CALL IT THE PRICE OF SUCCESS.

Byline: Patrick Hipes Daily News Staff Writer

In 1992, a man wrote some rules to a game and wanted to see if they would work. He thought the game would be fun, and maybe it might catch on.

Not too soon after, on a pristine field with naive but willing participants cloaked in shadows of the dying day, the rules were tested and a new game was born.

So Chuck Price went ahead and created what is now NFL Air-It-Out. The grassroots, four-on-four flag football tournament has become a nationwide event that attracted 55,980 participants in 1997.

In the first year, what was known as NFL Draw Play drew 225 teams to Pierce College. This year's competition, now part of a 28-city tour, makes its annual L.A. stop beginning Saturday at Encino's Balboa Park with 573 teams - a far cry from the handful of University High students who Price recruited on that day five years ago.

``The thing that is so overwhelming is that it started out like that, and now it's in nearly every NFL city,'' said Price, a 33-year-old son of a football coach and a Cal State Northridge graduate. ``But I knew that once people saw it, they'd love it. I knew the guys would love it.''

He was right.

Since the NFL and Dallas marketing firm Streetball Partners International first approached Price, a former Lakers intern who had helped promote the NBA's successful Hoop-It-Up campaign in the region, participation and attendance figures in the event have skyrocketed.

The initial idea was simple. A non-contact football game in which anybody could participate, surrounded by the NFL hype and Nike for that dash of legitimacy.

``This is about the only commitment you can expect for an average guy - one weekend,'' said Price, who fretted through a debut year in 1993 when his car was stolen three days before, his wife was overdue with their first child and high winds nearly canceled the event.

Logistics aside, the makeup of the event has changed considerably. Teams this weekend will be coming from all corners of the United States to compete against local teams made up of armchair quarterbacks, high school players and couch potatoes alike. Some of the top squads have corporate sponsors and travel to numerous stops on the tour.

``We've been playing for a long time together,'' said Willie Chandler, a San Fernando High graduate who plays for Bang, a Top Gun Division team. ``But we don't have any sponsors. We're digging into our pockets because we just love doing it.''

In a way, love for the game was Price's motivation as well. His father, Ron, has been a high school and junior college football coach in the region for 34 years. As a boy, Chuck was a ballboy for his dad's team at Hamilton High when Warren Moon slung passes for the Yankees.

``I guess he kind of had it jammed down his throat since he was a little kid,'' said Ron, who came out of retirement two years and now coaches with Chuck and his oldest son, Steve, at Palisades High.

`It's something that he just gravitated to.''

It would explain why Chuck, working with the Lakers during championship years in 1987 and 1988, felt somewhat empty as he collected title rings, feeling more at home talking to the beat writers about local and pro football.

After leaving the Lakers, Price formed his own sports marketing firm, Fast Action Sports. He helped Magic Johnson with his local Hoop-It-Up program, later working with the NBA. Then Air-It-Out came along, and he could no longer stay away from the sport he loves.

Now he doesn't have to.

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Photo: Chuck Price's NFL Air-It-Out competition, which returns Saturday to Encino's Balboa Park with more than 570 teams, has become a 28-city, nationwide tour.

John McCoy / Daily News