Home / Birthday profiles / Rudy Ruettiger
Portrait of Rudy Ruettiger

Birthday profile

Rudy Ruettiger

Rudy Ruettiger, American football player

Find birthday twinsOpen interactive profile
Born
August 23, 1948
Age in 2026
78
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1948

About Rudy Ruettiger

Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger is an American motivational speaker and author who played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. His early life and career at Notre Dame were the inspiration for the 1993 film Rudy. It was during his time studying at Holy Cross that Ruettiger discovered he had dyslexia. Ruettiger was carried off the field by his teammates following the game, the first player in Notre Dame history to be honored in this way. The College Football Rudy Award was created by the Rudy Foundation and honors Division I football players who demonstrate what Ruettiger refers to as the "Four Cs": character, courage, contribution, and commitment as a member of their team. A similar award for high school students was created in 2009.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Rudy Ruettiger timeline

  1. His early life and career at Notre Dame were the inspiration for the 1993 film Rudy.
  2. A similar award for high school students was created in 2009.

The world when Rudy Ruettiger was born

Rudy Ruettiger was born in 1948. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1948

  • #1 song"Twelfth Street Rag" – Pee Wee Hunt
  • Top movieHamlet
  • Top TV showTexaco Star Theater (Milton Berle)
  • Best-selling bookThe Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentCleveland Indians win the World Series
  • Top headlineState of Israel declared
  • Technology milestoneLong-playing vinyl record (LP) introduced
  • Defining fadTelevision sets in homes
  • Notable inventionVelcro
  • World population2.50 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championCleveland Indians (World Series)
  • Also wonBaltimore Bullets (BAA)
  • U.S. population146.6M

1948 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Rudy Ruettiger's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19482026
Gas$0.26$3.45/gal
Average home$8,300$435,000
Average income$5,000$67,500
Minimum wage$0.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.40$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population146.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Yale LUX, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.