&ay& 7
Ermal Allen Was A Lot Of Things At Kentucky
When Ermal Allen retired in 1984 after 22 years as an assistant coach with the Dallas Cowboys, sports columnist Earl Cox asked, "Who was the best all-around athlete ever two wear the Blue and White of Kentucky?" After speculating that oldtimers usually start with Jim Park, Ellis Johnson, Charles
		
	\ 1	Russell Rice Cats' Pause Columnist
		
"Turkey" Hughes and then skip to Wallace Jones, Cox then noted that real students of UK's athletic history also would add the names of Ralph Beard, Cotton Nash and Allen.
Instead of casting a vote in either direction, the diplomatic Cox gave a brief synopsis of the first six aforementioned former Wildcats and then devoted the remainder of the column to Allen. I'll follow along those same lines in this tribute to Allen, who died several weeks ago.
?Jim Park lettered in football in 1911, 1913 and 1914. He called signals, ran the ball from scrimmage, punted, kicked field goals, ran back punts and kickoffs and was a key player on defense. Against Earlham in 1914, he ran for five touchdowns and passed for five touchdowns, single-game records still on the UK books.
Park also lettered in basketball in 1914 and was such a fine baseball player that he pitched three seasons with the old St. Louis Browns and was also with Columbus and Kansas City before returning to UK. where he served as basketball and baseball coach and assistant football coach under athletics director John J. Tigert.
?Ellis Johnson, a multi-sport star who led Ashland to the National High School Basketball Tournament championship, lettered three years each in fooball and basketball at UK. earning Ail-American honors under Adolph Rupp in 1933. He also earned two letters in track and one in baseball ('31 as UK discontinued baseball in '32 and '33).
?Charles Hughes was a star halfback for the Wildcats in 1923 and 1924, lettering two years each in basketball, baseball and track, according to UK records.
?Bob Davis, who won an Ohio middleweight boxing championship before coming to UK, was one of the finest football players ever to wear the Blue and White, holding such school records as 281 yards rushing versus Maryville in 1937, along with career marks of 30 TDs and 180 points scored. He lettered in basketball and track, failing to letter in I baseball only because UK fielded no diamond teams during his varsity years ('35, '36, '37).
?Wallace Jones earned a UK record 11 varsity letters, four each in basketball and football and three as a standout hitter and pitcher in baseball. He earned All-SEC honors in the two major sports and also was a basketball Ail-American in 1949.
?Ralph Beard came to UK in 1945 on a football scholarship, but switched to basketball after a misunderstanding with the UK grid staff. In addition to being a three-time Ail-American in basketball, he earned three letters in baseball and was a fine sprinter (UK discontinued the sport during World War II) and golfer.
?Ermal Allen, at 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds, was the smallest of the group. At Mor-ristown High in Tennessee, he was awarded 16 letters in various sports under coach Petie Siler. He ended up at UK instead of Tennessee because of one of famed coach Bob Neyland's few talent judgement mistakes.
Having won the Southern Amateur as a high school senior, Allen was offered a golf scholarship at the University of Texas while Siler, in fact, offered to sponsor him on the pro tour if he would postpone college and concentrate on golf.
"I loved golf and thought one day I might like to try it professionally," said Allen, who defeated the likes of Bobby Nichols and Frank Beard in the amateur days. "But I wanted to play college footballTennessee always was my first choiceso I thanked my high school coach for his offer and waited to see what other offers might come.
"One day Petie took me to see the General (Neyland was a major in the Army reserve at the time)," Allen recalled. "He later talked to Neyland and when I wanted to know what was said, he said he'd tell me later. I said I wanted to know then. Neyland's comment about me was, 'He's too small.' I went back to Gen. Neyland and told him, 'You'll be sorry.
After being contacted by UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp and accepting a half-basketball, half-football scholarship, Allen got his first shot at UT on Thanksgiving Day of his sophomore year, when Neyland brought to Lexington a Vol team that had won 22 straight games and was bound for the Rose Bowl.
Two weeks earlier, UK had trailed Georgia Tech 13-0 with two minutes of playing time remaining when Allen connected on a 67-yard TD heave to Jim Harden to avoid a shutout. As a starter the following Saturday, he led the Wildcats to a 13-6 victory over West Virginia, giving UK a 6-1-1 record entering the UT game.
