s pretty tall. Watch any football game, you’ll never see anybody really under six foot. He’s the smallest. So he was small, super small. I mean, you look at Drew Brees, he looks tiny on the NFL field. Let’s not forget about Muggsy Bogues. But that’s one out of a million. Nate was taller than Muggsy.

One of the most emotional moments in the film is Rudy is told he won’t dress for the final game. So he won’t be on record as being part of the team. Right. In response, his teammates lay their jerseys on the coach’s desk in protest, demanding Rudy be allowed to play. It’s presented as a spontaneous act of unity and respect.

Now, Rudy’s not going to play. I’d be like, screw Rudy, we play. In real life, according to multiple former players, the scene is fully made up. And you can go on YouTube and Joe Montana does an interview, because he was on the team. Joe Montana says there was no jersey protest. He was like, we wouldn’t have sacrificed everything we’ve worked for just for one dude. But in theory, if they all did it, nobody’s going to be left out. Especially that would never happen, especially nowadays with NIL. It’s like, screw Rudy, I’m getting paid, baby. I’m playing.

So towards the end of the movie, Rudy gets into the game and records a sack on the final play, ending his career in storybook fashion and being carried off the field by his teammates, like Jorge said, with Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Now also just worth mentioning, they were already up what, like 20. They put me in. What’s actually really cool is you can go and see footage from the game. It’s really old, 1975 footage on YouTube. You can find him coming out the side. I don’t even think the announcer even said his name.

So like Jorge actually said, Rudy did play in that one game and it was against Georgia Tech in 1975. He did record a sack on the final play and he was carried off the field. But the game was decided already. The game was over. He only did one play. The moment, while real, was elevated into something of a myth, because even in the interviews with Joe Montana and other players, they said they almost did it as a joke.

You ever seen the things where they have the one kid and they’re like, oh, he runs for a touchdown, and they’re like, yeah, everybody’s running, even the opposing team’s like, yeah, come on. Imagine the right tackle’s like, whoops, let me fall over. I mean, they tell the quarterback, he weighs 160 pounds, bro, just fall down, it’s not going to hurt, I promise.

So the film ends on a triumphant note. Rudy achieves his dream, becomes a symbol of perseverance, and rides off as a legend, and then goes to work at Sonic. Now later on Rudy did become a motivational speaker and he built a career around his story. But decades later in 2011 he decided to start a Gatorade brand. And it was like Rudy Rudy Juice. Actually I forget what it was called. I actually think it’s just called Rudy. Anyways, and this is where Eric comes into play.

Okay, so at the time, I don’t know if you guys know this, but Eric was an elite athlete. No, I played Notre Dame with Rudy. I was on the team. I started over Joe Montana. Me and Joe, we go way back, intimately involved. No, I don’t know if you guys know this. And then, not to call you out, but Sean does this for a living, he goes out basically investment banking, and he helps publicly traded companies raise money. Correct. In a short one sentence thing.

Okay, so just imagine Eric. I was doing the same exact thing but for pink sheet stocks. So not Wall Street, not registered, not certified. It was definitely wild wild westy. Of which I was in that world of penny stocks and pink sheets and all that sort of thing. Were you the one pitching, trust me, I got this great deal come across my desk. It was more like I would get a group of investors and we would invest in something and then we would own more than 5% or 10%. And so we would have a board, we would have a little bit of sway.

So the rule is if you own more than 5% you’re considered an insider. If you own more than 10% you’re considered an affiliate. Let’s say for example if you bought 10% of a NASDAQ traded company, you have to have an SEC filing showing that you are, it’s a beneficial ownership filing. So we could look this up. It’s a form four. An S4 is like a business combination. So it is a form four. And it was, okay, so it was not legitimate. I just want to be clear. Let’s start off with that.

It’s not what Sean does. It’s just a semblance of, like he understands. And this is not financial advice. I mean just so you know, what I do is highly regulated, like literally they have my fingerprints, it’s extremely regulated. He’s working on the NASDAQ stuff, it’s a whole other world. So basically it was a group of investors that had some money and we would go in and we would be like, hey, we really like this brand and this company, and we would buy as much as we could and then we would try to influence the board into going, you know, you guys are not doing this right.

I feel like Eric was working for the cartels. We would just find a company that we could wash all of our money. No, but then we had talked about that, I love the movie, right? I love the movie, I was like, this is a great idea. So you were on the Rudy Juice board. You drank the juice. I drank the juice. So you were literally involved in this Rudy Juice company. No, meaning I had enough that I had to file a form four. Now, I’m not saying I had a ton of money. But you had homies that had the cash. Yes.

And now keep in mind that it was a penny stock, right? So we’re not talking about multi-millions of dollars. For 10,000 dollars you literally own the company, 5%. Jorge is absolutely correct. I fully bought into the juice. I was like, this is great. And I’m in at like, I don’t know, 42 cents and we own 6% or some thing. You get fleeced full scale. Okay, are you ready? You got nuked. Got nuked. Stock went to negative.

