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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Price Extension Should Let WSU Set Hire Standard

John Blanchette The Spokesman-Re

The leader in the irony clubhouse is that Mike Price may have a more unflinching patron in his new boss than he had in Jim Livengood.

In effect, Rick Dickson made yet another hire this past week to cap his hire-away first year as athletic director at Washington State University - extending Price’s contract as football coach into the 21st century with a package in the ballpark of $1 million.

Whatever your misgivings about the earnings that make coaches rich, Price’s extension was richly earned.

There are few enough Cougars coaches of the past 80 years with more wins than losses to their name - and only one, Babe Hollingbery, who has lasted as long as Price. His teams have won two bowl games since 1992 and were probably a quarterback injury from a three-fer. He’s the man who gave us Drew Bledsoe and the Palouse Posse, or whatever nickname it was that didn’t do the 1994 Cougars defense justice.

Attendance - the electoral vote - is at an all-time high.

Yet when Dickson replaced Livengood - the man who hired Price - the new athletic director couldn’t help but pick up on the vibes from Cougars fans “wondering what I was going to do about Price.” Or, rather, how Price would fare with a boss who wasn’t an old college teammate.

The answer wasn’t long in coming.

“It was easy to see that what he needed above all was my support,” Dickson said.

“I sensed there was a lot of ambivalence about Mike, but in listening to the general public the criticisms weren’t very substantive. And I guess some of the problem was not knowing how WSU felt about him. So when I determined he was the guy for us, I didn’t want to be ambivalent about it.”

In that respect, perhaps a fresh start with a new boss was all that was needed. Not that Livengood was ambivalent - he did, after all, extend Price himself after the 1992 season. But Livengood was also attuned to all the criticisms, substantive or not, and was sensitive to the public perception of his coach.

Dickson, in what passed for negotiations for this new contract, was surprised at what he discovered.

“In talking to Mike, I think he was relieved to hear some of the things we talked about - like how he handled kids being as important to me as winning eight games,” Dickson said. “I don’t know if he consistently felt that was the case. I sensed he felt he had one thing to do and one thing only - win ballgames. I don’t think that’s a fair standard for anybody and I don’t want that to be the standard here.”

The best thing about Price’s recent success and his new contract is that he has a chance to set his own standard at WSU with the side effect of finally ending irrelevent comparisons, some of them perpetuated inside the athletic department.

Dickson, alas, even bought into those when he was quoted by the Seattle Times in December as saying, “Mike inherited problems. It was pretty obvious that Dennis Erickson got what he wanted out of WSU before he left: a quick-fix with a shallow foundation.”

The words that came out this past week were less damning.

“He inherited a lot of quick-fix approaches - not that all of what he inherited was bad, obviously,” Dickson said. “But because of the transitions, there was a real rag-tag array of personalities and kids and types of athletes.

“Dennis had a lot of success with JC kids and the downside of that is that it left the program in a state of flux. And a number of the disciplinary problems were inherited problems.”

Hmm. A survey of WSU’s current roster reveals as many JC products as Erickson ever had. The staying power of Erickson’s recruiting may be seen in the fact that he brought in 12 of the starters on Price’s 1992 Copper Bowl team, not including five more who became starters the following year.

And if you’ll recall, the loudest on-campus yowl upon Erickson’s departure in 1989 was his inattention to academics - as illustrated by the aggregate 1.94 grade-point average the Cougars pulled in the fall of 1988.

So it’s slightly amusing to note that Price’s Cougars of 1994 weighed in fall semester with a team GPA of 1.88.

Cougar Pride didn’t exactly extend to the classroom last season.

No intent to degrade - and no pun intended - Price’s commitment to matters academic. You can be certain he took the numbers as hard as anyone, and measures have been instituted to reverse the trend. Dickson pointed out that the personnel upheaval in WSU’s counseling and compliance department may have contributed to the lag, as well as “a senior class that was more intent and focused on what was right in front of them at the time” - i.e., a bowl game and the April draft.

But the same alibi held true for Erickson’s bunch, and the academic department back then was manned by exactly two full-timers. It’s just that Erickson made a pretty convenient target for having taken the money and run.

One thing Dennis did discover was that you’re not going to win at WSU without some exceptions for Pac-10 caliber athletes made upon admittance. And it is this aspect that Price has exploited masterfully - not only recruiting some academic risks, but showing diligence in helping them succeed. It’s a challenge that will only grow with new NCAA legislation to ensure normal progress toward a degree.

But history is now on Price’s side. He’s a proven deal. Players respect him and play hard for him, and have helped him build a program that’s gained national respect, too. And the local support so long in coming is filling the seats.

Arguments? You’ll always come up with something. Suggest that scholarship limitations have made it easier for all the NCAA’s have-nots to recruit if you will, but admit that Price still must recruit to the worst facilities in the Pac-10. Note that only Arizona State and Oregon State have worse conference records since he took over, but recognize that in the past three years only Washington and Arizona have won more games.

Better yet, stop arguing. And let’s dispense with the myth that Price had to overcome anything beyond the usual challenges faced by a Wazzu coach.

He has done quite enough. He doesn’t need the embellishment.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review