Rico Maloney identifies people by their alma mater’s mascot.
Maloney is a Duck, and he has a car to prove it.
Maloney, 51, is the proud owner of the Fighting Duck Mobile – a 1989 white Mazda 323 painted with green-and-white checkers and a cartoon duck logo. But after more than a decade of driving it to games at Autzen Stadium, he’s put it for sale on craigslist for $2,000. Of course for Huskies and Beavers, bidding starts at $5,000.
Maloney did not have any prospects for selling the car on Saturday when visiting Eugene for the last home game of the season, and the Duck Mobile stayed at his current home in Seattle. The spirit of the Duck Mobile was with him, however, as he described how a small share in a race horse led to the creation of the one-of-a-kind automobile.
Maloney’s love of the Oregon Ducks runs in his blood. Born in Eugene, Maloney moved with his family to Washington when he was young.
“I was raised from that point as a Husky, even though our parents had gone to Oregon and I was born here and my grandparents lived on Willakenzie Road,” he said.
It wasn’t until 1974, when Maloney was ready to go to college, that he returned to the University to join the debate team and renewed his love for the University’s web-footed mascot.
“Without debate, I never would have succeeded in life,” Maloney said. “It was the only thing that kept me from flunking out of school and living a life of crime.”
Maloney’s younger years were difficult. One of six children, the family lived at a summer camp in Washington and was poor.
“There was no car, no phone, the kids slept in sleeping bags in little bunkhouses in the woods with no heat,” he said. “We ate surplus food from the government.”
Maloney said his father didn’t work, and eventually his mother made him move out. The children grew up, and when Maloney’s father died, none of his siblings would take the ashes. When he was contacted by the funeral home, he agreed to take them.
“I decided he had missed so much of life that I put him in a duffle bag and put him in the back of the Duck Mobile. As my son, who is the primary user of the Duck now, drives around, he’s going with his grandfather everywhere,” Maloney said.
Maloney received his degree in political science from the University in 1978 before attending the University’s law school.
While Maloney and his friend Ed Colson were on the University debate team, they met debaters from other schools, including Rick Beal.
Beal contacted Maloney after he had moved to Seattle and told him he knew of a sport that Maloney would love: horse racing.
“If he had never made that call, I would be rich today,” Maloney said. “Horse racing has taken me down a sinkhole in life.”
Beal gave Maloney a small share in a horse, and Maloney was hooked. While Maloney’s wife was away on vacation, Beal called and told Maloney to get $5,000 to buy a horse.
“So we go buy this horse for $10,000, and my wife doesn’t know it,” Maloney said. The horse, Samotar, won the race, but was injured on the track, and Maloney watched as the track’s version of a hearse pulled out to load up the injured horse.
“I’m thinking, what I am I going to tell my wife? I bought a horse, his name was Sam and now he’s dead. I knew I had to work on this,” he said.
The horse was not dead, Maloney said, but he had gotten his taste of what owning a race horse was like.
Beal, a Cougar, ran his horses using Washington State University’s colors. When Maloney decided he wanted to buy his own horses, he ran them in Oregon green and white.
Fighting Duck Stables was born.
“We bought and sold some of the worst horses in the entire West,” Maloney said. “In fact, we got to point where we started a race at the end of the year for the worst horses in the region called the Fighting Duck Classic.”
The stipulation for entering a horse in this race was that the horse could not have won a race in two years, but had to have run in at least two.
Maloney was driving the Mazda in his neighborhood in west Seattle in 1993 when he was rear-ended by a ferry captain. The man asked Maloney if he could write him a check for the damage instead of reporting the accident.
“I figured it out really quick. He didn’t hit me with his ferry, he hit me with his car, and anything on his driving record could affect his pilot’s license,” Maloney said.
Maloney asked for $3,000, more than the car was worth, which the man paid. Maloney took it to a local body shop and asked how much it would cost to fix the damages. The shop told him $1,000, so Maloney decided to have the car painted to match the signature colors of Fighting Duck Stables.
Maloney’s wife was out of town when he made the decision, and he had not seen the car since he dropped it off. They saw the car together as they turned a corner.
“I get these tears of joy and she starts screaming, ‘What have you done to the car?’” he said.
The Duck Mobile was part of a neighborhood parade, with the Fighting Duck Princesses, his daughter and some of her friends. They threw 20 pounds of candy out the window, and when they ran out of candy, the girls asked what they should do, he said.
“Just start shouting ‘Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl,’” Maloney said. “This is when the Huskies were very, very good and the Ducks were very, very bad. The funny thing that happened was we went to the Rose Bowl that year.”
That year, Maloney took his son to his first football game. He said he traditionally gets off the interstate at Albany, Ore., to visit fruit stands. He was pulled over in Benton County and issued a citation that included a summons to appear in court.
He didn’t attend the hearing.
Later in the year, while traveling with a friend to the Oregon and Arizona State game, he stopped to place some bets. It was the day of the Breeder’s Cup.
Maloney won a few thousand dollars on his bets and Oregon won the football game, so he was in high spirits. His friend told him they needed to get gas, but Maloney failed to stop in time. He was very near where he had been stopped by the cop before.
“So I told Jeff if I stay with the car, I’ve got a problem. I think there’s a warrant for my arrest here, and I think the cop will recognize the car,” Maloney said. “We were up in Beaver country.”
Maloney said the officer did come by, and if he had stayed behind with the car, he would have probably gone to jail.
After the Ducks went to the Rose Bowl, Maloney added some roses in to the design of the Duck Mobile. He called it the Rose Bowl edition.
Colson said riding in the Duck Mobile, especially with Maloney at the wheel, is an experience.
“It’s very austere,” Colson said. “It’s sort of loud. It’s not the lap of luxury to be in the car.”
But Colson said the best part about riding in the Duck Mobile is knowing the car is an attention-getter, “and people either love it or they hate it.”
The Duck Mobile has been seen outside Husky Stadium on Sunday mornings after the Ducks have beat the Huskies, laying on the horn. It has also been spotted in Corvallis, Ore., honking for attention.
“Then we wave and say, ‘See you next year,’” Maloney said.
The car has 271,000 miles on it, many of which were put on driving to Ducks games and horse races. Maloney has decided to sell it because one of its windows was recently broken by a vandal.
It can be seen at http://eugene.craigslist.org/tix/228288766.html.
Contact the federal and campus politics reporter at [email protected]