Review: Rudy the Movie

Movie Review: Rudy’s Concepts of Sport and Exercise Psychology
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Movie Review: Rudy’s Concepts of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Introduction
Sports embodies a broad practice permeating various disciplines and discourses. Sports and exercise psychology are among the most explored areas where experts strive to leverage psychological and mental factors to optimize exercise and physical activity in the sports arena. The concepts of sport psychology dealt with and applied in many areas of human practice, including movies. Rudy is a movie what the potential of unraveling core concepts in sport psychology, which are encapsulated in intertwining theoretical frameworks. This paper demonstrates sports psychological theoretical conceptualization of sporting performance and progress in Rudy's movie.
Overview of Rudy Movie
The movie unravels a substantial sense of desire and aspiration to pursue and succeed in sports. The movie is underpinned by the motivation to overcome challenges and reach an optimal level of performance. Rudy also called Sean Astin, is the primary movie character. Rudy Ruettiger harbors a great aspiration to play football at the University of Notre Dame. However, impediments, including lack of financial capacity and inadequate academic performance, appear to dwindle his ambitions. As directed by David Anspaugh in 1993, the Rudy, this film provides a motivating narration about Daniel Rudy, who desired to play college football despite the eminent obstacles. Rudy’s core shortfalls and weakness, impeding him from playing his dream football, including lack of proper grades, lack of finances, and inadequacies in his physical stature. To play in the Notre Dame football team, Rudy needed to overcome these barriers. He needed adequate finances to join the school or satisfactory academic grades or performance to join Notre Dame through scholarship. Again, he required a robust stature necessary for joining the football team, which he lacked.
After high school, Rudy joined his father and older brothers in a steel mill. Rudy left a steel milling following the explosion, which killed his friend and workmate Pete, and pursued his dream of football.
Rudy joined a nearby college with aid from the priest and with the hope of later getting into Norte Dame college. Life was quite miserable for him as he juggles survival and pursuit of his ambition. Luck struck him when he met Fortune, who works as a housekeeper at Notre Dame stadium. Fortune gave him a job. Rudy lacked shelter. Thus, he spent nights at Fortune’s office, but later, Fortune helps him get sleeping materials. Later, Rudy met and befriended D-Bob, a teaching assistant, who diagnosed him with a learning disability called dyslexia. Amidst all these challenges, Rudy maintained his desire to join the Norte Dame football team. During his time at Holy Cross College, he expressed a desire to join Norte Dame school, but his attempts were rejected. Finally, Rudy was admitted to Notre Dame due to relentless efforts, but people, including coaches, were skeptical regarding Rudy’s quality level in playing football.
However, due to his unwavering desire, motivation, and determination, the head coach allowed him to play at the highest level, i.e., senior debut. Later, the head coach retired, and a new coach joined Norte Dame. The new coach gave few opportunities to Rudy to play. Feeling frustrated due to a lack of opportunities to play and perceived racism, Rudy quit the team. He later met Fortune, who informed him of the mistake about quitting the team. Due to Fortune's advice, he rejoined the team where he even played the final match, marked by being carried on teammates ' shoulders to cheers from the stadium after completing the match.
Rudy Movie Theoretical Understanding of Sport Psychology
Rudy's movie underpins critical concepts and elements necessary for success in sports which can be explained by various theoretical frameworks, including the Psychodynamic approach, trait approach, Interactional approach, Situational approach, and motivation theories. It must be noted that these theories cannot be completely delineated and differently from each other because they intricately interact and are related to each other. How Rudy reacted, responded, and behaviors in several points in the movie could be analyzed from the psychodynamic approach, trait approach, interactional approach, situational approach, and theoretical motivation viewpoints. Rudy’s decision to quit the football team could be explained using any of these theories. It could be the situation, trait factors, psychodynamic influence, or motivation factors.
. Sporting activity is a highly competitive practice which, in most cases, not only requires brawn and desired physical stature and talents but also an excellent academic performance that allows one to join some sport-associated learning institutions. There can be many impediments such as discouragements and lack of necessary sporting qualities, which downplays one’s ambitions in sports. More often, ambitious sportsmen and women should demonstrate the ability to overcome a plethora of challenges via intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. However, lack of or insufficient motivation could mean an end to individual’s ambition or aspirations to pursue a specific interest in sports. Rudy Ruettiger loves Notre Dame football but lacks grades, size, and talent. How can he overcome these challenges? The answer rests on inspiration, desire, and motivation, which are some of the sport psychology concepts encapsulated in an individual's mental and psychological dimensions.
Rudy’s story in the movie may resemble typical cliches of narratives detailing “nothing to something” narratives. However, it is a powerful reality of sports practice, and it is associated with psychology. Sports require determination and persistence. It embodies human resilience that is anchored on the psycho-physical axis of an individual. The ability to participate and compete at the highest level requires physical input such as the robust or brawn stature and mental input, including the ability to sustain motivation and persistence in pursuits of individual desires amidst various challenges. The movies capture eagerness, aspirations, resilience, and desire. Rudy’s successful participation in football towards the end of the movie denotes not only sports sentiment but also powerful manifestations of the human spirit. This movie is an underdog story revealing the importance of human motivation as a tool to overcome human challenges. The theme encapsulated in this movie is quite appealing because each person, including sportsmen and women, can easily identify with it because it is a critical component of daily life encounters. In the story, there are various instances in which friends and acquaintances play a role in redirecting our ambitions. In Rudy's Movie, Fortune, coaches, De-Bo, and Rudy’s friend at the steel mill, help him maintained his resilience and ambition of pursuing football. Do other people influence mental and psychological preparations and readiness for sporting activity? Can they also play a role in making sports enthusiasts drift away from their ambitions in sports?
The movie brings to question the role of psychological dimensions and inputs in sports. O...