The movie "Rudy" played on NBC tonight. It is the quintessential underdog story. "Rudy" is the story of how a young man through nothing but hard work and heart achieves the unthinkable for a 5 foot 9 inch 150 pound smurf. After two years getting relentlessly beat up on the practice squad, Rudy gets to dress at a game and ultimately play in the final game of his career at Notre Dame. He then goes on to become the first person in his family to graduate from college.
Rudy was not born with the physical attributes normally gifted to Division 1 football athletes. Nor was he blessed with a family legacy at Notre Dame. Everything Rudy achieved was because of him own determination and heart.
As the symphonic music blared, during the climatic game, I thought about another underdog-- President Barrack Obama. As I thought about the tears down the cheeks of Rudy's friends and families, I thought about someone else's tears after the 2008 election.
I thought about the tears down the cheeks of Jesse Jackson at Grant Park, Chicago on election night. I remembered the climatic scene as President-Elect Barrack Obama and family took the stage as music from Remember the Titans blared.
Here is someone who marched with Dr Martin Luther King, who witnessed his murder.
40 years earlier, who would have ever predicted an African American man named Barrack Obama would have ever been elected as President of the United States?
Throw in the fact that Obama was raised by a grandmother who made him wake up at 5:00 AM to do his schoolwork, Obama is a proof of what hard work and overcoming obstacles can achieve.
Even in this election cycle, I would argue President Obama was the severe underdog. You take the worst economic crisis short of the Great Depression, and you take into account an opposition, no longer loyal, whose sole motivation was to "destroy Obama".
Add in two active wars put on a credit card, and the new President was playing with a stacked deck. And don't forget the Citizens United ruling that allowed billions of dollars unlimited corporate cash to smear him.
President Obama didn't get to go to the best schools because of his Daddy. President Obama got to be President of the United States because of hard work, and heart.
President Obama will get reelected Tuesday even though he continues to be one of the best underdog stories ever. He will be reelected for one reason, the determination and heart of his supporters.