Lloyd Price is giving new meaning to the term player-coach.

The 21-year-old Price is a senior linebacker at California (Pa.) University. He also is the head coach for the California High School girls varsity basketball team.

While many college seniors are looking forward to a spring break trip to Florida or Mexico at this time of year, Price is working to get his California High girls team into undergraduate tournaments and summer leagues.

"I always wanted to get into coaching," said Price, who is an elementary education major with a 3.83 grade-point average.

Price has been on the dean's list six times and has been named to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference all-academic team twice.

"I was the assistant girls coach at Ringgold High School for three years and I was up for the head coaching job at Belle Vernon for this season, but didn't get it," he said. "When the California job opened up, I went after it and it was perfect for me with the two schools in the same town and so close."

His team's record was perfect, too - 0-23. He had only six players by the end of last season, but had 14 on a junior varsity that played a full schedule.

"We played only freshmen and sophomores on the junior varsity and they ended up at .500," he said. "The eighth grade team was 11-5, so we made some nice progress.

"The big thing is to keep the girls playing. In the past, they might not pick up a basketball from the end of February until the start of the next season. They just need to play more to gain experience and improve and that's what we're going to try and do," he said.

Price, a graduate of Ringgold High School, is doing his student teaching at Charleroi this semester. He will take graduate courses in the fall while he completes his football eligibility.

With his student teaching, weight lifting for football and coaching duties, Price doesn't have much free time. He is usually up at 5:15 a.m. since the weight training begins at 5:45 a.m.

Ultimately, Price wants to get into coaching football. He does plan on being with the California girls for at least another season.

"I'll be back with them next unless something unforeseen happens," he said. "We had only three seniors and should have some pretty good players returning. I want to see how we do after a summer of playing basketball."