FATHERS OF THE PRIDE

Grumpy Old Dads, on the telephone, first thing Thursday morning.

“Nice game by Toby last night against USC, real good shooting,” Rick Price says to John Bailey.

“Why, thanks,” John Bailey says.

“That means he’s all shot out. Through for the month. Your boy will be easy pickings for my boy on Sunday.”

“There you go again, running your mouth.”

“UCLA doesn’t have a chance against Duke, and you know it.”

“Hey, Coach Rick?”

“Yeah, Coach John?”

“At least my boy is starting.”

Click.

Click.

The conversation began at a youth basketball clinic 15 years ago and has continued unimpeded since.

Fifteen years of back and forth, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, finger pointing and rib nudging, two Los Angeles fathers throwing out their chests over their rival sons.

Sunday morning, the talk reaches its heated pitch when UCLA plays host to Duke at Pauley Pavilion.

Should be a pretty good game. But more fun will be the sight of one grumpy old dad trying to drive the other one over the edge.

In one corner will stand John Bailey of Ladera Heights, father of UCLA guard Toby Bailey, author of 24 points against USC on Wednesday night.

In the same corner--how can you properly insult a man from across the court?--will stand Rick Price of Carson, father of Duke forward Ricky Price, a star slowed this year by injury.

They will stand near the UCLA bench in the first half, move to near the Duke bench in the second, trade rips and boasts and challenges throughout.

Am not, Rick Price will say.

Am too, John Bailey will say.

They will not talk directly about the other’s son.

But, as it has been since they met at their sons’ basketball clinic 15 years ago, anything else goes.

Grumpy Old Dads, on satellite TV.

“I have the big dish, you know,” Rick Price says. “John used to always call me, beg me to tape his son’s game. I’d say, ‘You have two boys on basketball scholarship, quit being so cheap and buy your own satellite.’ ”

“I’m cheap?” John Bailey says. “Did he tell you I have DirecTV now? Did he tell you that I’m taping his son’s games now?”

“Maybe one or two,” Rick says.

“One or two?” John says. “He paged me the other day at work, left the number 911, man’s crazy, I had to call him back, he wanted me to go home and set up my VCR for him for a Duke game.”

“How hard was that?” Rick says. “I stopped by the house, he left the tape under the welcome mat, he wasn’t there, I picked it up, took it home, watched my boy play.”

“Just as long as he knows I’m doing the taping now,” John says.

“Did you know Toby got his hops from his mom?” Rick says.

“He’s nuts,” John says.

John Bailey, 48, is a parole agent. Rick Price, 44, is an account manager for the gas company. Their lives are as different as the schools attended by their sons.

Yet, as their boys followed similar routes in their Southland basketball development, the men shared rides, burgers, recruiting stories.

Once their sons left home for college, they turned and found each other. They can’t call the head coach constantly about their sons anymore, so they call each other. They can’t holler at a referee twice a week anymore, so they holler at each other.

They have memorized each other’s cell phone and pager numbers, and sleeping hours. And, yes, each other’s number is on the speed dial.

“Seems like they talk 50 times a day to me,” Toby Bailey says.

“On the outside looking in at our dad, it’s real funny,” Ricky Price says.

Rick Price even called John Bailey at 4:30 a.m. once when he thought he was scooping him on the Jim Harrick firing.

“He wasn’t scooping me on anything,” John Bailey says. “My son told me, I just couldn’t tell anybody. He never scooped me in his life.”

“Beat him on his own coach,” Rick Price contends.

Sometimes, they calm each other down. Occasionally, they cheer each other up.

But mostly, they rip.

“My son goes to a better school than his son, and I’m better looking than he is, so that’s a problem,” Rick Price says.

“Listen, he’s no day at the beach,” John Bailey says. “I just keep him around to humor me. The guy is like a puppy.”

They call each other “Coach,” something that would make their sons’ real coaches laugh, because both fathers have been known to be overbearing.

“He is the most overbearing father between the two of us,” Rick Price says. “Ask him about the time he would make his two sons play against each other in his driveway in the dark. Wouldn’t even invest in a light.”

“No question, he’s worse,” John Bailey says. “I don’t know how many coaches he went through in high school [Long Beach St. Anthony and Gardena Serra]. He would say Ricky had a bad game, then next thing I know his coach is gone.”

Toby Bailey, who went to Loyola High, laughs.

“Each of the sons would say that his father was the worst,” he says. “Let’s just say they are both very caring.”

They are both actually coaches, for a summer league college-level team called “J.B.’s Nuggets,” usually featuring their sons.

Grumpy Old Dads, on coaching.

“The team is named after him, and he’s the head coach, but I’m the general manager,” Rick Price says. “I can fire him, and I have fired him, many times. He’s just never listened.”

“He’s fired me?” John Bailey says. “He knows absolutely nothing about coaching.”

“At least I know about timeouts,” Rick Price says. “He once blew all of our timeouts in the first 95 seconds.”

“He’s crazy,” John Bailey says. “He doesn’t even know how to call a timeout.”

“Ask him about the time I saved him from a manslaughter charge, stopped him while he charged the referee,” Rick Price says.

“He’s got me on that one,” John Bailey says.

Their sons are 1-1 against each other in college, guarding each other both times, although that is not expected Sunday.

“This is still the rubber match, the big one,” Rick Price says.

If UCLA wins, Bailey might expect to receive a call next week from an NCAA investigator.

“It will be Coach Rick, another crank call, happens all the time,” John says.

If Duke wins, Price will hear from a similar investigator.

“Somebody will accuse me of having bought Ricky a new car,” Rick Price says. “It’ll just be John.”

No matter what happens, the two men will not try to settle their differences on the basketball court. There is no way they are playing one-on-one.

“We’re never playing basketball again, not after I destroyed him some years ago,” Rick Price says. “I bombed 25-footers against him in his front yard, off a grassy knoll.”

“He said he did what?” John Bailey says. “Coach Rick is a total nerd. He never beat me. I was all over him. I can’t jump, but I can move.”

“Ask him about a grassy knoll,” Rick Price says. “He won’t even mention John F. Kennedy. He’ll mention me.”

“That poor, poor man,” John Bailey says.