Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Coach starts small to dream big

Price found success in teams nobody else believed in

Coach Ritch Price reflects on his experiences throughout the years that led him to his Division I dream at the University.

By Shawn Shroyer (Contact)

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Tonight, coach Ritch Price will lead his Kansas Jayhawks onto the diamond at Kauffman Stadium to face Missouri. With a seating capacity of 40,785, Kauffman is large enough to hold Price’s hometown of Sweet Home, Ore., nearly five times over.

Half a continent away from where his coaching career began as a part-time high school coach, Price is at his “dream-come-true job.” Along the way, he’s accumulated 800 victories as a head coach, 400 victories at the Division I level, and is on the verge of winning his 200th game at Kansas. By today’s standards, his path to becoming a Division I coach in a major conference was anything but typical. However, Price made it his destiny to coach at the highest collegiate level.

He worked the graveyard shift at a mill to pay for school while playing college baseball. He taught grade school children to supplement his income when he first became a coach. And, time and time again, he’s taken over programs that nobody else wanted. But after six stops — leaving each program in better shape than he found it — Price is trying to build a baseball power where everyone told him he couldn’t. Everyone except his family, who have been at his side every step of the way.

*****

Growing up in a small logging community in central Oregon, Price seemed to have a baseball influence in his life for every mill that was running in Sweet Home.

His father had played baseball professionally and was a high school coach. His grandfather was a high school coach in Washington, and both of his uncles were high school coaches. From his father in particular, Price discovered his enthusiasm for baseball, accompanying his dad to the ballpark from the time he could walk.

“I think I had the same dream every young kid in America has; I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player and when I was done doing that, I wanted to be a coach,” Price said.

Price pursued his professional dreams as a middle infielder. Although the MVP awards always eluded him, his nonstop hustling earned him every other possible accolade. As a result, even after tearing his ACL and MCL in the final day of two-a-days during football season while in high school, Price was able to carry on his baseball career at Linn-Benton Community College under coach Dick McClain.

There, Price was an All-Oregon junior college selection his freshman year and was recruited by the University of Oregon his freshman and sophomore years. But during his sophomore season, Price was taken out at second base turning a double play and blew his knee out again, ending his hopes of playing at a major university. Still, in 1996, he was inducted into the Northwst Athletic Association of Community College Hall of Fame, in recognition of his playing days at Linn-Benton.

“I think you realize if you’re 5-foot-8, you better be a plus-plus runner to be a professional baseball player,” Price said. “At that point I knew I was going to be a good college player and I needed to prepare to coach.”

It certainly wasn’t the University of Oregon, but Willamette University looked past Price’s knee injuries and provided him an avenue to not only wrap up his playing career, but also begin his coaching career.

While at Willamette Price began coaching an American Legion team during the week, when he wasn’t playing for the Bearcats or working the graveyard shift at the local mill to pay for school. While getting a jump-start on his coaching career, Price met his future wife, Cindy, at Willamette.

Price landed his first coaching gig right after he graduated in 1978, but he had to wait four more years to win Cindy’s hand in marriage.

“It’s a good thing I liked baseball,” Cindy said.

*****

Price didn’t have to look for work long after he graduated from college.

Price’s college coach, Bill Trenbeath, had once roomed with the vice principal at Phoenix High School in Phoenix, Ore., so the school brought Price on board to be its head baseball coach. Even though it was a part-time job, Price turned down full-time offers in order to have the title of head coach at age 22.

In addition to his duties as head baseball coach, Price served as an assistant football coach, a freshman boy’s basketball coach for Phoenix High, and a grade school teacher. While at Phoenix High, Price won his first state championship — in football.

Price coached at Phoenix High from 1979-81 and his plan was to move on to Southern Oregon State so he could embark on his college coaching career as an assistant. However, Southern Oregon State dropped its baseball program just before Price got there.

Scrambling to find a coaching vacancy, Price found one, but it was far from the Pacific Northwest. Price left baseball oriented Oregon to coach the worst baseball program in a football-crazed state.

In January 1982, Price arrived in Jasper, Texas, nearly smack dab between Houston and Shreveport, La., and more than two hours away from both, to be the head coach of Jasper High School’s baseball team and an assistant football coach. Jasper High gave Price his first exposure to black athletes. The school had produced several balck NFL players, but none were playing baseball. So, Price got his first experience as a recruiter.

