Alumni Spotlight: Checking In With Rudy Edelen

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Louisville, Ky – Card Forever Rudy Edelen ('15) joined swimming and diving assistant coach and former teammate Kameron Chastain to reflect on his time and to see what he is doing now.

"Louisville is a special place and will always have a piece of my heart," Edelen said while sharing some of his favorite memories from his time as a Cardinal.

Edelen's story is not typical to that of a premiere collegiate swimmer. His sister convinced him to join the high school swim team and didn't commit to swimming year-round until his junior year of high school and was not being heavily recruited. He said, "I would love to swim in college, but if I'm going to swim in college I want to swim for a big program." Rudy had gotten offers from Western Kentucky, Evansville and a few other smaller Division I schools before receiving a call from Louisville. Growing up a die-hard Kentucky fan, UofL was the last school on his radar but knew it was the school for him after taking a visit.

He continued his unique journey at UofL, improving each year but missing the conference tournament team his first three years. Edelen made his biggest improvement the summer before his senior year. "I worked with our strength coach every single day. He would weigh me every single week and had me on a strict diet. I put on 14 lbs. of muscle by the end of the summer and really improved my race strategy and technique," Edelen recounted of the summer. The hard work paid off as he finally made the conference team and was named an All-American that year.

His advice to underclassmen would be "Partner with the coaches." He said "You're on the team for a reason. They want you to succeed. You have to trust the process and the coaches. Put your head down and believe in the coaches and it will pay off in the long run."

Now Edelen is working for First Trust, the largest actively managed ETF company in the world where he is an External Wholesaler, pitching investment funds. Normally, a typical day for Rudy is going to offices and doing presentations, meeting with people one on one or with teams. Usually that takes up about 90 percent of his workday. "Now I've been doing a lot of zoom meetings, a ton of calls, emails; all that fun stuff. It's very different right now," Edelen said of the adjustments he has made to continue working.

Some of Rudy's favorite memories at UofL are the NCAA Championships his senior year, calling his parents after finding out he had made the ACC Conference Tournament team and would be anchoring relays, the Tennessee-Auburn Tri-meet his senior year that was his breakout meet and sweeping UK at UK his senior year. The memory that sticks out the most to him was finding out his relay team made the NCAA Championship final. He said, "That was a pretty special moment for me reflecting on my previous three years and the struggles I went through and everything I did finally paid off."

"I can't imagine my life without my experience at Louisville, that was the best four years of my life. Louisville has a huge piece of my heart and always will. It's the place to be."

Rudy Edelen quote graphic

University of Louisville Athletics

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