Growing up, my older brother Oliver was my idol. Despite being 12 years my senior, Oliver — fully cognizant of my hero worship — made a habit of including me in some of his young adult activities whenever he could. One of the most memorable for me was when he brought me along with his college girlfriend to see Rudy when it was in theaters.
As a young Catholic kid already obsessed with sports, the movie spoke to me in a way that few others had up to that point in my life. So began a cycle of me watching a VHS copy of Rudy every month or so and fully buying into both the American sports dream (my dad’s response to my question about whether Rudy went on to play in the NFL knocked this buy in down a peg) and the mystique of Notre Dame football.