PRICE TO UTEP

MSNBC reports that UTEP has hired disgraced former Alabama coach Mike Price to coach its football team.

The Miners hired Price on Sunday despite a reputation tarnished by a night of partying at a strip club months after being hired at Alabama. The longtime Washington State coach never coached a game for the Crimson Tide and has been trying to clear his image ever since.

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“We know Mike Price is a man who has been humbled by a highly public mistake,” school president Diana Natalicio said. “He paid dearly for that grievous error in judgment, and all of us believe he has earned the opportunity to restart his career.”

UTEP is several steps down the ladder from Alabama and, indeed, Price’s previous gig at Washington State. The actions that cost him his job at Alabama weren’t criminal, and I suppose he deserves a second chance,* but I don’t believe I’d have hired him had I been a collegiate athletic director. And that’s especially true at a lower-tier school like UTEP that isn’t a football factory.

*Actually, at least a third, since Alabama gave him a warning before he got embroiled in the embarrasing situation led to the firing.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. djspicerack says:

    “he paid dearly” for what he had done. I think the tough thing about this is that he’s in a position of setting an example, unfortunately, which is why educators are usually ripped badly when they are caught doing something… He is not able to, with a straight face, tell his student athletes not to do certain things, because they can always stick it back in his face. I’m all for second chances, etc., when warranted – I’m just not sure about this one for some reason. I think I would feel differently if it were the pros and it was something comparable.