LIVINGSTON: Fitch’s Price to leave mark at Ohio State

A tree grows in Columbus. Two, actually. Although, wait a minute, not quite yet. But soon to be planted, well tended and flourishing.

“Ooh yeah. I can’t wait to bring my little one [tree] — I don’t have one yet,” said Ohio State’s junior Billy Price, the Austintown Fitch High School graduate who is a first-team All-American guard as selected by the American Football Coaches Association and thus eligible for a commemorative tree to be planted in Buckeye Grove, south of the Horseshoe, in his name.

“I want to see a picture of it right now,” said Price’s father.

“‘Dad, it’s in the middle of winter. I’m not planting trees right now,’” said Price, whose tree will stand next to that of fifth-year senior Pat Elflein, named this season as the Rimington Award winner as the best center in college football.

Sometimes, DVR’d games and YouTube highlights aren’t enough. People need something they can hold, preserve, stick to a refrigerator door with a magnet maybe, just as the memory of it sticks in their heads.

The Plain Dealer, for example, printed and sold 300,000 copies of the June 20 paper this year, the one with the coverage of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ seventh game victory over the Golden State Warriors to break the 52-year championship drought in Cleveland. Those copies will probably be passed on like family heirlooms, father to son or daughter.

Offensive linemen share a comparative anonymity. Orlando Pace, the tackle who started as a true freshman in the mid-1990s and is now a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is, said Price, “the only one who came in and just annihilated people [from the start].”

Both the more heralded Elflein, who switched from guard to center this season, and Price, a former defensive tackle who shifted sides of the ball as well as positions, have worked to put their names on the stand of trees that began with Chic Harley in the World War I era and extends to them.

The flash of Price’s All-America award can’t hide his essential humanity.

Even now, Price cannot hide his admiration for Elflein.

“His story behind how he played and how he got introduced to playing at Ohio State was not a traditional role,” said Price. “You go 11 games, you’re playing mop-up time, second team, all kind of this, that and the other and you’re preparing all year. Then there’s [a fight] that happens in the 12th [Michigan] game and all of sudden, ‘Hey man, Pat, you got to go in.’

“He took that role on and he absolutely just dominated. He played and dominated next to the other great linemen Jack Mewhort, Corey Linsely, Taylor Decker.”

Nor can the flash of his honor hide Price’s essential humility.

“I can say, ‘I was in that Big Ten Championship Game, I was in that Sugar Bowl game, I was in that Fiesta Bowl game, I was in that national championship game and I played next to those guys,” Price said. “We have an All-American wall in the Woody [Woody Hayes Athletic Center], and my mug shot is going to go sitting right there next to all these ridiculous athletes that have come through this place. To be able to say that I was a part of that group, it’s very, very humbling.”

There is a saying that some people can’t see the forest for the trees. They miss the big picture because they are absorbed in the small details.

Billy Price gets it.

His face is part of the big picture. His tree is part of the forest.

Bill Livingston is a columnist with The Plain Dealer. Email him at blivingston@plaind.com.