Track is a sports staple at any high school and long distance is a staple of any track team. It seems like Justice has found one of its main men in this with their new long distance and assis­tant Cross Coun­try Coach Allen. Coach Allen has stepped up to take the track, the roads, the fields and what­ever other courses face him as he fills in as the new long distance running coach already making an impact on the teams.

To succeed at or follow any sport through­out life, passion and love of the game is one of the most impor­tant factors to consider. Coach Allen does not shy away from that love of the sport and when asked about his reasons to coach he said, “I’ve always loved running, and I felt like running gave a lot to me in life, and I thought I should give that back to other people.” 

Coach Allen, who has been running for his whole life, also has a lot of expe­ri­ence for a coach. He went to state compe­ti­tions multi­ple times in high school, competed at national level in junior college, and finished off his impres­sive resume with a year of D1 track at West­ern Illi­nois Univer­sity. He isn’t a stranger to coach­ing either, he has gone to states with multi­ple differ­ent teams and has proven his meth­ods to many others.

In a sport as mental as track or cross coun­try a great team morale is always encour­aged through­out the season. Vari­ous runners on the team have described him to be an uplift­ing and deter­mined coach with a great atti­tude towards running and the team in general. Three season Varsity Runner Dylan Watson states that “He’s affected the team’s morale very well, he’s a great guy and every­one on the team loves running for him.”

Coach Allen has made his inten­tions clear with Justices track and cross coun­try teams and has stated his goal is to go to and possi­bly win states. Many runners on the team have unan­i­mously agreed that the method­ol­ogy of his train­ing plans and work­outs he provides have been to the advan­tage of their running and he has already helped coach senior runner Adam Syar to a new school record in the Open 800M race.

Through­out his jour­ney, Coach Allen has faced some issues, when asked about it Coach Allen said, “It’s hard to manage my time between like my two kids at home but luck­ily my wonder­ful wife is very help­ful and has helped me through­out the coach­ing process.” 

Though he also claimed that he reaped the bene­fits of coach­ing, “I have a good rela­tion­ship with a lot more people in justice High school. A lot more people say hi to me which makes the day to day grind of teach­ing a little bit easier.”

Over­all Coach Allen has been a great influ­ence on the Justice long distance squads and has been chang­ing them for the better day by day. He has imple­mented his strate­gies and train­ing into the culture and even if it does not plan out imme­di­ately time will take its course for his plan.