1 / 3

Farmington High girls basketball coach Van Price huddles with his team during Friday night's game against Box Elder on Friday, Jan. 10, 2020, at Farmington High School.

BEN DORGER, Standard-Examiner

2 / 3

Layton head coach Van Price guides his team as they play Copper Hills during the UHSAA 6A Girls State Basketball Tournament on Feb. 22, 2018, at Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville. Price is leaving Layton after 30 years to be Farmington High's first head coach.

MATT HERP/Standard-Examiner

3 / 3

Farmington High girls basketball coach Van Price coaches from the sidelines during Friday night's game against Box Elder on Friday, Jan. 10, 2020, at Farmington High School.

BEN DORGER, Standard-Examiner

❮ ❯

Dale Price often told his son Van, even from a young age, to pursue a career in business over Dale’s chosen profession of teaching and coaching basketball.

A few weeks after announcing his retirement from 37 years of coaching high school basketball in Davis County, Van could only laugh at the irony of his father’s advice.

“He always told me not to do it. ‘Don’t go into education, you don’t get paid enough. You’ll like coaching but it just doesn’t pay anything, so don’t do it,'” Van Price said.

Price taught at Layton High and was head coach of the Lancers’ girls basketball team for 30 years, with a two-year stint as a boys assistant mixed in. He then helped launch the program at Farmington High School as its first girls head coach, where he led the Phoenix for five years until hanging it up last month.

Price retires as Utah’s all-time girls basketball coaching wins leader at 550, a number he reached when the Phoenix defeated West Jordan in the first round of the 6A playoffs in February. He and the late, longtime Ogden High coach Phil Russell are the only two girls basketball coaches in state history to reach the 500-win mark.

Price’s teams at both schools were successful. Layton won 10 region championships, two state championships and finished as state runner-up two times. Farmington won two region titles and was the 2021 5A state runner-up.

Price retired from teaching at the end of the 2021-22 school year. His wife, Jill, is retiring at the end of this school year, he said.

“I’m really going to miss when tryouts are over and you have your team, and you start going to work for your season. I’ll miss that. I know when that time comes, I’ll kind of wish I was out there, but all the stuff leading to that I think is hard for an old guy like me,” Price said.

The nearly four-decade coaching and teaching career may have happened somewhere else if not for a timely job offer.

After graduating from BYU in 1986 with a degree in physical education, health and coaching, Price worked for his wife’s family’s roofing company. He had submitted some job applications for teaching jobs, including one at Layton High.

A couple weeks before the 1986-87 school year started and while he was on a job in California, Price hadn’t had any luck and was planning on teaching early morning seminary somewhere.

Layton High called and offered Price a job teaching Spanish, coaching girls basketball, helping out with track and field and also coaching cross country, “which had already started,” Price said. He accepted.

Layton’s girls basketball team beat Mountain Crest in Price’s first game and missed the playoffs that season, but they slowly got better. In 1991-92, LHS went 21-3 and won the region championship, starting a streak of three straight region titles.

The Lancers couldn’t quite break through at the state tournament amid a time when Mountain View and Bingham ran the show.

Layton won region championships in 2002 and 2003, fell short at state, then finished second in the region in 2004 in part because two of its top players got in a car accident and went to the hospital.

But the Lancers went to the state title game in 2004 anyway, losing to Brighton on the last possession. One of the players, Danielle Wright (neé McDonald), promised Price a state championship the next season.

Lo and behold, the ’05 team went 24-0 and beat Bingham by 11 in the 5A title game. Price coached his daughter, Nikki, on that team.

Afterward, he left the head coach job to be an assistant coach for the boys team for two seasons and coach his son, Vandes, then came back to coach the girls program after his son graduated.

Layton had another region-title streak with three straight from 2014-16, culminating in another unbeaten state title in 2016, led by center Hailey Shaw (neé Bassett), who went on to play at Utah State.

“The two state titles I have in my career, we went undefeated in both of them. I don’t know why that is, just great talent and put it all together and we took it one game at a time, and it worked out for us,” Price said.

Price took the Farmington job in 2018 when the school opened. The Phoenix won Region 5 titles in 2020 and 2021, and lost an agonizing 5A championship game in ’21 when Springville made a game-winning layup a few seconds after Farmington’s Abigail Ferrell made a go-ahead runner that appeared to seal the game.

Initially, Price was going to retire from coaching then but opted to stay two more years because Jill still had two more years left before retirement.

Price said he had two main coaching influences growing up in Driggs, Idaho: his high school coach, Lester Wade, and his father, Dale.

Dale Price was a coach and Van would always hear from community members about what a great coach Dale was. By the time Van got to elementary school, Dale had retired from teaching and started farming.

The first time Price coached a Layton team to a consolation championship, a game played at Murray High in 1989, the shop teacher from LHS came down on the floor, lifted Price on his shoulders and paraded him around.

“And this shop teacher from Layton’s carrying me around on the floor, and I’m kind of embarrassed and I come around and my dad’s on the floor right there with my mom and he’s just bawling, he was so proud,” Price said.

Price’s high school coach, Lester Wade, was a mild-mannered and well-respected coach at Teton High School. Wade’s teams set a state record for consecutive wins with 75 victories between 1975-78. Price went to THS from ’74-’77 and was a part of three straight state title-winning teams.

“I’m really grateful for them because going 37 years, most coaches don’t last near that long so it’s been a good career for me and I’ve really enjoyed every minute of it,” Price said.

He said he has a lot of gratitude for all the coaches who’ve been his assistant coaches over the years.

Retirement will bring Price the typical regimen of traveling, fishing, golfing and spending time with grandchildren. Come the basketball season, Price thinks he’ll check out a few games — but he’ll likely sit somewhere other than the bench.

Newsletter