JUMPING FOR JOY AGAIN : Basketball Burdens of February Behind, Jerome Price Is Going to Any Lengths in Track

A strong wind blows to the east at the University City High School track. Jerome Price is enjoying the predicament of his friend and teammate, Anthony Hill, who is attempting to spray white paint on a rather weathered long jump board.

Hill sprays. The paint blows away. Price smiles.

“Turn around,” Price suggests.

“Turn around?” says Hill with a how-could-you-be-so-silly? tone in his voice. “That’s downwind, stupid. It’ll get all over me.”

Soon after, Price grabs the spray can and announces he is going to paint Hill’s shoes, make them look new.

“I don’t have socks on,” Hill says. “If you get paint on my toes, I’m going to hurt you.”

Fun and games. Life is a kick again for Jerome Price. A barrel of chuckles and a heaping spoonful of jokes. That’s the way it has usually been for Price, who has had a full year’s worth of success in basketball and track. He has set a few standards, including the best long jump mark in the state this year of 24-feet-4 3/4 at the Arcadia Invitational April 11. He won the county’s slam dunk contest. And he flirts with lots of pretty girls.

So February is all but forgotten. That was the month Price was removed from his carefree life as a high school junior. To Price, the shortest month seemed endless.

Price, 17, was caught in the middle of an adult game in the courts that interfered with his favorite game on the courts.

He was declared ineligible for high school basketball by Kendall Webb, San Diego Section commissioner, for participating in the Gus Macker three-on-three tournament at the end of January. Days later, urged by community boosters and his coaches, Price, the team’s leading scorer, challenged the ruling in court and eventually won a victory of sorts when a temporary restraining order was granted against the California Interscholastic Federation.

He was thus allowed to return to the University City team, but neither it nor Price was ever quite the same. The day he was ruled ineligible was firmly stamped in the memories of nearly everyone on campus. The principal, Mary McNaughton, was in tears when she broke the news to Tom Medigovich, the boys’ basketball coach. McNaughton, Medigovich said, has always been extremely supportive of Price’s athletic career. She even bought him a dress shirt he could wear with his tie, a tradition at University City on game days.

The jaws of Price’s 12 teammates dropped to the floor when Medigovich told them Price could no longer play. Their spirit dropped at the same time. Without the heart of the offense, University City lost to Clairemont that night.

Price’s reaction? Suddenly things were complicated, not fun. He didn’t understand. Nobody made him aware of the rule. His friend and basketball teammate, Darnes Taylor, who says he is like an older brother to Price, met him after school that day. Price looked at him and started crying.

“That was the first time I’ve seen him take something seriously,” Taylor said.

Maybe because this was the first time he needed to be really serious. Basketball and sports in general had always been simple enough; smooth, the way Price glides through the air to the basket. Laughs, even during the game, were frequent.

But this was something new. Unlike basketball or school, Price had no control over the outcome. It was left up to an attorney and a judge who, while Price was in class, determined whether he would play another basketball game that season.

Price lives with his grandmother, Myrtle Johnson. She says there were coaches who were calling Price a crybaby for challenging the system. The same coaches, she says, urged him to attend their school to play basketball.

During games before the Valentine’s Day hearing, Price waited and watched from the stands. He could clearly see his teammates had lost their confidence.

“It seemed like it was over for them,” Price said. “They didn’t want to push anymore.”

When Price returned, he wasn’t the same.

“Since I sat out those games, my shot was off,” he said. “I was forcing it.”

University City was eliminated from the first round of the section playoffs by Grossmont. Price has no doubt the season’s end would have been sweeter if not for his suspension.

“We would have done a lot better,” he said.

The weeks since basketball season, and Price’s continually improving long jump, have helped ease some of the sour memories of a month he would just as soon forget. Price talks of jumping even farther, though his mark at Arcadia already topped his previous best (23-6) by nearly a foot. He plans to try out for football next season. That, of course, is pending approval from his grandmother, who doesn’t want to see him get hurt. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’m protective.”

With good reason. Price is as good an all-around athlete as can be found in San Diego. Colleges are drooling over his potential in track. Minnesota, Nevada Reno and Kansas have sent letters.

Price’s staples are the long jump, high jump, 400 relay and 1,600 relay. In the high jump, says University City track Coach Nick Ciaccio, Price, who is 6-1, can clear 6-feet with barely a running start. Ciaccio’s biggest problem is the rule book, which states an athlete can only participate in four events.

“He’s one of those guys you’d like to put in six or seven,” Ciaccio says.

None of Price’s athletic accomplishments are the least bit surprising. Ask Anthony Hill, the painter. He says he used to be the fastest kid at Kennedy Elementary School. Then Price came in sixth grade and beat him in the 50-yard dash while wearing penny loafers. Teammates are continually amazed at what Price can do on the basketball court. Hill played in a recent three-on-three tournament and said Price consistently outrebounded a player who was 6-7.

Taylor likes to recall University City’s victory over Mission Bay. Price told him just before the tipoff at the beginning of overtime that he was going to fly.

“We got the tip,” Taylor says, “and he flew.”

Price scored eight consecutive points. Taylor was situated underneath the basket on one play when Price went flying past, far overhead, for a crunching dunk.

“I was standing there saying ‘Wow, I wish I could do that,’ ” Taylor says, looking toward the sky.

The dunks and the jumps have made Price somewhat of a campus hero. Everybody likes to be around him. There may be more to it than just admiration of his athletic talent. Those who hang out with him say he’s fun to be around. His grandmother says the house is very quiet until he comes home from school. Then, everybody is laughing.

Despite the attention, Price appears to have his priorities in order. John Hutsel, an assistant track coach at University City, says Price works as hard in school as he does on the track. Still, it is evident that while Price is taking on more and more adult responsibilities, he’d just as soon be a kid for a while longer.

“Face” is his nickname. Jerome, as Taylor says, just doesn’t sound right. Even his grandmother calls him “Face.” “We call him Jerome in public sometimes,” she says, laughing.

The origin of the nickname? It came about when he was a baby and his mom would sit him on the couch. Apparently, Jerome always fell on his face.

That hasn’t happened for a long time.