Thoughts and Prayers for Tennessee Volunteer Jason Allen
NOTE: Scroll to the bottom for the latest updates and Jason’s email address so you can send him some good cheer.
If you’re wondering what cornerback Jason Allen means to the Tennessee Volunteer Football team, well, just have a look at this picture, taken just after Allen failed to get up after making a tackle in Saturday’s game against Georgia:
When he still didn’t get up after about ten minutes, the entire team gathered in prayer:
I was sitting in the same seats last year when, again just before halftime, Erik Ainge suffered a season-ending injury to his shoulder.
That was bad.
This was worse.
We see injuries all the time. Some of them even cut short a promising college football career.
But Jason Allen last year decided to postpone a promising and lucrative NFL career to come back and play for the Vols. He didn’t intend to forego it.
Everything I’ve heard about Jason Allen is that he’s a solid, Christian young man with his priorities straight. A fierce competitor when the ball is snapped, he is the epitome of good sportsmanship, patting opponents on the backside after knocking the snot out of them. He is admired as much by those opponents as he is by his teammates.
Allen could have left school early and earned millions playing in the NFL this year, but instead, he chose to return to lead the Vols’ championship run. This season, he basically played two positions at once. He somehow racked up safety-like tackle statistics while also shutting down every opponent’s best receiver from his cornerback position. He’s led by example and vocally inspired the Vols’ secondary to show everyone that they are not the team’s greatest weakness, but one of the team’s strengths.
And there he was, lying on the turf. Surrounded by trainers. Both teams kneeling in prayer before a shocked-into-silence crowd of 108,000 fans and admirers. You could almost see the question on his face as he surveyed the crowd through watering eyes: Is this goodbye?
There’s not much information available yet about the extent of Allen’s injury. The Volunteer Nation and football fans everywhere are praying that it’s not a serious as the bent backwards, sideways twisted collision made it appear.
Tennessee fans enjoyed watching Jason Allen play four and a half games in a Volunteer uniform this season. If it’s his last for the Vols, quite frankly, that’s okay.
Just pray that being a Vol hasn’t cost him a career.
I’ve searched but haven’t found a very good place to leave comments for Jason. If you have any encouraging words, please post them by clicking on the “comments” link below. If you know of a better place, let me know, and I’ll direct readers there. Any gripes about the game in the comments for this post will be deleted — this is not the place. This is about Jason Allen. The person.
UPDATE: Jason’s going to be okay. Don’t leave comments here anymore — you can email him directly at jallen8@utk.edu.
Jason Allen Links
- Video Profile from GoVolsXtra.com (subscription required)
November 16th, 2005 at 8:01 am
[...] Fans will get a chance to show their appreciation for Mitchell, Jason Allen, Gerald Riggs, (Allen and Riggs have both, like Mitchell, had season-ending injuries this year that may impact their draft status), and the other seniors on Saturday’s senior day when the Vols host Vanderbilt. [...]
January 12th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
[...] Another update to the Thoughts and Prayers for Tennessee Volunteer Jason Allen post. [...]
January 12th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
[...] Update to the Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen post. [...]
January 12th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
[...] Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen [...]
January 15th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
[...] It’s not yet clear just how severe this injury is and whether it is career-threatening. Ditto the Thoughts and Prayers for Jason Allen post, this time for Gerald. [...]
January 15th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
[...] Volunteer cornerback Jason Allen answered questions from the media Tuesday regarding the season-ending hip injury he suffered in the Georgia game and the season-ending leg injury suffered by teammate Gerald Riggs last week against Alabama: I talked to Gerald yesterday and I just told him to keep your head up, take it one day at a time and get better. . . . He’s gotta bounce back, that’s the biggest thing, staying positive and bouncing back. [...]
January 16th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
[...] Fans will get a chance to show their appreciation for Mitchell, Jason Allen, Gerald Riggs, (Allen and Riggs have both, like Mitchell, had season-ending injuries this year that may impact their draft status), and the other seniors on Saturday’s senior day when the Vols host Vanderbilt. [...]
April 29th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
[...] The Miami Dolphins, who selected 16th in today’s NFL draft, chose former Tennessee defensive back Jason Allen. Allen has made a full recovery from what many feared would be a career-ending injury last October 8th. [...]
May 13th, 2006 at 8:33 am
[...] And then, against Georgia, the unthinkable happened when he was basically split in half while tackling monstrous UGA tight end Leonard Pope. See my pictures from the game for a feel for how serious it was. Allen lay crumpled into a heap on the field for a full fifteen minutes before being carted off, and it looked like not only his college football career was over, but that his decision to return as a Volunteer may have cost him a professional career as well. [...]
July 29th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
[...] The Volunteer Nation began its root cause analysis, and everybody had their opinions. Doesn’t winning necessarily follow excellent recruiting classes? Was it just fluke after fluke after fluke? Was it just because four out of six opponents were ranked in the top 5 at the time we played them? Was it the Spotlight Effect? Was it the season-ending injury to Jason Allen? [...]
August 7th, 2006 at 7:15 am
[...] Still, the outlook was not completely dire, and Vol fans — those that remained faithful anyway — gathered for the last home game of the season to honor their seniors, including Jason Allen, whose season-ending injury against Georgia had dealt a blow to his NFL prospects, Gerald Riggs, who had suffered a season-ending injury against Alabama, and Jason Mitchell, who risked a shot at the NFL by playing the entire season with both a torn ACL and a torn MCL. [...]