Reflections Magazine Issue #87 - Fall 2018 | Page 16

Athletics Feature
D
arius Price '18 was not thinking about a career
in the National Football League when he arrived at Siena
Heights University in the fall of 2013 as a lightly recruited
football student-athlete out of Saginaw (Mich.) High School.
In fact, he wasn’t sure he would ever make it on to the field
for the Saints.
“It was definitely a struggle,” said Price, who said the
college environment was at first overwhelming both on the
playing field and off. “I did not have the skill at the time to
even play on the field with my colleagues. It was frustrating.”
He said it was equally as frustrating in the classroom,
where he had to learn the basic study skills needed to com-
plete college-level coursework.
What Price did have, however, was work ethic and a
desire to improve. More than four years later, he made his
mark on the football field, in the classroom and with the
Siena community. With bachelor’s degree in hand, he is
currently attempting to become the first Saint in school his-
tory to make a roster of any of the major professional sports.
Price has drawn interest from the NFL, and his goal is to
earn a roster spot this fall.
“My mindset going forward is just to give it all I’ve got,”
he said. “I’ve prepared more than enough, and I’m still
preparing.”
Price, a four-time all-conference cornerback who was a
first team NAIA All-American and the Mid-States Football
Association Mideast Division Defensive Player of the Year
as a senior, started garnering NFL attention as a junior. Last
fall, a stream of NFL scouts visited the Siena Heights campus
to check out Price. During his senior season, he made 41
tackles, had nine pass breakups and recovered two fumbles.
After graduating in December with a business administra-
tion degree, he signed with an agent and began training full-
time in the Detroit area in preparation for the NFL Draft.
“It was definitely a grind,” said Price, a 6-foot-2,
225-pound defensive back said of his winter training regi-
men. “Going into (the draft), (NFL scouts) wanted to see
how fast I could run and also see how fluid I was able to
move. They had a lot of curiosity about what I could do.”
Focusing on improving his speed, Price sliced nearly
10 pounds off his already chiseled frame. It wasn’t easy.
“Being a defensive back, you think you have the size
and you have the weight,” he said. “I had to be a certain
weight. … I eat healthy, but I was on the strictest diet pos-
sible just to make weight to run faster.”
Although he wasn’t invited to the NFL Draft Combine,
he did get an invitation to work out at the University of
Michigan’s Pro Day on March 23. With scouts from every
NFL team in attendance, the numbers he posted were im-
pressive: 4.48 seconds in the 40-yard dash, a 36-inch vertical
jump and 21 repetitions at 225 pounds on the bench press.
16 | Reflections Fall ’18
Darius Price Attempts to
Make the Jump from Siena
Heights to the NFL
By Doug Goodnough
All those measurables would have put him in the top tier of
defensive backs at the Combine.
“It was definitely a great moment,” Price said of his Pro
Day performance. “I was really impressed with my numbers.
All the numbers I saw in my Pro Day I did not see during my
training. I was excited and surprised.”
That gave him hope his name would be called in April’s
NFL Draft. It wasn’t. But he did get a call – a few of them,
actually – soon after the draft finished. Several teams invited
him to attend their rookie camp, which was a tryout to earn
a spot to a team’s training camp in July. He decided to sign
with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he competed from
May 10-13. He was not signed to a training camp deal after
that camp, but that is not deterring Price from his NFL goals.