2008 Woodie Awards
Rodriguez: More Than an Equipment Manager
Courtney Packard, Contributing Writer
Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Sports
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It seems that some of these retired athletes have returned to haunt the locker rooms by the football field.
"They are very friendly ghosts; I think they may be some of the previous athletes who we have lost in the past years. They just pull little pranks and they used to like to mess around with me," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, 52, whom everyone knows as Ricky, first noticed these ghosts five years ago when a jersey went missing after he had accounted for all of them. After Rodriguez told the ghosts to stop messing around, the jersey returned perfectly folded on his desk the next morning. There have also been incidents of locker doors slamming when not a soul was around and the general feeling that someone is watching Rodriguez while he is hard at work in his office.
Rodriguez's favorite part of his job is the interaction with the student athletes, human or ghostly.
"I am not only their equipment manager; I'm their Spanish tutor, psychologist, and friend."
Rodriguez was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and moved to Perth Amboy when he was 13. He has been married for 25 years and has two sons, Ricky and Johnny. They can often be seen helping their father setting up and breaking down the equipment.
"One thing that I can say is different about my job is that I get to take my kids to work and they actually have fun being there with me."
Rodriguez is a graduate of Middlesex County College and William Paterson University with a bachelor's degree in Spanish. His favorite sport is baseball, but he likes the fall sports season because it is the most challenging.
Sporting his signature WPU baseball cap, he can be seen around campus everyday on the athletic fields or in the gym.
And his well-known greeting of "Hey Mami!" will haunt the athletic facilities--- along with the ghosts--- long after he is gone.
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