SI details behavior that cost Price job

Deposed Alabama football coach Mike Price drank heavily and tried to pick up female students in Tuscaloosa, Ala., just weeks after arriving there for his new job, Sports Illustrated reported this week.

The alleged incident apparently was what motivated Alabama athletic director Mal Moore to first warn Price about his public behavior, long before the now well-publicized golf tournament in Pensacola, Fla., where he visited a strip club and reportedly spent the night with two women in his hotel room. A woman also charged $1,000 in room service to Price's hotel room the next morning.

Price, 57, had been chastised twice by Moore before the Pensacola golf tournament, the magazine asserts in this week's edition, quoting an unnamed source close to the athletic department who said the warnings were for spending time buying drinks for students and "generally serving as the life of the party in too many bars."

One student, who had been approached by Price at a restaurant bar near campus in Tuscaloosa, returned to her condo at 2:30 a.m. and found him "stumbling around" outside the building where he also had a condo, another student who was with her told the magazine.

"He tried to talk her into coming to his condo," the student said. "Everyone was kind of shocked."

Sports Illustrated also reported that Price propositioned two women in Pensacola, and that both wound up in his room at the same time. He had sex with both of them, according to one of the women, who was unnamed by the magazine. She refused to say whether Price paid to have sex.

Price told SI that he only visited the strip club once — after the tournament dinner — and he denied having sex with anyone or inviting anyone to his room. The magazine was unable to reach Price on Monday after it learned of the students' allegations that he had tried to get them to visit his condo in Tuscaloosa.

Sports Illustrated also detailed Price's visits to Arety's Angels, the strip club in Pensacola. Stripper Lori Boudreaux (identified as Destiny Stahl in earlier accounts) said she performed a table dance for Price and then he asked her to take him to the semiprivate area of the club.

"He got a little bad there," she told the magazine. "We have rules, and touching isn't allowed."

Boudreaux, 36, described as a mother of two who has worked in strip clubs for 15 years, said Price asked her to leave with him.

"He kept telling me he had a room at the hotel and he wanted to meet him there that night," she said. "He was definitely persistent. I told him my husband was coming to pick me up after work, which he did, by the way."

Price went to the golf-tournament dinner, then returned to the club. The magazine said he was sitting at the bar kissing and fondling a waitress until he was told to stop.

The magazine also said football fans at the bar recognized Price, who bought a drink for a couple that was celebrating a wedding anniversary. During his visits, SI said Price spent hundreds of dollars in the establishment.

Efforts by The Times to reach Price yesterday were unsuccessful.

Price's sons want to stay

Mike Price's two sons are willing to remain on the next coach's staff at Alabama, contrary to comments from the school's athletic director indicating they planned to leave, Aaron Price said.

Aaron Price, 32, is the Crimson Tide's receivers coach while brother Eric, 36, is offensive coordinator.

"I'm trying to get rehired," Aaron Price told The Birmingham News. "That's what all the coaches are trying to do. We've never said anything different.

"The players stood up for us, and we're going to stand up for them."

Eric Price declined to talk about his father's firing.

"There's no need to talk about Saturday's decision. It was made," he said. "Mike Price's ties have been cut with Alabama, and that's over."

Moore had said Monday that Aaron and Eric Price had both told him they planned to leave.