I know it is 4A now but...

[BHBrave08]

Has anyone heard about Barbers Hill running off Don Price. He had 11 seasons as the AD/HC...

[BHBrave08]

Barbers Hill’s Price: ‘I still want to coach’

By Dave Rogers
The Baytown Sun
Published November 28, 2009


Don Price, the second-winningest football coach in Barbers Hill history, said his school district induced him to resign by agreeing to a $153,000 buy-out of the final year and a half remaining on his contract as coach and athletic director.

The resignation of Price, whose 12-year record of 99-35 is second only to the 118-35-5 mark Lloyd Kelly set as BH coach from 1953-1967, was announced by the district Nov. 18.

Price said he intends to leave the school he’s served since 1992 at the end of the fall term.

“I’ve really enjoyed being here,” Price said. “The kids and staff were great. That’s what we do it for.”

Price said the buyout offer grew out of talks with BHISD superintendent Greg Poole that began the week of Barbers Hill’s final regular season game, which was played Oct. 30.

Price, 57, said he was told the school board was unhappy with the state of the Eagle athletic program and had created a position for him as assistant to the district’s assistant superintendent of planning and operations at his current salary of $98,800 per year.

“I still want to coach,” said Price, whose Eagle football teams won six district championships, the last in 2006.

Barbers Hill’s football team won Oct. 30 to qualify for the playoffs, joining the other four fall sports at the school – team tennis, volleyball, boys and girls cross country – in advancing past district play.

Price’s ninth playoff football team in the last 11 years finished the season 5-6 after a 21-7 bidistrict loss to Port Neches-Groves Nov. 13.

Despite never having coached a player who was recruited and signed by a NCAA Division I-A school, Price was 85-19 at BH after the 2006 season and had an overall winning percentage of 81.73, which at the time, ranked second all-time among Southeast Texas football coaches, according to Texas high school football historian Joe Lee Smith.
Only Alex Durley, who led both Beaumont Hebert and Beaumont West Brook to state titles (and was 97-13-3, 87.17 percent), was better.

After going 10-1 in 2006, Barbers Hill’s first season to move up from Class 3A to 4A, the Eagles missed the playoffs for the first time since 1998 when they finished 6-4 in 2007 and 3-6 in 2008.

Currently, Price’s overall winning percentage of 73.88 at Barbers Hill is good enough for 21st all-time in Southeast Texas and No. 9 all-time among those who coached 10 or more seasons in an area that runs from the Louisiana border to Livingston and nearly as far north as Lufkin.

Coaches below Price on the list include Dayton’s Jerry Stewart (72.19 percent) and Bum Phillips (70.12 percent), who coached at both Nederland and Port Neches-Groves.

More than his football team’s success, which included five 10-0 regular seasons (1999-2001, 2005-2006), Price is proud of the success of the entire Eagles athletic program and especially points to the 2006-07 school year.

That’s when Barbers Hill was moved up from Class 3A to 4A and, with a high school enrollment of 963 in a classification for schools ranging from 950 to 1,984 students, won district championship in 14 of the 15 sports in which it competed.

Girls basketball has reached the playoffs each of the 11 seasons Price has been athletic director. The boys track team has won district 10 years in a row and girls track has won district eight of nine years.

The softball team has been in the playoffs nine years in a row, including a trip to the state tournament in 2006, and the baseball team has been in the playoffs eight years in a row. The spring tennis team won eight straight district titles.

During Price’s tenure as AD, Barbers Hill implemented a volleyball program in 2001 that has qualified for the playoffs every year, reaching the state finals in 2003.
Under Price’s tenure, Barbers Hill also implemented middle school academic tutorials, middle school cross country and tennis programs and high school swimming.

“I was never an AD who was just a football coach,” he said. “We tried to have an overall program that offered every player in every sport the opportunity to compete at the highest level.

“I took my tenure as athletic director very seriously. I think if you compare it to the history here, it’s unsurpassed.”

A native of Nederland, Price grew up in the same neighborhood with current Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips, whose father, Bum Phillips, went on to coach the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints.

He ran hurdles for the Lamar University track team and began his coaching career at the University of West Georgia. He returned to Texas and was an assistant coach at Troup, Hawkins and Joshua high schools before a two-year stint as head coach at Maypearl.

At Troup and Hawkins, he was on the staff of Kenneth Skidmore, who brought Price to Barbers Hill as his defensive coordinator and head track coach in 1992.

Price’s overall record as high school head coach is 105-48-1. His wife, Cindy, is secondary curriculum director for BHISD and she has a law practice in Mont Belvieu.

“My second year as head coach here we went 12-1 and played in the Astrodome,” Price said. “I learned right then it didn’t silence my critics.

“I learned right then to focus my energy on my kids and my coaching staff. I couldn’t worry about the rest of the stuff. I don’t have the time.”