Below The Beltway

It’s been quite a year for Rutgers University. Last fall, the football team had it’s best season ever and won the Texas Bowl. This spring, the women’s basketball team made it all the way to the NCAA Championship game even though few people thought they’d go far when the season started. And then the Don Imus story happened. Ever since then school has been in the spotlight in a way it’s never been before, and people are noticing:

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (AP) — Rutgers. Not long ago, in much of the country, that word would have gotten you little more than a raised eyebrow.

It’s somewhere in the Northeast — Maine, maybe? Delaware? Must be some little private school.

The recent underdog successes of Rutgers’ football and women’s basketball teams made it hard to overlook New Jersey’s 50,000-student state university. And last week, Don Imus made it just about impossible.

The pain of the slur the radio host used to describe the women’s team is still fresh, but the grace with which the players and students handled the situation has won the university accolades from across the nation. And with all the new attention, donations to the university are up, more students are applying, and merchandise with the school’s trademark bright red “R” is seemingly everywhere.

“You can’t pay for publicity like this,” said Shalonda Tanner, a Rutgers alumna who works as a recruiter for the university. “The class and dignity of those women brings more positive publicity to us.”

And that’s starting to pay off in applications, donations, and support:

Last year, Rutgers received a record number of applications, more than 40,000. This year’s applications are running 7 percent ahead of that.

And through January 2007, donations to the Rutgers Foundation are up a whopping 35 percent over the same period last year, school officials said.

Rutgers is relatively selective for a big state university. It accepts about 60 percent of the students who apply, and more than half of those it admits were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

Meanwhile, the university’s “R” logo is popping up in more places as school pride grows throughout the Garden State and elsewhere. Marybeth Schmutz, assistant director of the university’s trademark licensing department, said sales of Rutgers merchandise are up more than 30 percent in the last year.

“You can’t walk into a Kohl’s or a Target or Modell’s without seeing Rutgers stuff,” she said. “We are getting new designs sent to us by people interested in selling Rutgers products every single day. It’s huge for us, and it’s still growing.”

Go Rutgers !