Kornacki: Rudock Keeps Moving On to Success
11/20/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 20, 2015
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Quarterback Jake Rudock wants to go to medical school after completing his master's degree in kinesiology at Michigan. But he'll very likely have another great option when this season is over. Wolverine head coach Jim Harbaugh said he definitely sees an NFL future for Rudock.
Michigan has had its share of outstanding football players who went on to become doctors. Stefan Humphries, Chris Hutchinson, Kirk Lewis and Marc Milia are among those to do both over the last 40 years. They were preceded by Harry Allis, Guy Curtis, Tom Peterson and William Cunningham -- the Wolverines' very first All-American in 1898 who went on to get a Michigan medical degree before going on a medical mission to China.
They blazed a trail Rudock is intent on following.
Some of his traits as a quarterback won't transfer to medicine. Throwing a crisp out-cut pass, scrambling for the end zone and knowledge of defensive tendencies are football-only abilities.
However, some of what makes Rudock a standout quarterback also will come into play for the aspiring doctor who aims to make a mark in pediatrics.
Harbaugh said Rudock "doesn't flinch" under pressure and has an uncanny ability to turn the page after both good and bad plays.
"He came here with that," said Harbaugh. "He has great parents, and I told his dad, 'The branch doesn't fall too far from the tree.' He's been raised with all those good things. He's smart, composed, talented, tough. He's got all those things that make up that kind of reaction to pressure and adversity.
"That's a wonderful quality. As a teammate, you are really showered by his attributes, and you try to pick out the ones who do the best job and try to emulate those kinds of guys. You incorporate them into your own game, and Jake is as good as they come. Myself, I look at him and go, 'I've got to be more like Jake.' It's working really well for him. (I should) see if I can't incorporate that into my own game, my own personality."
When Harbaugh's praise for the job Bob and Kathy Rudock have done with their youngest child was relayed to Bob, he paused briefly during a phone conversation.
"They love each other," Bob said of his son and Harbaugh. "I can tell you that."
Rudock handles mostly personal injury and chronic liability cases as a lawyer for Arnstein & Lehr in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and has represented General Motors and Nissan. He's also an assistant baseball coach at Jake's alma mater, Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas, and coached his son for several years.
And it was during those father-son baseball summers that Bob believes Jake's ability to quickly turn the page and focus so deeply on the moment was rooted.
"He learned that when he was 12 or 13 years old and playing baseball," said Bob. "He was our shortstop, our best player, but he'd make an error, and he'd sulk or he'd strike out and take that out onto the field. So, we developed a little mantra about focusing on the next play that I tease him about.
"You close your mouth, take your little finger and run it across your lips."
Bob said that zip-the-lips motion was followed by a short, sometimes vulgar, statement declaring that it was time to focus on the present.
"You get that mindset that the last play is over, and it's time to move on," said Bob. "I would say that at some point in high school that became embedded in his mind. You can't dwell on it. When you are the quarterback, you can't think about anything except moving onto the next play. He learned that you can't take the last play forward. If you do, it's only going to get worse.
Bob said the idea came from Ed Grossi, a "coaching friend" of his.
"If something went wrong in a baseball game," said Bob, "Jake would look at me, and I would put that one finger up and run it across my mouth. We'd both start laughing. You've just got to laugh it off and move onto the next play. And over time, you don't have to do that anymore. That approach is just instilled in you."
Bob said his son took several years to reach that point.
"By his sophomore year in high school," said his father, "nothing bothered him. In his junior year, we played Byrnes, South Carolina. They had 18 future Division I football players, and we had 18 future Division I football players. We were No. 1 in the country, and they were No. 2. And that was the game that put Jake on the map. We won, and he threw four touchdowns. They decided to make the quarterback beat them, and he did."
Rudock was focused on the next play and winning, period.
His focus and production have never been better. In fact, his last three pass attempts against Indiana each resulted in touchdowns.
