By Sandy Wells
Staff Writer
(appeared March 24, 2008)
* Used by permission *

Curtis Price

(Click to enlarge)

Innerviews: Hometown basketball hero Curtis Price returns to his roots

He's one of the Kanawha Valley's most celebrated and beloved athletes, a star on the undefeated 1968 Charleston High state championship team who went on to excel at WVU.

Curtis Price continued his success story at West Virginia State as a 21-year-old head basketball coach, probably the youngest in the country.

Also an accomplished musician, he played guitar in dance bands all through school, later with Ivor Sheff in the Production Company.

He worked seven years for Gov. Jay Rockefeller, then moved through the ranks with the Job Corps, where he reached the top-level executive status he enjoys today.

A reunion of Charleston High's undefeated 1968 and 1973 state championship teams during the state tournament March 15 brought the hometown hero back to his roots, his first visit in years.

On the eve of his arrival, in a recorded telephone interview, he reflected on his sports and musically enriched life.

He's 57.

"We lived on the East End, in Washington Manor for a period, and then on Bullitt Street. There were a lot of young people my age, and we all grew up playing everything, basketball, football, baseball. It was a very loving environment. The whole community cared about you, and you cared about the community.

"I was blessed with super parents. My father was Curtis Price Sr., Big Curt, they used to say. I was Little Curt. It remained that way even after I got taller than he was.

"My dad was a maintenance man. He got me involved in athletics real early, particularly baseball. That was his sport. He was always talking about the teamwork. He was really big into the psychological aspect of sports.

"And he was a musician, so obviously I became involved with music real early. He was a piano player, so I played piano with him for years. Later, I switched to guitar. My grandmother bought me my first guitar. It was a Christmas present, and she passed away on Christmas Day. That guitar was always very special to me.

"By junior high, I was playing with a group called the Tiki Turbans. There was a club called the Man Tiki on the Boulevard, a college hangout. We played there three or four nights a week. There are so many stories. I would take off one uniform and put on something else.

"My parents sent me to the YMCA. It's the first time I remember being coached in an organized game. The coach was Howard Quick, and they paid a lot of attention to me and encouraged me. You begin to notice that you are farther along than some of the other people.

"I went to junior high at Thomas Jefferson. Skip Mason played on our team. We were undefeated and won the championship. I can remember one game as clear as if it were yesterday. The referee was Coach Lou Romano, the coach at Charleston High. To have him there officiating your game, can you imagine? That's the school you want to go to. That's where you went on the way home to watch them practice and dream of one day being good enough to play for.

"My junior year at Charleston High, I thought we had a chance to have a pretty good team. I had known Levi Phillips all my life. He was getting bigger and really coming into his own. Deacon Larry Harris was the same way. I knew what Skip Mason could do. He and I had been together all our lives, practically. Once I saw Sonny Burls, it became evident that we had a pretty good nucleus.

"We lost the state championship by one or two points, one of two games we lost that year. Of course, the senior year was just dedicated to going undefeated and winning the '68 championship. And having a good time. It was probably in our personalities, but it certainly came from Coach Romano. We wanted to enjoy the game and we wanted to represent the school well. Technical fouls, that sort of thing, there was no way. You just didn't do that. You played as a gentleman.

"He was amazing, very caring. His whole family was involved with the team. You felt very comfortable with Coach. You worked hard. The best people were going to play. Period.

"I remember we were getting ready to play Parkersburg, and they had two great guards. Coach knew what buttons to push. He would say, 'These guys are super guards, so we're going to press them. We're going to see how good they are.' We respected everybody, but we're thinking, 'Hey, we've got two good guards, Skip and Sonny.' The game was over in the first five minutes just by pressing them.

"I loved baseball, but once I got involved with basketball, there was something special about that game. I liked the action, your skills against whoever is guarding you, the teamwork aspect.

"I never played organized football. The football coach at Charleston High told me to come out. I remember running out there in a suit that was probably three times too big for me. Before I got to them, Coach Romano got to me and said, 'What are you doing? Have you gone crazy?' So my football career was one or two practices.

"All through high school, I played with the King Sound Interpreters with Kai Haynes and Ivor Sheff. The summer between my junior and senior year, we went on tour to Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, Atlanta. We didn't have hatred for the schools we played against because we played so many of their proms and school dances. Later, I played with Ivor in the Production Company.

"My senior year, I had a knee injury that brought a lot of things in life in focus. I missed a few games leading up to the championship. I had surgery after it was over. My goal when I went to WVU was obviously to play basketball, but my big goal was to graduate in four years. I majored in education. I wanted to coach. I ended up coaching for about five years.

"The years at WVU were days of growing up and a chance to really mature academically. It was a great time, a fun time. Levi and Deacon came up the next year. That was great having them there.

"I was involved with music the whole time. We played a lot of parties. We traveled in the summertime. Boston. New Jersey. Remember a musician, Mike Fowler? That's whose band I joined, the Upsetters. It was a huge group, maybe 10 or 15 people, a big horn section.

"I can remember playing a game for WVU and going to the Holiday Inn and playing a dance, and in walks Stevie Wonder and his entourage, and he asked if it was OK to sit in and play drums. He was there for a concert in Fairmont.

"We had a good team my senior year. Then tragedy struck. The car accident. Sam Oglesby and Deacon Harris. Deacon was killed. He was my roommate. It was very tough. Coach [Gary] McPherson, just his presence was a big factor, just coming by the room. Those were difficult times. And to play the rest of the season. You can't stop and pause, so basketball was part of the healing process.

"Any dreams I had of pro ball went away after the knee injury. We had Whitey Gwinn, a great trainer up there. They worked feverishly with me, getting me ready to play for four years, and I appreciated that.

"I was very fortunate. I was offered a coaching job at West Virginia State College. I became the youngest college coach in the nation at 21. I had players who had gone to Vietnam. Some were older than I was. I ended up being named coach of the year in that conference. I was there about five years.

"I left there to go back to school, but within the year, I had an opportunity to work for Governor Rockefeller as director of equal employment opportunity

/affirmative action. I was there seven years.

"Then I got involved with the Charleston Job Corps. I started by placing students in employment after they finished. I loved the Job Corps. Bob Easley was there, and Jim Parker. Cookie Glasser was vice president. It was a great crew.

"I took a promotion to the Cincinnati Job Corps Center as director of the disciplinary system. Many of the kids were from Chicago and Detroit. I learned so much from them. Then I went to Baltimore, then to Maine to direct the center there. I left there and came to Washington, D.C., as director. I would tell the kids to forget I was the center director, and we would have some knock-down, drag-out basketball games in the gym.

"Then I went to work in the corporate office, Management and Training Corp. I worked in Utah. I was heavily involved in music there. I did an instrumental gospel CD with a group. When they had the Olympics, we played with groups in the Olympic Village and played for a lot of the corporations coming to town.

"From Utah, I went to Texas, where I live now. I'm working with the director of the largest Job Corps center in the U.S., and now I'm back with the corporate office, traveling to give technical assistance to the Job Corps centers our company operates. Probably 80 percent of my time is on the road.

"Judy and I had two daughters. I got married when I was coaching. We've been married 34 years and have two daughters. I feel very blessed. It's been a life of always looking to the next challenge or opportunity. I wouldn't change a thing. I always look forward, and life is exciting. I want to keep working with young people and pass on whatever I can to them."

Last Modified: 12/30/2010