Ward inspires UW’s Price

SEATTLE – Keith Price’s first love was basketball. He played the sport as a skinny little kid and sometimes wondered if he was big enough to even entertain thoughts of one day playing in the NBA.

And then came football. Price grew to love that, too. He just didn’t know if he could thrive as a quarterback, or if he could play both sports simultaneously.

On an old VHS recording tape, one of his cousins provided the answer.

Watch this guy, Price was told.

And that’s how a kid who was born in 1991 came to idolize a basketball-playing quarterback who won the 1993 Heisman Trophy and never played organized football again. Florida State’s Charlie Ward – not Drew Brees or Peyton Manning or Tom Brady – came to be the quarterback Price would strive to become.

During Price’s career at the University of Washington, people have tried to make comparisons to other quarterbacks – whether they were to Jake Locker, whom Price replaced as the starter, or to Baylor’s Robert Griffin III, whom the Huskies will face in the upcoming Alamo Bowl. None of them provided an entirely comfortable fit, and Price seemed to bristle at the insinuations.

But mention the name Charlie Ward, and Price will beam with pride.

“He definitely had a different type of game,” Price said, “and I feel like I have a different type of game.”

Asked for specifics, the UW quarterback added: “Not extremely fast, but elusive. … And he wasn’t big. He was probably the same size as me. So it was very similar.”

Price said several relatives started calling him Charlie Ward when he was in high school, in part because of his small stature but also because of his love of two sports.

“All my big cousins,” Price said when asked who first made the comparisons. “He won the Heisman when they were growing up, so he was their favorite quarterback.”

The allure goes beyond just Price’s position and two-sport love. Ward, who passed up the NFL and went on to play 12 seasons in the NBA, was an African-American playing quarterback – just like Price. He was the second African-American quarterback to win a Heisman, earning the honor in the award’s 55th year, and was recently joined by back-to-back winners Cam Newton and Griffin.