“It was the first opportunity I had to coach black athletes,” Price said. “I was coaching defensive backs, which obviously gave me a huge advantage to be able to recruit the best athletes. I ran two summer teams my first year and I recruited the best athletes on campus and I had 13 black athletes on my team my second year when we had the best record in the state.”

Price’s stay at Jasper High was short-lived though. After two years there, Price returned to the West coast and reached the college ranks at the age of 27. But it came at a cost.

Price took over the baseball program at Menlo College, which had gone a combined 1-48 the two seasons prior to his arrival. The job was part time to boot. But Price was drawn to the small private school just outside of Palo Alto, Calif., because he couldn’t resist returning to a baseball region with a more baseball-friendly climate.

Price didn’t even get through his first season before he began to second-guess his decision.

“The AD told me during the interview process, ‘If you come here, you’re nuts. This will ruin your career,’” Price said. “I remember sitting in the dugout one day when we’d won our sixth game, which was the most games they’d won in 10 years, thinking to myself, ‘He was right. I just ruined my career.’”

Two years later, as his team was setting a school record for victories, Price’s outlook changed and before long, so did his morning commute. After the 1986 season, he was hired to coach at De Anza College in nearby Cupertino, Calif.

“That was one of the best jobs in America,” Price said. “I could have finished my career there and been completely satisfied.”

While Price’s first son, Ritchie, was born during his time at Menlo College, his middle son, Ryne, was born during his transition from Menlo to De Anza, and his youngest son, Robby, was born during Price’s second year at De Anza College. With a family to think about, Price settled in at De Anza. In his first extended stay at a school, Price got his first taste of sustained success. In eight seasons at De Anza College, Price won five championships.

But when Price received a call from a Division I school, it was a call he couldn’t ignore. Of course, of all the high profile baseball schools in California that could have been calling, this call was from Cal Poly, a school trying to make the transition from Division II to Division I.

“I’ve never taken over a program that had a winning season before I got there,” Price said. “My reputation — quote, unquote — I read all the time is that I have a proven record of turning around struggling baseball programs.”

Hired in 1994, Price had one year to prepare the Mustangs for Division competition and in 1995, Price led Cal Poly to a 21-29 record. Two years later the Mustangs were 37-21.

Looking back on it, Price can’t believe how much different the process is today for coaches trying to coach at the Division I level. His journey to Cal Poly used to be the norm for coaches all over the West coast. Coaches were expected to pay their dues at high schools and junior colleges and the most deserving earned Division I jobs.

“Now days, it’s almost impossible to go from junior college to Division I,” Price said. “It’s completely different from when I started 30 years ago.”

Along with the challenges of turning Cal Poly into a contender in the Western Athletic Conference, and later the Big West, Price also had to face the demands of being a father. During his eight-year tenure at Cal Poly, Ritchie, Ryne and Robby were beginning their own sprouting baseball careers.

The boys quickly understood the demands of being a college baseball coach, which made them all the more appreciative of the times Price saw them play.

“He’d find a way no matter what, if we had practice or something, he’d schedule around it and you’d always see him sneak in there, even if it was just for a couple innings here or there,” Robby said.

Even though the boys had Price rushing between his team and theirs, they knew he preferred that to the alternative. They can’t even imagine what growing up with Price would have been like if they hadn’t chosen to play baseball.

“He’d probably kick us out of the house,” Robby said.

However, when Ritchie was in high school, his schedule conflicted the most with Price’s, making it hard for him to receive the same attention his brothers received.

“I’ll be real honest, he probably saw me play five high school games in my career,” Ritchie said. “He didn’t get to see as many high school games as most dads get to, but I think he made up for it in college, considering he saw every game I played.”

But, for Price to be there for all of his eldest son’s college games, the ideal situation had to fall in his lap. Ritchie wanted to play Division I baseball in a major conference, which ruled out his father’s Cal Poly program. Then, the phone rang.

*****

On the other end of the line was Lee Ice, who was a member of the committee in charge of hiring the next baseball coach at the University of Kansas.

The Jayhawks had been mired in mediocrity from 1996 to 2002, under coach Bobby Randall. In seven years with Randall at the helm, Kansas went 166-213 with only one winning season. Kansas needed a coach who had a bountiful recruiting pipeline he could tap into. It needed a coach who knew how to win. It needed a coach who could raise funds and promote the program. It needed a coach with experience rebuilding programs.

Kansas needed Ritch Price. But did Price need Kansas?

“When I came here, I was advised by my best friends in the game that I was nuts if I took the KU job: ‘You can’t win there. The league’s too good. The facilities aren’t up to par with the Big 12,’” Price said.