So it was a full scale pump and dump. Yeah. So I’ll try to explain it in very basic terms. So you have a certain amount of shares outstanding. So we bought as a group, like an aggressive group, we bought like 6% or whatever. And I think the total outstanding shares was like 10 million shares. And so then the stock price is down in the pennies. So you can get in there.

So press releases, PR campaigns, branding, public speaking. Rudy Ruettiger is everywhere promoting it. Oh, we’re going into Target, we’re going into Walmart. So everyone’s like, ooh, yes, killing it, right? Stock popped. Popped up, killing it. Still in the game. Passed a dollar. Still in the pink sheets, of course. Because who wants to pay to upload. No, but we’re thinking this is the new Gatorade. This is my out, this is how I get rich.

Meanwhile, Rudy Ruettiger owned a majority of the voting rights. So they upped the authorized shares and then they printed 700 million shares. Dumped it on the whole market. So the stock price went to like two cents. I exited at, are you ready, zero. Why would you even exit at that point? Like if you keep, because of the loss, it’s zero zero seven. So not even a penny. So a seventh of a cent. Yes.

And I was just so livid at this guy and I tried to contact, we tried everything. We ravaged him on the internet. And then after a while he was charged by the SEC. Because even though it’s a wild wild west, the OTC is still a tradable market. It’s still regulated by the SEC. What’s OTC? OTC is over the counter, that’s what it stands for. Well, it’s called OTC pink market. So it’s just a lower level market.

So you have your traditional markets like the NYSE, which is the New York Stock Exchange, and then NASDAQ, which are all regulated by the same body. It’s just there’s requirements that you have to meet in order to be listed on some, and the reason there’s different markets is because it attracts different investors. The companies that are on OTC are seen as inherently more risky and that’s made known. The sole purpose of the SEC, why they were created, is to protect investors. It’s all about disclosure and transparency so that investors aren’t getting bamboozled.

Because back in the day you could manipulate the heck out of it and screw everybody over. And that was the Wolf of Wall Street in the story. Exactly. He was manipulating the IPO because he owned it. It’s very frowned upon. And it’s kind of like, let’s say Rogan emailed us and he’s like, hey, come on the show, and then we were like, oh, we are now partnered with Rogan. There’s a semblance of truth and then you manipulate.

I mean look at the whole thing with Enron. Remember Enron, and where Martha Stewart went to jail for, is because they were operating off of what they called NPI, which is non-public, it’s non-public material information. So whenever there’s material information, like for example in the real world right now, if I disclose to you some material non-public information about my company, I have 48 hours to release that information to the public that I have disclosed accidentally, so that now all potential investors know that data.

Like I literally have to release that, otherwise I’m going to jail. So they were operating off of non-public material information when they were doing their trades, which allowed them to make shitloads of money, which is illegal. That’s the definition of insider trading. You’re operating off of information that’s not made public to all investors. That’s why I don’t, people are like, oh what, I’m like, I don’t know how to talk about anything, I’m not going to tell you, I don’t know, don’t ask me questions.

So he was charged and he agreed to a settlement without admitting guilt. Well, a settlement is a financial settlement. So basically he had to turn in the million, whatever that he made from selling the stock. And then the stock disappeared. Well, they also make it very difficult to liquidate if you’re an insider or if you’re an affiliate, meaning you’re filed that you own more than 5 or 10%. There’s rules on how much you can sell at a time and the frequency that you can sell.

So for example, Elon Musk can’t just dump all of his shares in Tesla. Even if he wanted to, he can’t. He legally can’t. He can only sell a small percentage every six months. And it’s a set amount. And he’s got to tell the SEC, he’s got to file the form. They got to file a registration statement that he’s going to be selling so everyone knows. Because otherwise, if Elon Musk could just sell all his immediately, he could literally vaporize every investor in Tesla instantly. The stock goes to zero.

I’m a bit like the anti-investor. Like every major decision I’ve made in investments has been wrong, has been the opposite decision. Don’t even tell them the Netflix and Blockbuster. Do you know that story? In short, me and a buddy, we were going to make a big move with everything that we had. And we knew that streaming was going to be the thing. And we had a choice between Netflix or Blockbuster. And we chose Blockbuster. And this is before Netflix was anything. Blockbuster was the king.

Eric could have been rich. We wouldn’t have this podcast here. I would be a peasant to Eric. Legit peasant. I also invented Pepsi Twist. This is a true story. True story. I invented electrolytes one day. I just put some salt in what I was drinking and I was like, why do I feel better? What the heck is this. Salt and lime.

Anyways, so his SEC thing is rarely mentioned when he does his inspirational. That’s true. I never heard of this, I had never heard of this. It’s so funny how these sketch dudes are into inspirational speaking now. Like even Jordan Belfort gets paid millions to literally, I hate it so much. You were literally a criminal. You’re an admitted criminal and drug addict and somehow you’re doing inspiration. And I love the movie Wolf of Wall Street. Great movie. It’s phenomenal. So entertaining. I’ve watched that several times. But I hate the fact that there’s a whole section of the world who thinks it’s cool.

