When my son, Adam, was 12 years old, his AAU basketball team played in a tournament in Las Vegas. The boys were having a hard time in the tournament, and their coaches wanted them to stay upbeat. So on the morning of the tournament’s final day, the coaches lined up a conference room at our hotel and played the classic sports movie “Rudy” during the team breakfast. This put everyone in a good mood. The boys were getting up to leave the room and I said, “Wait a second, everybody stay in your seats,” flung open the door and announced, “Boys, meet the real Rudy!” I will never forget the looks on the faces of that team and those coaches when my pal bounced into the room. I guarantee that no one remembers what happened on the basketball court in that tournament, and that everyone remembers the pep talk they got from Rudy, about aiming high and never giving up. This post is written in gratitude for the gift Rudy gave my son and his teammates that day…

Rudy and me a couple of years ago at Notre Dame

A story broke last week about Rudy Ruettiger, title character in the film, Rudy, running afoul of the SEC because of a sketchy foray into the beverage business a few years ago. Rudy is a friend of mine, and has been since our days at Notre Dame. And I can tell you this:

My path crossed Rudy’s a couple of times when he was involved in the ‘Rudy Revolution’ (name of the drink) fiasco. I actually drank a couple of cans of the stuff. (It was okay, on a par with other energy drinks, taste-wise.) He believed in his beverage with the same fervor he has for everything he does. Rudy, as we all do, may have human failings, but lack of conviction isn’t one of them. Naivete might be his failing in this instance, but it’s not a crime.

And while I don’t know any of Rudy’s partners in the drink project, what kinds of promises they made investors, or how they spent the money they raised, I can tell you that Rudy himself was focused on manufacturing and marketing the drink. Never once did he talk to me about stock, or about how his partners were raising money. He was all about the drink.

The incontrovertible truth (to use a phrase from Rudy the movie) is that Rudy, his partners, and their investors were flying into the teeth of a market locked up  by Coca-Cola and the other beverage giants, and $11M–the ‘profit from their scam’ according to the SEC—is not anywhere near enough money to impact that market, especially one jammed with so many other competitors trying to get a piece of a lucrative pie. I personally know three other groups that were trying to launch a new drink in that same time frame, and all three investments tanked.

I know that, based on Wal-mart’s response to their initial pitch, Rudy’s team spent lot of time and money re-concocting Rudy Revolution to be a nutrition drink instead of an energy drink, which was their original intention. After which Wal-mart rejected them again, this time because they could not manufacture in sufficient capacity to be a Wal-mart supplier. I know that Rudy’s team had trouble trying to get even short runs of manufacturing, as bottlers were working in round-the-clock shifts just to meet demand for Monster, Rockstar and other established brands. Rudy told me his team was desperately trying to make output deals so they could get distribution, and were getting nowhere. I know that a potential partnership with a North Carolina bottler fell through because Rudy’s group and the bottler could not, together, raise the money to build and operate a new plant devoted solely to making Rudy Revolution.

The reality: any business plan that trades on the fame of a minor sports celebrity and banks on Wal-mart distribution is a lousy business plan, but if lousy business plans (and all their fictions) are illegal, most MBA schools should be on 24-hour lockdown.

I last saw Rudy a couple of months ago in Vegas. He told me at the time that he’d settled up with the SEC, so the reality is that this story is old news. In fact, Rudy did the honorable thing.

My intuition is that the SEC went after Rudy because he’s not politically connected, and an easy target. Nabbing a naive public figure like Rudy is a lot simpler, and plays a lot better in Forbes, than taking on Wall Street and the banking industry, where the ‘pump and dump’ heists are worth billions and the criminals are shrewd and politically connected, and much less inclined to settle up honorably. Right SEC? The bigtime miscreants, for whom $11M is probably the cost of one U.S. Senator’s election, are still in the game.