Ron Price's coaching longevity will be tough to eclipse

Columnist

April 15, 2021 5:30 AM PT

Ron Price is a walking, talking legend in Southern California. Across seven decades and some 60 years, Price has been coaching football.

He was on the same fields with City Section coaching Hall of Famers Chris Ferragamo (Banning), Jack Neumeier (Granada Hills) and Gene Vollnogle (Carson) and players John Elway, Rod Martin and Warren Moon. He was the health teacher for Washington Prep’s Paul Knox while at Hamilton and coached against Venice coach Angelo Gasca when Gasca was a high school quarterback.

He’s been a head coach at Crenshaw, Palisades and Fairfax. He started as an assistant coach in 1961 at Brentwood Military Academy and now is an assistant coach at St. Monica.

“This will be the last decade and could be the last year,” he said. “When you’re 84, you’re like all the great athletes — day to day. I feel great. As long as I can do it, I’ll do it.”

Coaching the offensive line has been Price’s specialty. Coaching anything has been his life-long passion.

“I’ve always enjoyed it,” he said. “It’s always been fun. It’s what I wanted to do from the time I was a teenager.”

Many years ago his father, who was a doctor, questioned his professional pursuit while living in Chicago. His dream was to coach the Chicago Bears.

“He used to look at me and laugh. He said, ‘The only Bears you’ll ever be coaching will be in a zoo.’”

Price has been coaching so long that a couple players at St. Monica are sons of former players he coached. St. Monica head coach Geoff McArthur played for him at Palisades.

Gasca said of Price’s seven-decade coaching stint:

“An incredible accomplishment. He’s an amazing person who I greatly admire and respect. I competed against his teams as a high school player. Competed against him as a coach. Then had the fortune to work with him for many years. I’m better for it and so are the lives of all the people whose lives he touched. An icon.”

Best vs. Best:

With apologies to Texas and Florida, the best high school football game of the 2020-21 school year will take place Saturday night at Santa Ana Stadium when Bellflower St. John Bosco (5-0) takes on Santa Ana Mater Dei (4-0) to decide the spring Trinity League championship.

If St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro and Mater Dei coach Bruce Rollinson could combine their teams and take them on the road to face any and all challengers, they’d be unbeatable.

The lines are big, powerful and mobile. The running backs are fast and big-play weapons. The quarterbacks are young but future college players. The secondaries are aggressive and fearless.

It has all the makings of another classic game. The last one between these two schools saw St. John Bosco roar back from a seemingly insurmountable 28-5 deficit in 2019 to win 39-34 in the fourth consecutive Southern Section Division 1 final involving the two schools.

For this game, Mater Dei’s defense will present a lot more problems for the Braves’ quarterback duo of Pierce Clarkson and Katin Houser. It’s probably a good situation that St. John Bosco is still alternating quarterbacks every series, because that gives the Braves options to take advantage of each quarterback’s different strengths.

The big clue about which team will win should come early. It’s going to be about which team can run the ball most effectively to open up the passing game.

So break out the popcorn on Saturday night, lay back on the couch at 7 p.m. and turn on Bally Sports West. You can hear Petros Papadakis and Greg Biggins raving about how many future five-star recruits are in the game. MaxPreps.com says there’s 59 players on the rosters who have FBS offers. It will be the most entertaining high school football game in America

Golf round of the year

Joshua Koo, a 16-year-old junior at Cerritos High, shot a final round of 10-under-par 62 to win the two-day Toyota Tour Cup junior golf tournament in Palm Desert on Sunday. He had eight birdies and an eagle.

“I hadn’t been hitting that well recently and was working on my putting,” he said. “That day everything clicked. It was a really fun round.”