Like it’s cool to be a piece of, oh, he got away with it. Like the Belfort lifestyle, you know what I mean? I hate it so much. So did Rudy end up getting anything from the movie? From the movie itself? Oh, I’m sure. I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sure he did. It’s his likeness, his whole story. He had to have. The thing is, you don’t have to be a criminal. Obviously Jordan Belfort did what he did so he could get rich super fast, right? It’s much faster, but you can still make a bunch of money. He was licensed, he could have done it, it just would have taken him longer.

He was obviously a smart guy and he knew his stuff, but he was on uppers, downers. He was way too busy with hookers and doing blow. Actually that incident was where I decided to move on from the whole stock thing. That’s why I, when I, I’m too afraid of the volatility of doing stocks. So I just want to buy property. Because regardless of anything, we’re going to keep pumping out humans and you’re going to need space. I just want to buy the property. Pretty safe and pretty good return.

Meanwhile, me and Eric are ETH, Bitcoin, all kinds of crypto. I mean, seriously. You know what I’m actually going to do? I’m going to wait till Jorge tells me he’s going to sell and then I’m going to put it all on. Yeah, but you should wait for Eric too, when he’s going to buy, you’re like, I’m going to sell. That’s a good point. I’m a jockey for YouTube with stocks. If I say do this, then do the opposite of that.

No, but every time Jorge sells it goes up and then he buys at the peak and then sells at the bottom. You just hold through the whole thing. Remember you bought the ETH and the next day it went down like 40%, and I was like, I’m not going to say anything. I didn’t sell. You’re still holding? Still. Good for you, dude. I’m just going to leave it there. It’s not even on, I don’t even own it. It’s like some Robin Hood thing. Robin Hood is like leasing it. It’s literally like you’re leasing the space on their servers.

Anyways, the best investment I ever did was my Toyota Tacoma. That thing has gone up like 200%. His singular best investment is his truck. Because I have a Tundra that I paid off, and it’s like, well, you paid that off. He did, last year. What kind of payments were you making on that thing? No, but he’s using, he’s in the company. I had the company pay it off. You’re smart. This week I was looking at it, 80,000 miles, I’ve never had to do anything to that thing. Just oil changes and tires. I got new tires.

So there you go. That’s really the story of Rudy Ruettiger. I mean, the question becomes, again, the Hollywood versus history. Did it change? And it did. I feel like it did. I mean, even Joe Montana comes out and says, the whole jersey, man, I really thought the jersey thing was real. What a bummer, too, right? I think they had to hype it up in order to make the movie like the true underdog. Otherwise it would just be a documentary, but they got to change the movie a little bit.

If anything, it’s a great pitch for Notre Dame. Like Notre Dame probably funded it, executive producer. Everybody started getting those little Notre Dame fighter tattoos after that. I’d like to go to a game there though. I’ve never been to South Bend. Have you, Eric, ever been to college football? No, dude, it’s electric. That’s better than NFL. It’s wild. It’s psycho. It looks like it is.

So last year I got tickets to the Falcons and Colts in Atlanta, the day before Christmas Eve. The worst game I’ve ever been to. It was like a rap concert and the game was so boring. The thing about college is everyone’s so, like you love your team to the point where it’s just psycho. People are psychos. It’s like madness. So it feels like even if it’s a regular game it feels like a playoff game. The energy is intense. I go to a shitty Bengals game and they’re losing, I’m like, screw everybody, I hate everything. College, they’re losing, don’t care.

The only NFL games that have been good that I’ve been to are playoff games. And the other ones are like, sometimes they’re good, most of the time they’re not that good. You really go for tailgating. Because you’re paying a hell of a lot of money. So much money, bro. I’ve been to a couple Cowboys games and Bucs games. College is funner. It’s just way funner.

So we should go to Gators, dude. Probably the closest one. No, USF, bro. USF is way closer. Well yeah, but you’re talking about Gainesville or 45 minutes geographically speaking. It’s like four hours compared to 38 minutes. We can. I just hate them. But fine. I do hate the game whenever Ohio comes somewhere. I just hate UF because of personal discrepancies. There was a year that Ohio State lost to UF in the college football national championship and the basketball national championship in the same year. And ever since then, they’re dead to me.

But anyways, that’s Rudy. Rudy Ruettiger. I don’t know, re-watch the movie. Especially for the guys that are in Europe or England or Australia, check it out. Maybe even Canada. Maybe. There you go. I definitely think that history was changed. It was definitely changed for sure. But then the guy became a piece of, I mean, he stole from Eric. Forget that guy. Never forgiven.

One thing though, I cling to hope, is that maybe he was just ignorant of it. No, he wasn’t. And the crew, you know what I mean? It was somebody, his crew wanted to pump and dump. He knew what he was doing. He had the voting rights, man. If somebody can find on eBay a Rudy drink, it might be worth a pretty penny. That would be cool to have in our studio. A Rudy drink. Actually, I’m going to find one. I kind of got to find one now. Would it be weird, like in my Google search, Rudy Juice? A little sus.

Anyways, there you go guys. That is mini number, I don’t know, 20 something. We love you guys, this is all for you. I think the next mini we’ll do is a rant. Let’s just do a 30 minute rant about something random. Just talk. A 30 minute talk section. Why not. Absolutely. We’ll catch you next time, guys. All right. Night.