‘Rudy’ crosses enemy lines to attend BCS title game

With all respect due Brian Scalabrine, Matt Leinart, Frank Reich in the 1993 AFC wild-card playoffs and Michael Jordan when he was with the White Sox, Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger probably is the most famous benchwarmer in sports history. Maybe it's a tie with Bob Uecker, but they never made a movie about Uecker (though he did have his own sitcom).

Tim Tebow? Closing fast.

Yes, they also made a movie about the Jamaican bobsled team. I defy you to identify one of the four by name.

But everybody knows Rudy, how he walked on at Notre Dame, how he woke up the echoes for three plays as a 165-pound defensive end (kickoff, incomplete pass, sack) on Nov. 8, 1975.

There are photos on the Internet of Rudy being carried off the field after his 15 seconds of fame (more or less) against Georgia Tech.

Photos of Rudy yukking it up with Sean Astin, who enjoyed his 114 minutes of fame by portraying him in the movie. (Unless you count "Goonies," doing the voiceover for Raphael the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and that Patty Duke was his mother, John Astin - Gomez on the "Addams Family" and the other Riddler on "Batman" - his adopted father.)

Photos of Rudy with Kobe Bryant.

Photos of Rudy with lots of women sporting big, um, shoulder pads.

Photos of a relatively ripped Rudy, after taking health supplements.

Photos of Rudy speaking to every Elks and Kiwanis club from here to Keokuk.

And now, on the verge of the biggest of kahunas, Notre Dame vs. Alabama for the BCS title - and that cool glass trophy that looks a lot like the artsy-fartsy egg on the mantle in which Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay and her hooker friends put a hairline crack in "Risky Business" - there probably will be a photo of Rudy wearing an Alabama hat.

An Alabama hat. Probably one of those mesh trucker deals. On the head of 64-year-old Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger.

Is nothing sacred? What in the name of Ara Parseghian is going on here?

I will tell you what is going on.

Rudy, who has lived in Las Vegas for 20 years - he says you'd be surprised how easy it is to get to Keokuk from here - needed a ticket for the big game. Bob Baumhower, one of the Miami Dolphins' "Killer B's" - and an Alabama guy - said he had one. All Rudy had to do was sign a few autographs and pose for a few photos at Bokamper's Sports Bar & Grill in Miramar, Fla., on Saturday, where Baumhower is "head fry cook."

Bokamper is Kim Bokamper, also one of the "Killer B's." Bokamper did not play college football at Alabama; he played at San Jose State.

So tonight Rudy says he will wear his Notre Dame shirt and an Alabama cap, and he'll sit in a suite at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., and this is what Joe Montana gets for disparaging Rudy when he suggested the Notre Dame players were only poking fun when they carried him off the field after Rudy sacked the other Rudy, Rudy Allen, the Georgia Tech quarterback.

(And how dare Montana disparage Rudy. Either Rudy. Perhaps Joe forgets that during his junior year at Notre Dame, he was No. 3 on the depth chart at the beginning of the season behind Rusty Lisch and somebody named Gary Forystek.)

Rudy was in his rental car on the way to Bokamper's when we spoke on Saturday morning. He said it would have been cool, very cool, if Notre Dame had gotten him a ticket to the game. But there were 100,000 requests and only 10,000 tickets.

(I told him I knew this. I have a friend whose niece graduated from Notre Dame Law School who thought that might move her up the lottery list. But if Rudy couldn't get a ticket, I told my friend that her niece probably should settle for the Go Daddy.com Bowl, Arkansas State vs. Kent State, that she probably could make it from Miami to Mobile in about 11 hours.)

"I planned to watch the game from the best seat in the house - in front of my HDTV, with plenty of popcorn, when I got this call," Rudy was saying in the rental car. "It was nice of the Alabama people to bring me out."

Rudy said it would be at least 10 minutes until he arrived at Bokamper's, so he had time to chat. And so I asked if he remembered where he was the last time Notre Dame won the title, in 1988, when former UNLV coach Jim Strong was offensive coordinator under Lou Holtz.

Rudy said no, but he remembers the Notre Dame game against Alabama on New Year's Eve, 1973, when the Fighting Irish clinched the national championship by going for it on fourth down.

That when Bear Bryant put an extra man on Dave Casper, Tom Clements threw deep to the other tight end, rarely used Robin Weber, No. 91.

Weber had "stone hands," Rudy said. But Weber caught that ball for 35 yards, and then Weber sort of became famous in a Rudy sort of way, though they didn't make a movie about Weber and he doesn't speak to the Kiwanis club in Keokuk. (Weber owns a real estate consulting business with his brother in Texas.)

Rudy also said he has a nice place at the One Queensridge Place high rises, but he wouldn't say how many square feet, "because Rudy is a private guy" when it comes to high rises and square feet. (It might have something to do with him having to pay back $382,866 as part of a 2011 securities scam.)

And Rudy also must drive fast.

Because just as I was about to tell him that the one and only time I watched his movie was with my family, after we buried my father in 1993 - and that for 114 minutes it brightened our day - I heard him pull into the parking lot at Bokamper's, and he said he had to go.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.