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Price's associates shocked by stories Posted: Friday May 02, 2003 10:48 PMSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Whatever the truth about his appointment with Destiny, those who knew Mike Price during his 14 seasons as Washington State football coach say they are shocked by the lurid stories swirling around the Alabama coach. Price had no history of questionable public behavior during his years at WSU: no brawls, no arrests for drunken driving, no recorded visits to strip clubs. "I don't recall him ever coming in here," said Dave McKibbin, manager of Stateline Showgirls, a strip club in Post Falls, Idaho. "He would have stood out like a sore thumb." There are no strip clubs in Pullman, a farm and university town of 25,000 people located 75 miles south of Spokane. Stateline Showgirls and some clubs in Spokane are the closest. Price was known to joke with reporters about his off-season carousing with friends at his vacation home on Lake Coeur d'Alene, but his public life at WSU was exemplary. He first arrived at the school in the 1960s as a player. He was hired in 1989 as football coach, and left four months ago for the job at Alabama. Now his job is in jeopardy after reports he spent hundreds of dollars at a topless bar and that a woman charged more than $1,000 in food and drinks to his hotel bill. His future at Alabama could be decided at a trustees meeting Saturday. The incidents allegedly occurred in Pensacola, Fla., last month while Price was in town for a pro-am golf tournament. A dancer, "Destiny" Stahl, told The Birmingham News that Price spent about $200 on her, but nothing happened beyond dancing. The next morning, a woman in a hotel room registered to Price reportedly ordered more than $1,000 in food and drinks -- one of everything on the menu -- and wanted it to go. Price paid the bill after the woman left. The 57-year-old Price is married and has two sons on his coaching staff. Ironically, another high-profile coach with ties to the Palouse region of Washington and Idaho is also embroiled in controversy. Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy was basketball coach at the University of Idaho, which is eight miles east of Washington State University, from 1990-93. Eustachy has been suspended following newspaper reports that he partied with college students in Columbia, Mo., and Manhattan, Kan. Photos from the Missouri party show Eustachy holding a beer can while kissing and being kissed by young women on the cheek. Those who have known Price for a long time say the alleged incidents are not in character. "I'm more than surprised," University of Arizona athletics director Jim Livengood told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. "Did he make an error in judgment? Probably. But who hasn't made a mistake," said Livengood, who hired Price at WSU. "This is the best football coach and one of the best people I have ever known." "I won't believe it until Mike Price says it to me," said Mike Levenseller, offensive coordinator at WSU and a longtime Price assistant. "Mike is a high-character person and he runs a high-character program." Jim Moore, a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said Price could set a new standard for the concept of "couged it." The term is used frequently by fans and opponents of Washington State football in reference to the team's long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as in "Washington State sure couged it against Washington this year." |
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