Michigan center Graham Glasgow and tight end A.J. Williams both noted that not only does Rudock quickly turn the page on interceptions. He also does likewise after touchdowns. It's a "business-like" approach learned on the sandlots of Fort Lauderdale.
"When you're a young kid," said Jake, "you don't get out very often. You make all the plays. But when kids start getting better, you might strike out here and there. The big thing is to learn not to carry that disappointment out onto the field.
"I was thinking, 'I should be killing these guys!' I wanted to be perfect in everything, and when I'd strike out, I'd mope. I'd take the field, and the ball always seems to get hit to me. Then you make a bad play in the field. You learn not to let one play influence the next, and my dad helped me with that."
The Rudocks' three older children also learned how to maximize their learning and performance potential. Bobby is a pediatric neurologist doing his residency; Ryan is in computer graphic design; and Mandy earned her MBA before moving into a finance career.
Jake's yearning is medicine.
"I want to be in pediatrics and work with kids," he said. "I have my goals to be a doctor, and I also have my football goals. We'll approach those decisions when the time comes. It's not a bad problem. Options are always good things, and something everybody always wishes they had more of."
His father added: "He wants to be some sort of pediatric physician. He'd love to play in the NFL, and I'm sure he's going to give that a shot. Somebody will hopefully take a look at him, and when that is done he will go to med school. That will happen. The plan is to finish his degree in neuro kinesiology that he is working on now. He'll take classes when the season is over."
Two regular-season games remain Saturday (Nov. 21) at Penn State and Nov. 28 at home with Ohio State. Then there will be a bowl game, possibly preceded by the Big Ten Championship game Dec. 5 in Indianapolis.
After the Rutgers game on Nov. 7, Harbaugh said he saw an NFL future for Rudock:
"I really felt like watching this game Jake played his best game, and he looked like an NFL-type quarterback, somebody that would have a future playing in that league the way he's now playing and operating. I see the jump that he's made."
Rudock, in the next game at Indiana (Nov. 14), set the school record with six touchdown passes and also threw for 440 yards while running for 64 yards.
What did the NFL future comment from Harbaugh mean to Rudock?
"It's really humbling when you've had a coach who's been there, done that and has coached in it," said Rudock, alluding to Harbaugh's 14-year career as an NFL quarterback and his taking the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl. "For him to say that makes you gratified that all the hard work you're putting in is paying off."
Not only does Rudock stay focused on the play at hand. He also stays locked in during the play, refusing to flinch.
"That also was something I developed while growing up and playing sports," said Rudock. "It's about not letting one thing impact you and become a big deal. All your life, you are going to be thrown curveballs, you are going to be knocked down. You just have to understand you are going to be knocked down and never be 100 percent."
Rudock's giving Harbaugh and his teammates all they could've expected after transferring from Iowa as a graduate student.
He's completed 51-of-71 passes (.718) for 777 yards, eight touchdowns and one interception in the last two games. The surge has moved him up to fourth in the Big Ten in passing yards per game (222), pass-efficiency rating (139.5) and total offense yards per game (236.4).
Rudock's thrown for 2,220 yards, 14 touchdowns and eight interceptions with a .642 completion percentage that is just off the single-season record of .653 set by Todd Collins in 1992. The yardage already ranks 15th in single-season totals.
So, football is working out pretty well for him at Michigan. Though, the place where his comfort level first began rising was in the master's program.
"I thought of that pretty early, when I started getting connected to the University and got good connections to my master's program in the hospital," said Rudock. "That's when I thought it was a good thing.
"I met one of the associate deans walking down the street the other day and he said, 'Hey, Jake! Nice game.' That's pretty cool when that happens. These are very successful people just coming up and wanting to say, 'Hi.' It's really awesome."
He paused before adding, "And in college football, we're doing well, and that's an awesome thing."
Everything's come into focus for Rudock, both in terms of the moment at hand and the big picture.