Price was happy at Cal Poly — he didn’t even have a résumé ready when Ice called him — but he decided to hear Kansas out. In summer 2002 Ritchie was trying out for the USA Junior National Team in Joplin, Mo., so Price and his wife flew into Kansas City early to visit Lawrence before going to Ritchie’s tryouts.

“When I walked on this campus, I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen,” Price said. “I was really interested in the job once they told me that they wanted me. I was looking to end my career coaching in one of the four big conferences in America.”

That visit sold Price on Kansas, but his family took some convincing.

Cindy was a California native. Leaving for Kansas meant leaving all of her friends and family behind.

“I admire my wife so much because she’s the one who’s given up the most,” Price said.

Ryne was a junior in high school at the time. The last thing he wanted was to be uprooted and have to start over in a new high school.

“I was kind of pissed,” Ryne recalled.

Ritchie, though, was headed off to college anyway and having Price at Kansas would open up another possibility of where he could play college ball. As for Robby, “He just wanted to be wherever dad was going,” Price said.

Ultimately, Price couldn’t pass up the opportunity to rebuild one more program — one with the chance to be a factor in a major conference. On July 1, 2002, Price was officially hired as Kansas’ baseball coach. The next step was figuring out the logistics of a coach having his son play for him.

To unravel this dilemma, Price sought guidance from his colleagues who faced the same situation. He talked to about 20 college coaches whose sons played for them or played elsewhere. About three out of every four coaches who’d coached their sons said it was one of the best experiences of their careers. It helped that Kansas wasn’t a national powerhouse, so Ritchie wasn’t going to have to deal with the kind of criticism he would have faced playing for Price at a bigger baseball school.

So, with a hole in the depth chart at shortstop and Price’s blessing, Ritchie followed his father to Kansas. Together, father and son began to build a foundation for the Kansas baseball program.

*****

At the top of Price’s to-do list when he got to Kansas was making sure the players from the previous coaching staff still wanted to be Jayhawks. One player’s father had called the school on a daily basis to get his son released from his scholarship so he could transfer. When Price arrived, he let the player go, no questions asked. For those who stayed, Price tried to create an atmosphere of togetherness and honored every senior who stayed by putting them on the lettermen list.

In Price’s first season, Kansas compiled a 35-28 record, which would be the first of four straight 30-win seasons. Through three seasons, though, Kansas had yet to win a game in the Big 12 Championship and it missed the conference tournament altogether in 2004. But Price received vindication in 2006.

With a roster stocked from his old stomping grounds of California — including Ritchie, a senior, and Ryne, a sophomore — Price guided the Jayhawks to a 43-25 season. It was Kansas’ best record since 1993 and the Jayhawks were one game away from their first winning season against Big 12 competition. Still, Kansas got the last laugh against conference foes when it swept the Big 12 Championship to clinch its first NCAA Regional berth since 1994.

“The sense of accomplishment that day, I can’t even tell you what that felt like,” Price said. “That’s the greatest day I’ve ever spent on the field. To take over a program that had had five straight losing seasons and to have people tell me, ‘You can’t do it there, you can’t win at Kansas. They’ve never won at Kansas,’ to be on national TV, to be in that Triple-A ballpark, to have beaten four consecutive top-25 teams, and to watch our players dog pile on that field was the greatest day I ever spent in coaching.”

Price’s bliss on the field quickly overflowed off the field. Kansas was selected to play in the West Regional in none other than Corvallis, Ore., just over 30 miles from Sweet Home. While Price was preparing his team to face Hawaii in the regional, almost 200 friends and family members were adding their names to Price’s personal pass list to see the coach’s homecoming and the Jayhawks win their first game of the tournament, 9-6.

“One of the great experiences for me that weekend was to have two sons on the field, to have my high school coach, my junior college coach, and my four-year coach all there to see my team play,” Price said. “I think that was one of the greatest weekends of my life, to personally get a chance to tell all those guys, once again, ‘Thank you.’”

Kansas dropped its next two games and was eliminated from the tournament, but a joyous spring continued for the Price family. In addition to Robby’s Free State High School team winning the state championship, two days after Kansas’ season ended, Ritchie was drafted in the 18th round of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft by the New York Mets.

After all Price and Ritchie had been through together to build up the Kansas baseball program, the day Ritchie was drafted was a special one for both father and son.

“For any parent whose son plays, that’s the culmination of everything they’ve watched their son do,” Price said.

