Ticket taker is legend at Jazz games

When the Utah Jazz return to their home arena Thursday night, the most beloved person in the building will be a tiny man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and dual hearing aids who moves slower than Congress.

David Robinson and Pat Ewing used to visit him every time they were in the building. Charles Barkley hugged him. Thurl Bailey gives him a kiss on his bald head at every home game. Coaches, players, team execs, season-ticket holders all go out of their way to chat him up and pump the little man's hand. He calls them all his friends. And the ladies? Let's just say that this guy has collected more hugs than Bert Parks and Richard Dawson combined.

Just one question: Is this a game or a reception?

Wally Price has been taking tickets and warming hearts for 26 years, manning his post at the end of the hall where players, coaches, referees, execs and some lower-bowl ticket holders make their entrance. They have come and gone over the years; Wally is still there. He was there when Jordan sank the shot. He was there when rookies named Karl Malone and John Stockton showed up for their first days of work. He was there when they played their final games.

He has been there for some 1,400 games.

And he's hardly seen any of them.

Oh, he might step into the arena for a couple of minutes in the fourth quarter, but that's it. The rest of the time he views a sliver of the court through a tiny aperture at the other end of a long hallway, the players flashing by occasionally. "I can tell how the game goes by the noise," he says.

Wally is 91 years old. He still drives to work. He was a mailman for 33 years, 26 of it on foot. He retired, but his pension wasn't enough to live on, so he took a part-time job at the Salt Palace as a Jazz usher. When the Jazz built the Delta Center, he moved with the team, although that's not how team owner Larry Miller sees it.

"He was standing here, and they built the building around him," the team owner likes to say.

Officially, Wally is an usher/ticket checker, but really he is the team greeter. He's as reliable as Stockton. He's missed maybe four games in 26 years.

"It keeps me alive," says Wally, who took his first job bagging groceries when he was 12 and has been working ever since. "If I didn't do this, I'd be dead."

On game nights, he arrives at the arena two hours before tip-off and reports immediately to the Jazz locker room to visit the troops (years ago Jazz players would seek him out if they missed his visit, as if he were a good-luck charm). Then he grabs a Coke and walks slowly to his station, which is known as Wally's Wall.

"He's an icon here," says Dwayne Green, another Jazz usher.