Price fights back from knee injury

One damn scrimmage. A meaningless, worthless game. A wet field, but familiar. Know the surface, know the cuts and bends, where the field gives. The statistics will tell you Yale running back Keith Price has rushed for 431 yards on 97 carries in six games so far this season. Statistics will also tell you the fifth-year senior has rushed for seven touchdowns, and stands in the top 10 in rushing in the Ivy League -- a respectable season so far. Two years ago, the stats said Price ran for 1,141 yards on 245 attempts, becoming just the sixth player in school history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season. But last year, the stats tell you Price ran for no yards, never even carried the ball. Another run. Being tackled, the grass gets closer -- a gain of a couple of yards. Out of nowhere, someone tumbles -- a shadow, and then a snap. What looked to be a promising senior campaign last year for an economics major from Southern California turned into a frustrating, grinding experience. "It wasn't on a hit," Price said. "Someone landed on me after a play and it buckled." It turned out to be his knee. Price, who after his 1,100-yard performance in his junior year, would have to spend months in rehabilitation after tearing not one, but three ligaments in his knee. It should have been over for Price, but it wasn't. "The doctor's weren't too optimistic that I would ever play football again, much less walk without a hitch," Price said. "But I didn't want to finish my career like that. I want to say I gave it all I had." Laying on the field, can see the cold, gray skies, then the stretcher. A damn scrimmage. From a rainy Saturday in September, Price went through grueling rehabilitation. At first, the therapists made Price bend his legs, which to him was the most painful. He did not go back to running for another four months, but spent the winter in the weightroom and watched his team go through a frustrating 3-7 season. "That season was pretty nasty," Price said. "Watching the team losing was tough, but mentally, the worst part was worrying about if I could play, or even run again." Price began his running days at Grossmont High in El Cajon, Calif. He never played football before high school due to his mother's worries that it might stunt his growth. But at Grossmont, he started playing wide receiver before he was eventually converted to running back. "Looking back, I'm glad I did not start playing football earlier," Price said. "As a kid, I played baseball and I was burnt out. But with football, I still have a great love for the game." The 6-foot-3, 213-pound back successfully went through his rehab programs and the doctors gave him the nod to return to the football field, an idea that seemed preposterous some eight months earlier. And against Brown in the opener, more than a year after that painful play, Price was running. "It felt great," Price said about the first time he carried the ball after his injury. "I was a little nervous, but it felt great. People were glad to see that I didn't quit." So Price is once again a staple of a Yale Elis backfield. Although he is not used as much as he once was, he feels like he is a better back today than in 1992. "The team this year has different weapons, and even though I don't get the ball as much as two seasons ago, I feel like I've improved," he said. Keith Price came back to finish a career. The statistics tell you he is not repeating the same type of numbers from 1992. But statistics are only part of the story. The will to return and desire to walk out of the Yale Bowl after the Elis' final home game against Princeton make this year's 431 yards seem as if they were each a touchdown. And while Price should have finished his career in 1993, something inside of him kept the back from giving it all up. One damn scrimmage.