It's all about double standards
By: Richard Linde, Updated 4 May 2003

It’s rather hard to believe Mike Price’s public behavior took an untoward turn on the road to Alabama. After all, he wasn’t locked in a closet in Pullman. There were plenty of recruiting trips, road games and celebrity golf tournaments to attend, plenty of chances to go wrong, all of it playing out on a stage with members of the media in attendance.

It’s even harder to believe that members of the local media, who have been so critical of Rick Neuheisel’s character, didn’t previously know about Price dalliances should they have occurred—didn’t know that he may have been a hard drinker and womanizer, as some in the media have alleged.

Alabama's investigation may have been expanded to include accusations that Price bought drinks for students, according to news sources.

In the main, Price lost his job because of his conduct at a pro-am golf tournament held in Florida last month. He spent hundreds of dollars at a topless bar in Florida the night before a young woman in his hotel room tried to charge more than $1,000 in food and drinks to his bill. 

At the nightclub, Price bought a dancer several drinks and had three private dances in the back area of the club; he spent $200 on the dancer, but nothing happened beyond dancing, according to the dancer. In all, Price spent several hundred dollars in cash at the club buying and tipping all the girls.

Was this a one time occurrence? 

According to the Mobile Register, Alabama athletic director Mal Moore's background checks on Price may or may not have turned up reports that he enjoyed wine and the occasional night on the town. "But soon after he arrived in Tuscaloosa, recent reports indicate, his public conduct became a point of concern for UA officials," that newspaper says.

In the past, the national media have satiated us with double standards—especially with respect to public figures whose extra-marital affairs were well-known to them but hidden from the public because of the media’s myopic, narrow viewpoint.

Internet rumors about Price's behavior at the time of the Emerald Coast Classic golf tournament sparked stories on talk radio and motivated reporters in the print media to do some sleuthing. In the past, the Internet has salvaged more than one of the mainstream media's spiked stories from the bit bucket: Error 404, File Not Found.

"People talked. And Price wasn't used to that," says the Mobile Register.

Since Rick Neuheisel’s arrival at Washington in January of 1999, the Seattle media have done a character assassination on him, spinning his minor recruiting gaffs into major scandals. Their paintings of Neuheisel dressed in devil's clothing juxtaposed with their images of Price outfitted in saintly garb could have set a new standard for double standards.

Rick Neuheisel’s character watch by the local media—many of them members of the File-not-Found club—may have taken a sudden turn towards hypocrisy.

The 404 club, as we call it, ruined Don James' career at Washington, using questionable witnesses to denigrate his program. For them, Mike Price was another matter, and deifying him was their way of sticking it to Husky fans.

"His (Price's) mistake has severely hurt our university and will continue to hurt our university for years to come," University President Robert Witt said in preface to the firing. These harsh words, coming from the UA president, also reflect negatively on Washington State University, come to think about it.

Evidently, Price was given that second chance, according to Witt, who said that Price was warned about his public behavior before the golfing trip. Price had agreed to a seven-year contract worth $10 million to coach the Crimson Tide, but the contract had not been signed.

As the media launched Neuheisel's minor recruiting gaffs into an ever-spinning orbit, their failure, ironically, to keep tabs on Price may have knocked his career off the launch pad at Alabama.