Tragedy struck the entire Rutgers community this year on the 16th of October. On that ill-fated day, Rutgers junior Eric LeGrand suffered a severe spinal cord injury against Army while playing inside the New Meadowlands Stadium. Following that game, a show of support came right from the heart of the Rutgers community.

Steve Ostergren, owner of Scarlet Fever in New Brunswick, came up with the idea of selling LeGrand t-shirts and donating all the profits to a fund set up to benefit LeGrand and his family.

"Honestly, it was ScarletNation.com where I got the idea," said Ostergren. "I was at the game on Saturday at the Meadowlands and I knew something bad happened right away just by the reaction of the people. Afterward, I went on the message boards and people called me by name and were asking if we would be doing shirts at Scarlet Fever."

Those questions spawned the idea to print up shirts with the number 52 on each side and the words 'keep chopping' on the back. All the profits would then go to the Believe Fund.

"Scarlet Fever is in a unique position as part of the Rutgers community," said Ostergren. "We can reach people and people can reach us. People wanted to show their support and do something. The average fan doesn't know Eric personally, but they still wanted to do something for him and his family."

At first, Ostergren printed up three-hundred shirts. But work spread quickly and the need for more shirts came about in quite a hurry.

When the shirts were first made available, even Ostergren wasn't expecting such a widespread response.

"There was literally a line down the street," he said. "The line of people trying to buy these shirts went down the sidewalk. I have a special key now on my register for Eric stuff. There was also 1200 internet orders in the first week alone that came through. The craziest thing was just trying to keep up. I was at the store until like midnight for like two weeks."

Ostergren has owned and operated Scarlet Fever since 1988, the same year in which he graduated from Rutgers. In all that time, there was only one other instance that was comparable.

"The day after the Louisville win," he stated. "We had hundreds of internet orders in the span of twenty-four hours"

The recent show of support for LeGrand has enabled Scarlet Fever to raise an extraordinary amount of money that will benefit LeGrand and his family. On Friday, Ostergren wrote out a check for $85,000 to the Eric LeGrand Believe Fund.

"The check's in the mail," said Ostergren. "I actually sat down and started figuring out how much it was and I didn't realize the number was that big."

That number was also increased by the sale of red bracelets with the word Believe written on them. Those bracelets were created by Rutgers student Erica Bowden, who is also a friend of LeGrand's.

Ostergren agreed to sell those bracelets in his store and the result was an additional $4,500 raised for the Believe Fund.

Both shirts and bracelets are still being purchased on a daily basis at Scarlet Fever and Ostergren remains enthusiastic about doing his part to help in the cause.

"This is a horrific injury and people wanted to know what they could do. They could show their support by not only wearing the shirts, but knowing their money is going somewhere good too."