Linebacker Allen knows ‘nothing ever comes easy’
In amultitude LEXINGTON, KY.— of minusculeways, Josh Allen has been training his entire life to be an outside linebacker.
Rarely has there been a direct path, or a path of least resistance in front of him.
The Kentucky senior always has had to twist and turn, to contorthisbody toget around a 320-pound guy — whether real or metaphoric — standing in the way of his desired destination.
Allen, whosenameis being mentioned among potential first-round NFL draft picks next year, has had plenty of bypasses and bumps along the way.
Those detours led Allen to an elementary school assemblythis spring where he talked to kids during special needs awarenessweek aboutworking hard and being fine with being different.
“My message is you’re going to have challenges, you’ve just got to make the best of it,” Allen said this summer, brown eyes wide, smile slightlywider. “You’ve got to look for the good parts of everything. That’s how I dealt with a lot of that stuff. “Nothing evercomeseasy.” It’s a lesson Allen learned early as one of two twin boys in a house full of older sisters. Josh and his twin, Isaiah, formed quite the pesky, dynamic duo.
“Mymomwas a single parent with six kids in the house, working two jobs,” Josh said of Kim Allen. “It was really hard at some points.”
It was especially hard for Allen, who always has been a bit of a jokester. But those jokes often came out in fits and starts.
Allen stuttered formuch of his childhood, still does, he said. “It’s just not asmuch as I used towhen Iwas younger.”
Allen always had a quick wit, but hismouth sometimes betrayed him.
“He wanted to tell us stuff so bad that he didn’t even take the time to say it,” his mom said of the stuttering problem that landed Josh in special education classes growing up.
After so many years in the special education system in New Jersey, Allen wanted a change of scenery. He wanted to see if he could be like those kids he watched from his classroom window.
So after middle school, Allen decided to leave New Jersey and move in with relatives in Alabama to get a fresh start at Abbeville High School.
“I had to showpeople that I was capable of doing this, going to classes by myself, doing the workload, doing everything right,” he said. “I had to prove myself.”
It was at Abbeville that Allen’s football career almost ended. Three separate times.
Thenatural athlete decided he was going to avoid football in that small Alabama town and stick with basketball, like three of his older sisters, who all went on to play at the college level.
“I didn’t want to play with those country kids,” Allen said, laughing. “When Imoved to Alabama, it’s like I’m starting over. These are big country kids playing real football, so I was like, ‘I’m not going to play.’ “
Allen’s uncle convinced the freshman to try out. As the linebacker nowprepares to tell the story of the nearend of his football career, he takes a deep, cleansing breath.
“Very first practice,” he started. “Oh my God. It’s a day I’ll never forget.”
At the start of camp, Allen turned his back after a play and found his cleatswere no longer planted in grass.
“I’m walking back and some dude picks me up and body slams me on the ground,” Allen said. “I tried to catch myself and messed my elbow up.”
When he got to the locker room, Allen said he was jumped by a group of players.
“I’m crying,” he recalled. “I get in the car withmy aunt and I’m balling tears, crying. I went home and said, ‘I’m done.’ “
If Jill Barber is honest, she wasOK with him being done.
“Hewas a lot smaller than he is now,” his aunt said, noting that he was a freshman playing against seniors who had been playing together and lifting weights together their entire lives.
Allen was the newcomer, and it’s never easy being the newcomer.
“There were a couple of rough, rough, rough kids. I was really upset about some things,” Barber said. “Butmy husbandwas like, ‘Listen, he’s playing football. That’swhat football’s about.’ “
Two days later, Allen returned to the practice field in time for a pursuit drill where thewhole defense lines up to chase down a single ball carrier.
Guess who found the ball in his hands.
“Pow! I get hit. Seriously, so hard,” Allen said, telling the story with arms flying as fast aswords. “This is varsity and I’m a freshman. I get up on one knee and then, ‘Bam!’ They hit me again. So I just laydownthere and they jump on top of me. I was hurt. I quit again.”
Drowning out the voice in hisheadandthe pain thathad taken over his body, Allen found himself back on that football field again the next day.
He was the ball carrier for that drill every single day for a season.
And he didn’t play a single snap in a game that year.
“He always kept at it even when it was hard,” Barber said.
Allen went back the next year at least 3 inches taller and a little bit tougher.
“My sophomore year, I started varsity receiver,” Allen said. “I had the best hands. Iwas slowas dirt, but I could catch.”
Country cooking andmandated workouts helped him growup and out a bit before his junior season, when he started to excel and accelerate a bit, too.
By the end of his time in Alabama, Allen was an allstate receiverwith 1,150yards and 11 touchdownsas a junior.
When Allen announced he wanted to graduate from Montclair High School back in New Jersey, his aunt and uncle understood.
“I cried a lotwhen he left,” Barber said. “He’s always had away ofmakingmefeel really, really special. He makes a lot of people feel special.”
While making the move from Alabama to New Jersey before his senior year was good for Allen, it wasn’t great for his recruiting opportunities.
He fell through the recruiting service cracks. And he changed positions fromwide receiver to defensive end when he arrived at Montclair High School forhis senior season.
Kentucky had a commitment fall through, and good timing left the Cats with a scholarship available and in need of anoutside linebacker.
“We star ted looking through the film andwe liked what we saw” of Allen, said UK coach Mark Stoops of the find, which ended in a former Cats assistant seeing Allen at his high school and then putting him on a plane to Lexington for a visit just a few hours later.
It was in that same office about a year ago that Allen sat across from Stoops. The player’s life — already full of many detours and challenges — was about to get more complicated.
“I’m changing,” Stoops recalled Allen saying. His girlfriend was pregnant and his son was coming in January.
“His mindset switched just then,” Stoops said. “It’s the truth. ... I’ve seen a change since then.”
Allen started watching elite pass rushers in the NFL, studying their tendencies, mimicking their moves. Last season, the junior led Kentucky in tackles for loss (9.5) and sacks (seven). He also had a team-best four quarterback hurries, three pass breakups, two forced fumbles and an interception.
“I had to step up,” said Allen, whose son, Wesley, was born in January. “What I had done my sophomore year wasn’t good enough for my junior year. I had to take another step. I was like, ‘I’ve got to growup, bemore mature because I have to take care of a family now.’ ”
Allen knows he canbe even better this season with amore sculpted body and a stronger frame, weighing in at 255 pounds.
Allen has been training for this season his whole life.
The lack of a direct path, the obstacles in his way have given Allen an edge, made him stronger.