'He keeps me going': How Jadarian Price overcame mom's cancer, tough times to reach Notre Dame

Jadarian Price was summoned to the Denison (Texas) High School library one day early in his time as a student there. He wasn’t in trouble. Now a sophomore running back at Notre Dame, Price hardly ever was. Hardly ever is. He simply had somebody waiting for him.

Somebody, but not just anybody. Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy.

Denison is just a few miles from the Red River. It’s about as far north in Texas as you can go before reaching Oklahoma. Stillwater sits three hours north, closer to Price’s hometown than Texas Tech, Texas A&M or the University of Texas. Gundy, OSU’s head coach since 2005, is a big deal around those Big 12 parts.

But not a big enough deal for Price to step out of his usual routine. Not a big enough deal for Price to be anybody other than himself, an “amazing” person per his mother and “a man of character” according coaches and Rotarians in Denison who have been a part of the community for several years.

A collection of 60 students and faculty members beat Price to the library to get a glimpse of Gundy. When Price entered, the room erupted. Before getting to Gundy, Price gave the school’s librarian a greeting and a hug. He walked well out of his way to get to her.

The extra steps were well worth it to Price. They always were. Every day.

“Good morning Mrs. Rogers, how are you?” He couldn’t receive the recruiting treatment from Gundy and his guys until that was all said and done. It wasn’t an upstaging of one of the most successful Power Five head coaches of the last two decades, either.

It was just Price being Price.

“He was showing who he is,” said Chad Rogers, the librarian’s husband and Denison’s head football coach at the time. “It’s not about him. And he understands that.”

One doesn’t have that level of humanitarianism at such a young age without life-changing experiences. Price has plenty of them.

Putting others first

Realization of selflessness as a necessary virtue came quickly for Price.

His mother, Jessica Butler, was diagnosed with breast cancer when Price was 12. That’s the same age he first got to know his father. He grew up in a single parent household with Butler taking care of him and younger sisters Kzaria Butler, 17, and Lyricah Coleman, 13.

“They’re my rock,” Price said. “I’ve seen how strong women can be, and that’s affected the way I treat women. I’m really big on that — treating women right.”

Butler had Price when she was 17. It didn’t work out with Price’s father, so he was never around until the diagnosis. At that time, Price’s father, grandfather, grandmother and even his uncle entered the picture to help take care of the kids during Butler’s 16 rounds of chemotherapy.

It was all hands on deck.

Children aren’t always receptive to change when there are foreign sets of eyes looking after them. Sudden alteration is often too much to process. For Butler, the modifications were a result of a life or death matter. That was way too much of a burden to place on a trio of children ranging ages 6 through 12.

So she didn’t tell them why their worlds had been turned upside down.

“I was devastated,” Butler told Blue & Gold Illustrated. “I didn’t want them to worry and I didn’t know what was going to happen. At that moment, I tried to teach them everything I could think of because I didn’t know if I was going to live or die.

“I was just thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to die.’ What I had to do, in my mind, I had to be strong enough to not worry and not let them see I was sick. I didn’t let them see when I was down.”

Price was the only one old enough to get a sense of the situation. He saw enough grade school programs pushing support for breast cancer survivors to know his mom would either be among them or remembered as a fighter who ultimately died because of the disease.

Price got through the toughest days of his mom’s life via two outlets: taking care of his sisters and playing football.

“He was my main supporter for the simple fact that he helped me with the girls,” Butler said. “He had to babysit a lot. And cook. And I think he took all of his emotions out on sports. He was always there and I was always there with him. That’s what got it off his mind.”

It got it off Butler’s mind, too. She doesn’t know if she’d have ever rang the bell signaling a cancer-free road ahead on Nov. 6, 2017, without watching Price play football. She put on a brave face for the kids for all the way up til then. Their faces when they excelled in sports, meanwhile, were the difference.

“It made us stronger once I got sick,” she said. “It made the memories we made much more special.”

‘He’s loved’

Nov. 6, 2017 led directly to Aug. 26, 2023.

The former was when it became reality Butler would be able to watch Price play football for many years to come. The latter is when Price scored his first college touchdown for Notre Dame on his first career carry. Butler watched her son scamper into the end zone from 19 yards out from her home — Price’s forever home — in Denison.

