To put Erika Allen’s attitude on the basketball court in perspective, Lawrence High School girls’ coach Dana Williams tells a story that occurred off the court on a frigid January morning. It sums up the junior student-athlete’s attitude with whatever she does.
Allen was supposed to hitch a ride to school with a teammate on the coldest day of the week, but her friend forgot.
“She lives eight or nine blocks from the school, so most kids would sleep in or wait it out, or get a ride at lunch time,” Williams said. “She comes walking into school and I said ‘Did you just walk to school?’ She said ‘Well yeah, you have to come to school.’ I said ‘You’re so awesome.’ She sees a problem and solves it. She’s not going to complain about it.”
She did have something to complain about, however. Frostbite comes to mind.
“I’m pretty sure it was about nine degrees when I walked, but I dressed appropriately for the weather,” Allen said, adding with a laugh that “it didn’t take long to regain feeling in my fingers.”
That attitude is essentially a tribute to Allen’s mother, Karen Green Allen, who passed away from breast cancer in February 2012 when Allen was just an eighth-grader at Lawrence Middle School.
“My mom was such a wonderful woman who wanted me to keep my head held high no matter what I go through, so that is what I tried to do when she passed,” Allen said. “It was very hard dealing with her death but I know she would have wanted me to stay strong and stay positive.”
Williams was close to the situation, as she was coaching Allen’s older sister, Kyla, at the time.
“When her mom passed away, the kid just didn’t skip a beat with sports, or anything,” Williams said. “She kind of had that adversity that she overcame. I think sports are an escape for her. When it’s time for practice, whatever sport it is, it’s her only focus at the time.”
Allen said her mother was her No. 1 supporter, especially where sports were concerned.
“Losing that was tough,” she said. “In her life she fought through breast cancer twice and still managed to be a strong, selfless woman through it all. I have always strived to be like her.”
She is evidently doing that and, as Williams noted, her participation on the Cardinals’ varsity soccer, basketball and lacrosse teams plays a big part in that.
“Playing sports is a great escape for me and allows me to forget all the issues and stress in my life for a while,” Allen said. “I feel very lost and bored when I don’t play sports for an extended period of time. I can’t imagine my life without sports, in all honesty. When my mother died, it did help me when I played sports, and now whenever I play, I like to think that as long as I give my all in every game she would be proud.”
She would be proud, all right. According to Williams, to look at Allen’s modest stats does not do justice to her play on the court.
“She’s kind of the unsung hero type,” the coach said.
Kind of? Let’s just say she definitely is unsung but very valuable.
One of the hardest-working players Williams has ever coached, Allen’s motor is constantly on high. She runs the offense at point guard and, although she plays nearly 32 minutes every game, averages just three turnovers. She sacrifices her body for loose balls, she is the first girl back on defense and even if someone is ahead of her, she doesn’t give up.
“She had two blocks against Hightstown just in transition,” Williams said. “They had a break and she would time it, run through and get a piece of the ball. We were playing Princeton and there were twenty seconds left (in a 20-point Cardinals loss) and she dives on the floor for a loose ball. You can’t make this kid up.”
Allen’s athletic career started in second grade when she played soccer in the Lawrence recreational league before moving on to travel, middle school and high school. She began rec basketball in fourth grade, and started lacrosse when she arrived at LHS.
“At a young age my parents wanted me to be involved in lots of extracurricular activities, so I just found things that interested me the most—playing sports—and they supported me through it,” Allen said. “I love playing basketball and lacrosse but, hands down, soccer is my main sport.”
One would never know that by watching her on the basketball court, as she plays with a passion and focus that makes it seem she is vying for a scholarship to Connecticut.
“She’s one of the most coachable kids I’ve had,” Williams said. “She’s the kid who’s always making eye contact, nodding her head, always understanding what you’re saying. We would be completely lost without her. The fact we’re going through such a tough season on the scoreboard (1-6 in mid-January), you couldn’t tell that the way she plays.”
Allen, Williams added, is an all-around “awesome kid.”
“I’ve been talking to the team a ton about focus,” she said. “Every single day she does it. She focuses on that moment. That’s why she’s so strong. Her focus is so strong and she usually focuses on shutting down the other team’s top player.”
That’s not just the case in basketball. In all three of her sports, Allen thinks defense first.
“I do believe that I have a defensive mindset,” she said. “Dana always tells our team that our defense fuels our offense, so whenever I make a really good defensive play and we end up scoring, it feels good to know that I contributed to that. Or, whenever I know that it’s me that stopped someone from scoring it gets me pumped up and makes me feel unstoppable.”
Offensively, she is the one other teams are trying to stop from getting the Cardinals into their offensive set and creating a tempo. The fact she has the ball so much and loses it so little, along with keeping an even keel, is a coach’s dream when it comes to a point guard.
“I try to always stay positive at all times to show that we shouldn’t give up no matter what the score may be,” Allen said.
As for her secret to ball protection, she said, “Whenever I bring the ball up the floor I try not to rush and I focus on running whatever play my team is set up in. I also try not to pick up my dribble until I know what I’m going to do with the ball. When we scrimmage in practice I use that time prepare myself for what kind of decisions I should make in a game.”
Despite her high standing in William’s eyes, Allen never feels she has it made. She admits to some anxious moments before games, and during warm-ups she will over-thinks things and worry about mistakes she might make.
Once the game starts, that all goes away.
“To stay positive, I just try to remember that everyone makes mistakes so I shouldn’t dwell over mine,” she said. “Focusing on having fun and performing to the best of my ability helps me stay positive. I think it is important to stay positive because I feel that your attitude reflects your actions, so if I keep a good attitude I will play well.”
It is that kind of outlook that has allowed Allen to deal with one of the toughest things a young teenager ever has to endure.
“I think she’s just a special kind of kid,” Williams said. “Everybody has tough times in their life but unless you knew her history you wouldn’t even know she went through all that.”
And after what she went through, walking to school in nine-degree weather was a proverbial walk in the park.
,
