30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Hard Work and Deception

Size matters not.  Well... at least according to Yoda and Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger.

2007 Press Pass Legends Saturday Signatures

Each year, I teach a unit on goal setting and perseverance to my students and use the movie Rudy.  For those who are unfamiliar with the story, Mr. Ruettiger was a twenty-seven year old, 5'6" guy who wanted to play for the Fighting Irish.  He worked really hard and overcame many obstacles to achieve this goal.

My students' assignment is to identify the main goal he sets for himself in addition to the steps he takes to achieve this goal.  They also break down his roadblocks and personal support system.

During the process of digging up facts for my fact vs. fiction post movie discussion, I discovered that today is the 40th anniversary of Ruettiger's big game.  On November 8th, 1975... in his only college football game appearance against Georgia Tech, he played a total of three plays... one of which ended in him sacking the quarterback.

In other sports news...

Bucky Harris is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  He played for the Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers in the first half of the 20th Century, but was better known for his managerial skills.

In 1924, while playing for the Senators, he also managed them to a World Series Championship.  There's a great story about he tried to outwit legendary manager John McGraw during the 7th game of the series.  You can read it here.  Harris won another title while managing the 1947 New York Yankees.

2003 Topps Gallery HOF #38

Anyways... there's a specific reason I'm featuring him in today's post.  Today is both his birthday and the anniversary of his passing.  I guess technically we all have a .27% chance of passing away on our birthday, but I thought it was interesting.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

3 comments:

defgav said...

Cool stuff. Believe it or not, I just watched Rudy for the first time a couple weeks ago. It's a good one. I'd love to pick up an auto of the real guy one of these days.

The Snorting Bull said...

I was actually born in South Bend, and as a kid, I liked their football team. As an adult, whose alma mater is in the same conference, I find their fan base base to be highly annoying. Rudy is a nice story though. Go Pack!

Fuji said...

defgav - steiner has rudy items at affordable prices whenever they have a decent sale. he's also in at least one other press pass product.

snorting bull - i've always disliked notre dame... but if there's one guy i'd cheer for... it's rudy.