Daniel Eugene Ruettiger (born August 23, 1948) is an American motivational speaker and author who played college football at the University of Notre Dame. His early life and career at Notre Dame were the inspiration for the 1993 film Rudy.
Daniel Eugene Ruettiger (nicknamed "Rudy") was the third of fourteen children. He was born on August 23, 1948, in Joliet, Illinois, where he grew up with his German American family. Ruettiger did not excel scholastically, at least in part due to dyslexia. He attended Joliet Catholic High School, where he played for locally famous football coach Gordie Gillespie.
Ruettiger joined the United States Navy after high school, serving as a yeoman on a communications command ship for two years; then he worked in a power plant for two years. Ruettiger applied to Notre Dame and was rejected due to his low high school grades. He enrolled and attended nearby Holy Cross College, and after two years was accepted as a student at Notre Dame on his fourth try, in the fall of 1974. It was during his time studying at Holy Cross that Ruettiger discovered he had dyslexia.

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