Rodney Rogers Collection
About My Collection
This website is dedicated to my collection of Rodney Rogers basketball cards and memorabilia. It is a culmination of over 25 years of collecting, dating back to my childhood. It has brought me great joy over the years and I am glad to finally be sharing it with you.
Why Rodney Rogers? Well that's a long story that began when I was in 5th grade. My family had just moved to rural Colorado. I always enjoyed playing basketball growing up, but it was never more than an afterthought. Once we moved, my older brother and I would spend time shooting around on the hoop in our driveway and, during good weather, I always brought a basketball to school with me to play with during recess. Starting in middle school, I began playing organized basketball and expanded my circle of friends to include my new teammates. My passion for basketball exploded. When I wasn't playing basketball, I was watching basketball or talking about basketball. Being the early 90's, my favorite teams were the Chicago Bulls and my hometown Denver Nuggets. Duke had just come off back to back National Championships and ACC basketball was the king of college hoops. It was at this time that a 6'-7" forward at Wake Forest caught my eye. His combination of agility and power was almost poetic to watch. I was hooked. The number of nationally televised Wake Forest games were limited, but I made up for it by catching box scores in the newspaper the next day. Rogers went on to win ACC Player of the Year and earn All-American honors for his junior year. That summer, he was drafted 9th overall by the Denver Nuggets...my Denver Nuggets. I was thrilled.
One of my favorite highlights was from his rookie season against the Utah Jazz. I remember sitting in my room, watching the end of the game. The Nuggets were down eight points with just over 30 seconds left to play, but Rogers proceeded to hit three consecutive 3-pointers within a span of 9 seconds (kudos to Robert Pack, who, in the same 9 seconds, recorded three assists and two steals to make it all possible). Incredible! Sadly, the Nuggets lost the game after the Jazz scored on the ensuing possession. Regardless, it was an amazing clutch performance to get the Nuggets back into the game and I was pumped. Rogers rookie season was also a history making season for the Nuggets. Denver had gotten into the playoffs as the 8-seed in the Western Conference, earning them a date with the top-seeded Seattle Supersonics. After dropping the first two games in the series, the Nuggets proceeded to win three straight to secure the first 1-8 upset in NBA history. We can all remember Dikembe Mutombo laying on his back at mid-court, clutching the basketball after pulling off the upset.
The following season was the first year I got into basketball card collecting. A friend of mine was really into baseball cards and we would ride our bikes to the local Wal-Mart so he could check out the latest inventory. By late summer, the first boxes of Collector's Choice hit the shelves. I was immediately obsessed. It was like reliving the past basketball season, one card at a time. Plus, the possibility of pulling the latest superstar card was addictive. Throughout the season, other releases hit the shelves and I slowly began expanding my collection. At this point in my life, I was a set-hunter; I really wanted complete sets. Over the next couple years, I began to realize the futility of opening pack after pack, getting nothing but duplicates, in search of the one or two no-name players I still needed to complete my various sets. It was at this point I decided to focus my efforts on a single player: Rodney Rogers. He was an easy choice: A) he was my favorite player and B) I could actually afford to buy his cards whenever I came across them. Though with only a single, small card shop in town and limited access to larger cities, like Denver, collecting slowed down for me. It became a background hobby that got very little of my attention.
Then, as a freshman in college, I discovered eBay. It allowed me to expand my collection exponentially. Cards I had only dreamed of were now readily available. At that time in my own head, the apex of collecting was finding his 1993-94 Finest Refractor rookie card. Little did I know that the late 90's and early 2000's were going to become an explosion of serial numbered cards, autographed cards, memorabilia cards, etc. Every envelope that arrived in the mail carried a new treasure. The following year, I was fortunate enough to win a Phoenix Suns Charity Auction for a Rodney Rogers game-worn and autographed jersey from his Sixth Man of the Year Award winning season. I thought I had won the lottery. That jersey really opened my eyes to collecting anything and everything that bore Rodney Rogers' name or likeness. Over the years, my collection has continued to expand. Someday I hope to find a proper place to display everything. But until that day comes, I'm going to focus on this website.
I've still got a long ways to go with this website. I've got lots of stuff that still needs to be photographed before I can put it on my site. So please check back often and you'll hopefully see something new. I hope you enjoy browsing through my collection. Thanks for visiting and feel free to send me a question or leave a comment in the comments section. I'd love to hear from you. Take care and happy collecting!