Real Fathers, Real Men
This weekend Dawn and I drove up to Green Bay to visit and attend the game of one of my (our) dear friends, Kenderick Allen. The Packers played the Atlanta Falcons and won 38 to 10! Ken didn’t play due to a nagging abdominal muscle injury, but he is just sitting out until the regular season starts. He will be starting at the Defensive Tackle position.
After the game Ken and I took it back to the Old School knowledge dropping session, on the tailgate of his truck. We almost never talk about football unless it is high school or college. NFL, only if it’s very important. We talked about how things have changed over the years and different things we want to do to get it back the way it used to be, from politics to entrepreneurship. We discussed all of our friends that have been locked up or killed since we’ve gotten out of high school.
I’m the one to never ask too many questions, but there was one question that stood out in my mind. This one I had a strong feeling of the correct answer but I wanted to hear it from Ken. For the next 30-40 min he went into depth on his situations and career decisions. He also refereed me to this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel…
Ya know, Athletes get a bad rap. From committing crimes to being dead beat fathers. The media should highlight the good thing they do in the communities and for their families. Some of the things we talk about, others will never get a chance to view that side of him. This is only because we have been true to each other since kindergarten.
Green Bay - Watching Kenderick Allen play catch with his young son in the parking lot outside Lambeau Field after a recent training camp practice, it’s easy to see why the 6-foot-4, 320-pound defensive tackle made the choice he did. Faced with the possibility of losing employment, Allen said to hell with football this off-season and tended to something much more important: his 5-year-old son, Nicobe. “Everybody’s story in life is different,” Allen said. “You have to be grown about every situation that you’re in and the importance of what you do and who you are and what responsibilities you have to put in order. “During the off-season workouts, football is always second to my family. Even now if the situation wasn’t handled, football would be second.” The situation was that this off-season, Allen, 27, was supposed to be taking part in the New York Giants’ off-season conditioning program. But to do so would have meant being away from home, where he thought his son needed his father. Instead of training with the Giants, Allen returned to the Baton Rouge, La., area and began work on gaining full custody of his son. When he was playing football, Allen had to leave his son behind and split time in two different homes. Allen wanted his son to be with him full time and went back to Louisiana to assure that Nicobe would be able to follow wherever his job took him. “When I’m home, he stays with me,” Allen said. “When I’m in camp, he’s back and forth between grandmas. He’s 5 and I don’t want my kid going back and forth. One environment is different than the other. You learn this here and you learn this there. It shouldn’t be that way.” Allen was reluctant to get into specifics but his motives were clear: He thought his son was better off being with him than being with the young boy’s mother. His attempt to gain full custody of his son meant spending most of the off-season in Louisiana working with lawyers. He said he didn’t want to bad-mouth the mother of his child - the two are no longer together - but he thought it was better for his son to be with his father. “I was raised by my father, so I turned out fine,” Allen said. “Anything is a challenge but your responsibility is your responsibility. My father never slacked on his and I’m not going to slack on mine. If the situation was better with my baby’s mama, she probably would have raised him. “But the way things were I wasn’t going to let my child come up in a situation where I can do better.” Allen’s devotion to his son cost him his job in New York. Though the Giants never gave a reason for rescinding a restricted free agent offer they had made to him, it’s well known in football circles that coach Tom Coughlin was not pleased with Allen for missing the conditioning work. After Allen was cut, the Packers jumped all over him. They had done their homework on him and the same day he was released they made a call to his agent and set up a visit for him to Green Bay. Allen was out of shape when he came to Green Bay and still in the middle of a custody battle, but the Packers liked Allen’s size and power so much that they signed him to a one-year deal worth $700,000, including a $50,000 signing bonus and a $50,000 roster bonus. “We really wanted a big guy in the middle,” pro personnel director Reggie McKenzie said. “They let him go. OK. Something fell in our laps. He didn’t have a lot of offers, not a lot of people calling him. He was a role player, but you have to look at him. He fits what we do.” Allen said the Packers gave him a week and a half to settle matters at home despite being in the middle of their off-season conditioning program. It allowed him to gain custody of his son, which he hopes will be made permanent soon. Two weeks ago, Allen moved with his son into a duplex here and hired a nanny to take care of his son while he was at training camp. He goes home when he can to be a father to his son because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. “We’re going to work on making Green Bay home,” Allen said. “So when I get home I have to work hard and make it home. You just can’t make it home without work. He’s been here two weeks and he loves it; he loves being with me. Every time I leave he gets mad and cries. So as far as that, if my adjustment is good then his will be. It’s going pretty good.” To really make it work, Allen has to make the Packers’ roster. But that might not be a problem. Despite weighing 341 pounds at the first minicamp, Allen performed so well in off-season workouts that he was listed No. 1 on the depth chart at defensive tackle along with free agent Ryan Pickett. Though the coaches downplay the official depth chart and insist that things are wide open, it says something about Allen’s ability that he was able to rise to the top without so much as putting on a pair of shoulder pads. “He’s a big strong player,” defensive tackles coach Robert Nunn said. “We moved him in with the first team, but it still has to work itself out. He’s off to a good start. He’s a big man who can plug up the middle for us.” Allen said he was down to 320 pounds, which is about where the Packers want him. In their defensive system, they want two big men in the middle to eat up blockers and allow the linebackers to roam free. Allen isn’t as athletic as Grady Jackson or Pickett and he probably won’t make a lot of big plays, but he can be a very hard man to move. Last year, he came off the bench with the Giants and played in a rotation system. Even if he continues to hold down a starter’s spot as he has, he’ll rotate with others in Green Bay. He insists that even though he entered the league as an undrafted free agent in 2003 (with New Orleans) and played part time in New York, he isn’t a nobody. “I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m unknown,” Allen said. “Maybe unknown in Green Bay. But every team I’ve been on at some point in the season I’ve started. Even from my rookie year in New Orleans I started some games. To say I’m an unknown, I wouldn’t accept that.” Nor, it’s certain, would his son.
That’s why he’s my BOY!!!!
September 6th, 2006 at 8:38 am
nice article! always great when the newspaper can get around to highlight something positive. it sounds like youve got a great friend, and he seems even cooler now that hes a packer!
September 6th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Allen is a great example of how pro athletes CAN balance stuff on and off the field. Knowing his passion for his family and friends, will he be tossing some tickets to games to you and your former coworkers at USDA FS? I know that guy Andrew is hoping to see a game this year.