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Lucas: On football field, it's business as usual for Rudolph

Mike Lucas  —  4/01/2008 9:24 am

University of Wisconsin tight ends coach Joe Rudolph was working toward a master's degree from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pa.) when it may have dawned on him that he still had more in common with Lou Tepper, the former Illinois football coach and Barry Alvarez antagonist, than David Tepper, a renowned Wall Street investor whose multi-million dollar gift to his alma mater was recognized by renaming the business school in his honor.

So while his classmates were breaking down microeconomic theory, Rudolph couldn't keep his mind off zone blocking schemes. "All my thoughts started to go towards football," he recalled. "All my projects and papers were about the NFL instead of Fortune 500 companies." That extended to a speech course during which students were allowed to choose their own topic. Most presentations focused on business models and starting up companies. Rudolph took a much different approach. "I had cones and a big guy from Honduras and a girl from Jordan," he remembered, "and I was teaching them how to pass protect."

That class project basically summed up his thought process leading to the inevitable conclusion. "I thought if I had a chance to coach," he said, "I was going to jump at it." And so he has, with both feet, so to speak, because that's how Rudolph has always attacked everything, dating to 1990, when he was an unsung and undersized linebacker out of Belle Vernon, Pa. Rudolph, a member of Alvarez's first recruiting class at Wisconsin, would eventually make his mark at offensive guard for the Badgers, developing into a team captain and a first-team All-Big Ten selection.

Not that he wants to live in the past, especially since he's mentoring a freshman tight end, Jake Bryne, who was born the same year that Rudolph first arrived on the Madison campus. But there is still application today to what Rudolph began learning 18 years ago. "I love working with kids," he said. "And to think of the things I learned here under coach Alvarez and to think how much that affected my life and my decision-making going forward is to think that you could have the same effect on a young man (today)."

And that is why Rudolph has never second-guessed his decision to get into coaching after earning his master's degree from Carnegie Mellon. "It's hard to measure any amount of money that you might make someplace else," he said, "when you feel like you're making a difference, hopefully, with what you're doing (as a coach)." As such, he cares about his role in this program, and the people he's touching, and he recruits accordingly. "The only thing I feel bad about sometimes," he said, "is a kid can get pushed and pulled in the wrong direction. I worry about some of them during the process."

Rudolph worked as a graduate assistant at Ohio State and a full-time assistant at Nebraska before joining Bret Bielema's coaching staff at Wisconsin. So he has gone through his own growth process as a coach. His recruiting pitch revolves around identifying prospects the old-school way, by "finding the right guy with the right mindset" for your program. In this case, it helps to know the product. "There are Wisconsin guys out there," he said, "to carry on the toughness and the mindset and who have the willingness to get better each day."

Which is essentially the selling point during spring drills, which will culminate with the April 19 intra-squad game at Camp Randall Stadium. "To me, the spring was an opportunity," Rudolph said. "When you're a younger player, you have the realization, 'Boy, I can really make this happen and the spring is my chance to show them what I can do.' It's about absorbing information and showing someone you're a football player and you're going to make plays. If you take advantage of what you have in the spring, you can turn some heads and get the attention of the coaching staff."

What about the older players who may already have a lock on a position? What can they derive from spring practice, which can get pretty monotonous without the incentive of a game day? Speaking from his own experience as a team leader, Rudolph said, "There were so many good players around me that I kept striving to take it to the next level. Not only are you taking care of your own business, now you're looking around to help others do the same. And it just keeps expanding."

Since tight ends Travis Beckum and Garrett Graham are rehabbing injuries this spring, Rudolph has been working with smaller numbers. Byrne, for one, has been an interesting study because of his size (250 pounds) and inexperience (mid-term high school graduate). "Everything is new for him," Rudolph said. "Not just the offense, not just spring practice. But he's living on his own and going to classes. And I'm proud of him. He's doing well. He's a physical kid and he'll do anything you ask."

During last Saturday's practice in the McClain Indoor Facility, one of the spectators was a former Rudolph teammate: Mike Verstegen, who started at offensive tackle on the 1993 Big Ten championship team. Verstegen was also a member of that 1990 recruiting class, along with Mel Tucker, who's now the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns. At that, Verstegen has been coaching the O-line at his alma mater, Kimberly High School. In each of these instances, Rudolph suggested, they are now teaching as coaches what they had learned here as players. Business as usual, according to the business major.

Mike Lucas  —  4/01/2008 9:24 am