Price still rolling after
’Bama affair

MIKE Price. Has anyone ever done anything this stupid and come out of it looking this smart?

Now, I have been reminded, anyone who could take Washington State to the Rose Bowl -- especially more than once -- had to have been on the ball. Very much so.

(He has to be a genius. He did what June Jones was unable to do -- he won with Ryan Leaf.)

But I don't recall his ever having been mentioned as a candidate for Mensa membership before 2004.

Now, since the guy spent about two weeks at Alabama, suddenly everyone says he's one of the country's elite coaches.

And he's rolling, baby.

None of us knows what happened that fateful night in Pensacola, Fla. Something about a stripper in a hotel room ordering "one of everything." (She was hungry.) And that was the best-case scenario, the clean version.

Then Price, who hadn't yet been bright enough to sign his contract with the Crimson Tide, was punted.

But he's been rolling ever since.

Sure, there was that ho-da-shame Sports Illustrated story, and a few months of purgatory. But then the national media anointed him a coaching mastermind, and UTEP snapped him up, and he's been having the time of his life.

He looks great. He's lost weight. He wore a Miner costume, complete with helmet and pick, and it was no joke.

Somehow, he made it look cool.

The same way everything he does now looks cool.

I wrote that he needed to bust out the Miner outfit again, for the Boise State game, the game was that big. I thought I was joking. But no joke -- he leads his team through a cloud of smoke and onto the field before each home game with that pick raised to the sky.

Can you imagine that? Do you think in his entire life this 58-year-old has had this much fun?

The people of West Texas love football almost as much as the Alabama fans do. And they've treated Price like a hero just for showing up. Not as someone who would eventually find a brick thrown through his window. Most coaching stints at Alabama end ugly. At least he got it out of the way.

Let's face it, the salary is smaller, but Price came out ahead. He's a new man.

And last week, he beat Fresno State.

(He also carried the pick with him onto the field at Fresno. Some say it was part of the new tradition; I think he just felt better "packing".)

You can feel the positive energy from 3,200 miles away.

"They are rallying up," Jones said this week. "I can see it."

So now he's a genius and a hero, and this week it's homecoming with Hawaii coming to town. Mike Price will lead his Miners onto the field before a delirious sellout crowd, and he'll be holding that pick aloft.

Jones said it will be "the most excitement that school has felt in 10-15 years."

In one night, Alabama football coach Mike Price made one of the dumbest mistakes of his life.

It might have been one of the best things that ever happened to him.