For the record, the Vols beat the 'Cats 33-0 that afternoon and followed up with wins of 20-7 and 26-0 the following two years. However, Allen drew raves in his initial encounter with the dreaded invaders. As Larry Shropshire, a Lexington Leader sports editor, wrote: "Kentucky's spindly little sophomore halfback stole the show with his unerring marksmanship and it was chiefly his throwing that kept Wildcat supporters hopefulof at least a score, if not a victoryuntil the late stages of the fray."
Allen connected on 18 of 30 passes for 139 yards while UT was held to 41 yards in the air; however, the superior Vol runners outgained the 'Cats 166-98 on the ground. Here's how New York Times sportswriter William D. Richardson described Allen's performance:
"If there's ever been a better passing exhibition than this perservering little chap put on today, it must have been one of Davey O'Brien's greater days. So expert was his marksmanship that, despite the fact that he was swarmed on and over by the more powerful Tennesseans, he had their secondaries dizzy with his bull's-eyes to his mates."
The Wildcats were 51-20 and two-time SEC champions during Allen's varsity basketball tenure. An all-conference forward in 1942, he drew a high compliment from Rupp that year when he hit two free throws with four seconds remaining to give UK a 40-39 victory over Xavier in Cincinnati.
"It was like sitting in an electric chair, strapped and ready for the executioner to throw the switch," Rupp said, "and then having this fellow dash in and yell, 'Hold it, we got a reprieve.' That boy Allen doesn't have blood in him. It's all ice."
Allen earned three letters in basketball and was an All-Southeastern Conference forward his senior year. He also won three letters each in football and golf. He played on Wildcat grid teams that were 16-9-3. The golf team was 5-1-1 his sophomore year and 9-0 in each of the following two seasons.
The paths of Allen and Neyland crossed again during WWII, when Allen got to play for the general on an All-Army team that lost only one game while he was on the squad.
Shortly after his tour of duty was completed, Allen heard a radio broadcast that indicated he might be eligible under a new wartime ruling to play another year of football. Immediately on returning home from the Philippines, he walked into the office of UK's new head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and said, "I hear you need a tailback."
"That's right," the Bear said.
"You're looking at him," Allen shot back.
Bryant laughed and just told Allen he wished that were true.
"I told him I was eligible," Allen said. "At first he didn't believe me, but he did some checking, called me back in, and said it looked as if I was right.
"So in 1946 I played the first two gameswe beat Mississippi and Cincinnatibefore the other schools began raising so much cain about my playing that I was finally ruled ineligible. When coach Bryant told me I wasn't going to be able to play, he asked if I would stay on and help coach the offensive backs."
AI
Late Ermal Allen Returning A Kickoff Vs. Georgia Tech In 1940
The following fall, however, Allen was still eager to compete and requested a leave of absence from his coaching duties to accept a tryout offer with the Cleveland Browns. He made the team as a defensive back, backup quarterback, punter and kick returner. The Browns won the All-America Conference title that year.
"One of the reasons I had gone to the Browns was because coach Bryant wanted me to learn the T-formation while I was there and bring it back to Kentucky," Allen said. "We had Babe Parilli coming along and we wanted to know how to use him."
There was a time (1954) in Allen's life when he almost landed a head coaching job.
"Bryant and I were getting ready to drive up to the national coaches convention," Allen said, "and shortly after he picked me up, he told me the first thing he wanted me to do when I got to the convention was to withdraw my name from consideration for the Texas A&M job. It came as quite a surprise to me because he had recommended me for the job in the first place. And it was beginning to look as if I had a good chance of getting it. I just couldn't understand. Finally, a few more miles down the road, he explained:
" 'Ermal, they've offered me the job for so damn much money that I'm gonna take it myself,' That's how I missed out on the A&M job."
After turning down Bryant's invitation to move to Texas with him, Allen applied for the UK position, but lost to Blanton Collier, then coaching on Paul Brown's staff in Cleveland. When Collier was fired seven years later, Allen gave some serious thought to foresaking football for business, but then he received a call from Tom Landry and was destined to spend the next 22 years as the Cowboy coach's righthand man, first as the
[Continued On Page 22]