“Oh my gosh, I was beside myself,” Butler said. “It seemed like the spirit came over me. I just screamed. I was so proud. I was so excited for him because he has been through so much.”

Butler is glad “so much” is where it stopped for Price. It could have been so much more.

It could have been the end.

Two of Butler’s brothers were murdered, one at the age of 14 and the other at 21. According to NeighborhoodScout.com, Denison has a “considerably higher” crime rate than the national average. CrimeGrade.org states 65 percent of the cities in the United States are safer than Denison. Those are the streets Price pranced around all his life.

The single mother she was, Butler was understandably overprotective of Price. She taught him right from wrong. So did Coach Rogers. Price wouldn’t have made it from a single-parent home with a murderous familial background to a prestigious institution like Notre Dame if that single parent wasn’t everything she needed to be, and then some, and if the coaches he leaned on weren’t everything he needed exactly when he needed it.

“His mom did a great job raising him,” Rogers said. “He’s loved. He’s had more stuff thrown at him than most kids his age and he still continues to be who he is and care for people.”

For 22 years as a head coach, Rogers has held regular character development talks with his student-athletes. He was in one moments before he took a call from Blue & Gold Illustrated on Aug. 31.

Price always gravitated toward those sessions. He could have gone down a turbulent path when things didn’t feel right at home. Instead, Price was invigorated by the light in others. He makes a more concerted effort to look for it than the average person. He tends to bring it out of them better than most can, too.

Rogers was asked when Price was a sophomore if he felt he could handle being recruited by a school like Notre Dame. Rogers responded, “This kid could handle being recruited by anybody.”

“How many stories are there about a kid who had all this talent but couldn’t make good choices, couldn’t have good habits? Those are the stories about how they go down a dark road when it’s looking right at them,” Rogers said. “He’s had all of that but he continues to take care of business.”

Rooting for each other

Rogers noticed two things about Price’s Week 0 touchdown for Notre Dame.

When he crossed the goal line, he did so with two hands over the football even though the nearest Navy defender was a step and a half behind him. That’s something Rogers taught at Denison and something Price still does years later at Notre Dame.

And when it was time to celebrate, Price first picked up the ball he accidentally dropped and handed it to the official. He didn’t then pretentiously point at the crowed or do a “me me me!” act. He turned around and waited for his offensive linemen to meet him in the end zone.

“When I scored, I didn’t know exactly what to do. I just knew to go celebrate with the linemen,” Price said. “They did their job. That’s the reason I scored.”

Price obeys orders and uplifts others. It’s what he does, who he is. When Rogers challenged him and his running mate to each score three touchdowns vs. Lake Dallas, Price exclaimed, “That’s three! That’s six!” when his teammate got his third. Price already had three. He was more moved when his total was matched than when he got it himself.

In a The Battle of the Ax game against Denison’s main rival, Sherman, Price nearly knocked Rogers over going wild when Denison’s third-string running back scored.

“That’s what makes this kid special,” Rogers said.

It’s hugging a librarian when a multi-millionaire college football head coach is waiting to see him. It’s cooking and cleaning for his mom when she’s in the hospital receiving chemo. It’s walking the straight and narrow in a town that makes it easy to veer left and right.

All of that makes Price battling back from an Achilles injury that held him out of the entire 2023 season and scoring a touchdown the first time he ever touched the ball in a Notre Dame uniform look like nothing at all. But it was everything to head coach Marcus Freeman.

“He put in tireless work,” Freeman said. “I’ve seen the behind-the-scenes work he put into rehab. Once you’re cleared, then it’s the confidence of being able to do it at a high level. It’s one thing doing at practice, but for him to do it in a game was extremely rewarding for me because I wanted it for him.”

Price has made himself quite a role model for his peers and even his elders. That includes Freeman. That includes his mom, a hospice care worker of 18 years who one day wishes to finish her degree and become a nurse.

“He keeps me going. He keeps me focused,” Butler said. “He makes me want to keep on continuing my education. Now it’s like, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ He wants me to go back. He’s rooting for me and I’m rooting for him.”