By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 12/8/10
Jerry Price said his life turned around when he was fortunate enough to be named the Sports Information Director at Princeton University in the early 1990s.
Why? He had fallen in love with the sport of lacrosse.
“I grew up near the Jersey Shore (Manalapan) and we didn’t have lacrosse in high school and I never even saw it until I attended Penn,” Price said. “I began working as a sports writer at the Trenton Times in 1983, but it wasn’t until 1990 when I saw Princeton play for the first time, against Bucknell, that I began to love lacrosse.”
In 1994, Price was hired as the SID at Princeton and became heavily involved in promoting the Tigers’ lacrosse team. For years he became known as one of the top writers and media supporters of the college sport – and last Friday he was recognized for his years of service at Princeton.
Price – also a youth coach for Lower Bucks Lacrosse – was honored by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) as the winner of the Doyle Smith Sports Information/Media award at the annual IMLCA Convention in Baltimore.
Doyle Smith was a highly respected sports information director at Virginia who died in 2004 due to Parkinson’s Disease.
Two years ago Price – who considered Smith a good friend and colleague – worked in a group to create a new official NCAA lacrosse statistics manual, one that was dedicated to Smith’s memory. Price also has served as the chief statistician for the NCAA championship weekend the past six years.
Price was promoted to Associate AD in 2002, but continues to oversee media coverage at Princeton for men’s lacrosse. He also has covered lacrosse as a radio broadcaster, television commentator, feature writer and a historian.
“I am honored to be a part of it all,” Price said. “I never played lacrosse. This award is special to me.
“Doyle was a great guy who wrote the rules of stat-keeping,” Price said. “We just updated it. It was special to win an award in his name because he did so much for the sport of lacrosse.”
Price said working with former Princeton coach Bill Tierney – who left his job last year to take over at Denver – was a stroke of luck.
“I was lucky to be at the program (Princeton) when (Bill) Tierney came and made it so successful,” he said. “The real award has been to get to work with the coaches and athletes at Princeton.”
Price began coaching at Lower Bucks seven years ago when his son, Greg, of Yardley, began playing lacrosse. Greg plays for Lower Bucks A1 and also for Twist U15A. His daughter, Annie, a fifth grader, plays for the LBL 5/6 grade A team.
“They welcomed me at Lower Bucks with open arms,” Price said. “It’s been great to be involved with Lower Bucks. I have worked with a lot of nice kids, and it’s great to see so many go on to have success in high school.
“It’s been great to be on that level – at the grass roots – and see that perspective as compared to where we are at Princeton.”
Price said he wondered what would happen at Princeton once Tierney and long-time assistant Dave Metzbower (now coach at Malvern Prep) left. But he said second-year coach Chris Bates, the former coach at Drexel, has upheld the strong lacrosse tradition at Princeton.
“I thought it would never be the same,” said Price. “But you could not ask for more than Chris Bates and what he has done.”
Leave a Reply