Confessions of a Rutgers eBay addict

Credit: Cathy K. Donovan

The Rutgers memorabilia on this shelf represents just a tiny fraction of the trinkets and items that Cal Maradonna has collected over the years through eBay and other means. "I have about 20 or 30 boxes at home," he said. Maradonna also has two sets of New Jersey license plates that say "Rutgers" – one blue set issued before 1993 and the more current cream-colored plates.

During the past 10 years I’ve had a secret online identity that over time has become less and less covert. If you know me, or have seen me drive my car – license plate “Rutgers” – it’s not exactly surprising what’s inside the boxes that are slowly taking over my house: Rutgers stuff, lots of it.

My visits to eBay are about more than procuring bobbleheads, paperweights, and Rutgers wallpaper borders. It’s in this online marketplace that I get a different perspective of what it means to bleed scarlet. 

Sure, I’ve won a few auctions in the past decade: an ashtray made by Rutgers ceramics engineers, the board game Rutgersopoly, scenic prints, signed helmets, a 1928 yearbook that features Ozzie Nelson. On eBay you realize how far the Rutgers alumni connection is, and how close it is to access.

I’ve received packages from alumni in California, and while I worked in Winants Hall in New Brunswick, I was hand-delivered a series of postcards I unknowingly bought from a colleague on the Cook Campus. If you’re a sports fan, eBay’s a great way to get an inkling of how the Knights will do each season. Not too long ago, I probably wouldn’t have seen Rutgers football tickets up for sale like I do now.

And eBay can be educational. How else would I have learned of the surprisingly available books “The Ideal Sex Life” by Dr. Rutgers, “The Handbook of Foreign Birds” by A. Rutgers, and “Children on the Oregon Trail” by A. Rutgers Van der Loeff?

On eBay, I’m not just looking for Rutgers gear, I’m also representing the Camden Campus. A seller had a clock up for bid with a cartoon of the Scarlet Raptor that he erroneously listed as the Scarlet Knight. Without my commitment to eBay, that clock would not have had its Camden legacy properly accounted for.

I’ve also seen for sale items that I had a role in creating. You’d think I wouldn’t have to bid on these items, but I never did hold on to a Rutgers-Camden trucker hat circa 2000. It’s mine now, though.

Someday my Rutgers collection will be freed from storage and displayed for fellow Rutgers fans to enjoy. While I may have my heart set on a corner of the Guggenheim, even if it’s just my den, basement, office, and home office, my homage to Rutgers is a neverending collection.

So why do I buy records when I don’t have a record player? Because the vinyl is Rutgers red, baby. 

Rory P. “Cal” Maradonna is the associate provost for development on the Camden Campus.