The Mets released Ritchie in 2007, opening the door for him to continue following in his father’s footsteps. Ritchie is now an assistant coach at South Dakota State and, since joining the Jackrabbit coaching staff, he now feels closer than ever to Price.

“I probably talk to him a lot more now than I did as a player,” Ritchie said. “I’ll talk to him probably three times a week and ask him question on things and he gives me his input.”

Ritchie isn’t the only success story to emerge during Price’s time at Kansas.

The last four years Kansas has had at least four players drafted. One such player was Don Czyz, who was drafted the same day as Ritchie. Czyz came to Kansas as a pitcher with an 84 mph fastball. He left as the best closer in the nation with a 94 mph fastball. Bo Czyz, Don’s father, said Don was grateful to this day that Price stuck with him.

“Coach Price, and he’s said it before, guided him and said, ‘Maybe you should go to a junior college and work elsewhere,’” Czyz said. “And Donnie told him, ‘I came here to Kansas and I’m going to stay in Kansas. If I can’t play baseball here, I’m not going to play.’ So, coach Price and coach (Steve) Abney worked very close and gave him that opportunity.”

Even Price’s former players who found careers outside of baseball are leading productive lives. Former pitcher Kodiak Quick has taken over part of his father’s business and former pitcher Ricky Fairchild is becoming a financial investor while former player Matt Baty is climbing the administrative ladder in the Kansas Athletics Department.

For Price, there’s nothing more rewarding than having his former players excel, regardless of the career path they follow. Two years ago, when Kansas last played at Stanford, 25 of Price’s former players showed up to show him their children.

“When I first started coaching, I thought it was all about the game,” Price said. “What you learn through the experience years later is that it isn’t about the game, it’s about the relationships within the game that make athletics so special.”

*****

Since that magical 2006 season, Price has relied less on his Californian recruiting roots — although Robby, now in his sophomore season, has joined Ryne, a senior — and now puts more emphasis on recruiting the best players in Kansas and the surrounding Midwest.

However, Price obviously has yet to reload his program with the caliber of seniors he had in 2006. Kansas didn’t qualify for the Big 12 Championship last season and is in danger of doing the same this season.

That hasn’t kept Price from receiving national acclaim. This summer Price will serve as an assistant coach for the USA National Team during its summer tour.

That also hasn’t quieted the whispers that Price might someday return the West coast.

Last fall, Price was rumored to be a candidate for the coaching vacancy at Oregon — located just 40 miles from Sweet Home— after the school reinstated its baseball program, which had been dormant since the 1981 season. Price said he was never contacted by Oregon and insisted that if he had it wouldn’t have mattered.

Since Lew Perkins became the Kansas Athletics Director in June 2003, Price has had no reason to consider leaving. If not for Perkins, Price said he’d already have left.

Thanks to Perkins’ shared commitment to fundraising, Price has been able to improve Kansas’ baseball facilities dramatically. In 2005, an indoor hitting facility was built beside Hoglund Ballpark. In 2006, a 16-foot-by-28-foot video board was added to the right field scoreboard. Next season, Kansas will move into its 6,500-square foot clubhouse, for which construction is already underway beside the first base bleachers.

For Perkins, it hasn’t been difficult providing funds to such a devoted coach.

“I say this all the time and I absolutely believe it — coach Price is the best Division I baseball coach in the country,” Perkins said in an e-mail. “He is not only a great coach, but a great person. I knew from the start that he is exactly the person we want to be coaching Kansas baseball and I couldn’t be happier that he’s here.”

The numbers don’t lie. Price has the highest winning percentage among Kansas skippers who have coached at least 100 games. He’s two victories shy of No. 200 at Kansas and is on pace to move into second on Kansas’ all-time wins list by 2010. He could very well be the winningest baseball coach in Kansas history by 2015.

But Price has never been about personal records. From his days as a youngster, hustling around the bases, he’s always been team-oriented. Price’s goal now is to feel the same jubilation he felt on that May afternoon in Oklahoma City when his team clinched an NCAA Regional berth. Only this time he wants it to be in June.

“The next one will be when we get to Omaha,” Price said. “That’ll be the next greatest accomplishment. It’ll be easier to do that than it was to win the first one.”

And what a day that will be for the coach who made a career out of taking over programs nobody else wanted.

“This is it for me. I’ve had chances to go other places since I’ve been here. I didn’t want to leave. This is where I intend to finish my career,” Price said. “I tell people, ‘I have one of the hardest jobs in America. I also have one of the best jobs in America.’”

­­—Edited by Sasha Roe

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