It’s been a long wait for the fabled “Possum,” but Richard Price is finally set to join a legendary group of the most elite athletes in the state’s history.
The longtime Columbia resident will join seven of his former Ole Miss teammates when he is inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Aug. 3, which he said is a great honor and a thrill.
“I never thought I’d get in,” he said. “You don’t know why, but I did. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to because I didn’t expect it. It’s really been a treat to be in the same room with some of the great coaches I had and the great football players I played with and against.”
When the 80-year-old received the call that he was going to be inducted, he said jokingly, “Man, I thought y’all had forgotten me.”
The Vicksburg native earned second team All-America honors as a senior for the Rebels in 1960 and All-Southeastern Conference recognition in his final two seasons. As a left guard and linebacker, Price was a starter on two national championship teams, won two Sugar Bowls and helped guide Ole Miss to a 29-3-1 record in three years.
Price also holds the distinctive honor of being the first sophomore to ever start for legendary head coach Johnny Vaught. At that time freshmen didn’t play with the varsity, and there weren’t any players leaving school early for the NFL. A sophomore would have to be leaps and bounds more talented than an upperclassmen to even sniff the field, with coaches almost always opting for experience in that day and age.
But Price, although small at only 180 pounds, had great fundamentals and a highly competitive nature. His rise to being a starter was even more remarkable because he nearly flunked out of school his first semester, and his freshmen coach tried to run him off. And it was that same coach who gave Price his “Possum” nickname from his freshmen coach, who said he was like a possum because he stayed up all night and slept all day.
But Vaught even told Price he was not only the best linebacker he had ever coached but the best he had ever seen, and the rest became history.
But there’s one game that still haunts Price in his dreams to this day: The legendary Halloween matchup between No. 3 Ole Miss and No. 1 LSU in 1959. The Tigers won 7-3, with Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon’s 89-yard punt return with 10 minutes to play in the fourth quarter the deciding score.
As Price tells it, he had Cannon dead to rights as the first man down the field on the coverage team. That was until Cannon dropped his hands.
“I was looking at Billy, and he had his hands like this,” Price says as he holds his arms up like he’s about to field a punt at his kitchen table. “Then he dropped his hands. So what do you do? You let up. He let the ball bounce in front of him, but it bounced right to him. If I hadn’t let up, I would’ve knocked (him out).”
Cannon fielded the ball at the numbers and took off toward the sidelines until Price arrived. Cannon cut back toward the middle of the field, and Price lost his footing on the slick field and could only get his hands on him. Cannon got past Price, broke five more tackles and raced down the sideline for the long score.
“If there’s 30 seconds in my life that I could call back, it would be that 30 seconds,” Price says. “I was the best tackler on the team. Coach Vaught said after the game, ‘(Cannon) got by my best tackler,’ and it was destined for him to make it. But I still dream about it, and I can see Billy.”
Ole Miss established an award in Price’s honor in 1998, the Richard Price Courage and Compassion Award, which is given to the most outstanding senior offensive lineman who “has demonstrated extraordinary courage and unusual compassion in his dedication to his team and to Ole Miss,” according to a press release.
“This award captures the extraordinary character and substance of Richard Price,” former university Chancellor Robert C. Khayat said in the release. “He was a great football player. He is a man of courage, and a man of compassion.”
Incidentally the first rendition of the honor was awarded to current Rebels head coach Matt Luke. Price said Luke is a good guy, and he played with his father and uncle.
One of the things Price is most looking forward to is having his high school coach, Gene Allen, in the audience when he’s inducted, saying it would be a thrill and a blessing to have him there.
“Very few people my age can say anything about their high school coach, especially still living,” he said.
Price said he was a bit of a wild child until he met his wife, Leigh, who changed his life, and he had a reputation that kept him from getting a job. He eventually found work at a pharmaceutical company, but he said he wanted a better life than he could have with the business so he started his own insurance business.
He was told that he was crazy and that he wouldn’t succeed in the insurance business because he was an outsider in Columbia and there were four other established agencies already. In 1971 Price Insurance Agency began to take off. That was also the year he began coaching at Columbia Academy, where he stayed for about 30 years and took an annual salary of just $1.
He sold out of the business after 11 years and partnered with Orleans Furniture Company while also dealing in the oil field. Price is still active in the oil business and works over the phone.
Price has two daughters, Letta Lee and Paige, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Pictured Above: Richard “Possum” Price shows off his two national championship rings from 1959 and 1960 in his Columbia home. The Ole Miss legend is being inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Aug. 3 in Jackson. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
