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Price named new ENMU baseball coach

PORTALES — Becoming Eastern New Mexico’s head baseball coach seemed the next logical step for Riley Price.

The Kansas native, like his father, played college ball. Price has had to be versatile throughout his playing and coaching careers. He’s had to deal with adversity throughout both. And after coaching near the Canadian border for a while, he was looking to head south.

Eastern’s job checked all of the above boxes.

And so Price, after passing muster in the ENMU interview process, is the Greyhounds’ new head baseball coach, the fourth in program history. He succeeds David Gomez, who resigned in May.

“I’m very excited, very excited,” Price said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon. “A lot of potential to the program, great community, and a great administration to work under. They’ve been just tremendous in this process, especially while trying to hire an athletic director at the same time as trying to hire me. ... They’ve been just really professional and really good at communicating.”

“I am delighted that Riley Price has accepted our offer to become the next head coach of the Greyhound baseball team,” ENMU president Jeff Elwell said in a statement released Monday by the university athletic department. “I believe that the (search) committee did a great job and that Riley is going to bring new energy and invigorate our baseball program.”

Price thinks he’s coming to that program at the perfect time after the Lone Star Conference recently expanded to 19 teams, adding Dallas Baptist, Lubbock Christian, Oklahoma Christian, St. Edward’s, St. Mary’s, Texas A&M International, Arkansas-Fort Smith and Texas at Tyler.

“When I saw the job posted online I was really intrigued,” Price said, “because they were in the Lone Star Conference, and ... the Lone Star Conference is going to be the best in the nation. It already was, but now it’s going to be even better with the newly added teams.”

For Price, it’s yet another step along his baseball path. He grew up in Kansas and displayed his versatility as early as high school, playing all over the infield and pitching. The latter came to a screeching halt when he had surgery on his right arm, his throwing arm.

“So pitching kind of went out the window for college,” he said. “The arm didn’t hold up, so I had to rely on my bat.”

Price, who bats lefthanded, enrolled at Allen Community College in Iola, Kansas — part of the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference — and more challenges awaited. He had started out his freshman season as primarily a designated hitter, and 10 games in, was given his first start at second base. That game turned out to be momentous for another reason — Price snapped his collarbone.

He was able to redshirt, getting an extra season of eligibility. After two years at Allen, Price spent a year and a half each at Southern Arkansas and Washburn.

Late in his college career, Price played in a collegiate summer baseball league based in Colorado, for a team called the Loveland Blue Jays. After his senior year of college, Price approached Kurt Colicchio, the summer league’s general manager, and told him he was interested in coaching.

Colicchio helped Price land an assistant-coaching position with the Windsor Beavers, but when their head coach resigned unexpectedly, Price was thrown into the head-coaching job at 23.

Price recruited his full team in a month and charged into the new position facing a challenge. Again.

“I just took it head on and ended up beating the Fort Collins Foxes and winning the whole league,” Price said. “I don’t remember what our record was, but we ended up winning the whole deal, and that’s where I found my passion and love for coaching.”

He went back to Washburn as an assistant coach, and there, another challenge arose — the most tragic kind — when head coach Steve Anson passed away. Another Washburn assistant, Harley Douglas, took over the job, and with Price’s help, guided the program through a difficult period.

Price moved on to assistant-coaching positions at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, and the LSC’s Angelo State, before taking a little time away from coaching to recruit, and then last year accepting an assistant-coaching position at Minot State University in Minot, North Dakota, about 30 miles south of Canada.

And after one season at Minot, Price finally had his first collegiate head coaching job, hired by Eastern’s interim athletic director Jeff Long.

Price says his approach to coaching is involved, yet quite simple at the same time.

“I could talk for hours on this,” he said. “Just the basic philosophy of mine is doing whatever I can to instill, to make the best baseball players I can, while also making them the best young men that I can, teaching them life lessons throughout baseball, so they could maybe one day be better husbands and fathers.

“As for the kind of player that I absolutely love, just a grinder, a dirtbag-type player that’s not afraid to get dirty ... a player who’s mentally tough and ready to get after it and has a deep love for the game.”

Price already met two of the Eastern players during his interview process, and was impressed.

“It was very eye-opening speaking with them,” Price said. “It made me be even more excited to be part of the program.”

Most importantly for now is that Price has arrived at a destination he has been striving to reach.

“It’s been a long road,” he said, “but you learn so many valuable lessons and you get to learn from so many good coaches. It helps you develop your own philosophy. You take a lot of good and a lot of bad and put it all together and make your own philosophy.”