The basketball team seemed like a long-distant memory. The only path that mattered was the one laid in front of him. Joe Allen, along with his battalion, trained hard. Their orders would make them some of the first American troops to land in Iraq.

In late March of 2003, Joe’s unit and thousands of American troops boarded planes bound for the Middle East. For the first week he was there, Joe was stationed at Camp New York in Kuwait, the country bordering Iraq to the south, and the focus of the Gulf War.

On Sept. 11, Joe was halfway around the world from Iraq, where he was one of the first to go in. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” Joe says. Going from Korea to Texas to the Middle East is quite a switch in under a year. “It was like culture shock 2,” Joe says with a laugh.

One night in Camp New York, while Joe and the other troops were trying to get some sleep in barracks, the sirens went off. Joe and hundreds of other troops strapped on their gear and ran for cover in the bunker; a scud missile was on its way to the base. If it were to detonate in the Camp, Joe would never see his family again. He would never see home again. He would never see Milwaukee again.

“I never breathed so hard in my life,” Joe remembers.

Fortunately for the Army, they have measures to counteract scud missiles. The U.S. launched a Patriot missile that intercepted the scud.

“I was never scared for the rest of my time there,” Joe says.

The experience hardened him, making him ready for what was coming in Iraq. It certainly helped, considering his unit was stationed at Camp Speicher in Tikrit once the Americans moved into the country. Described by many as “Hussein’s last stronghold,” Tikrit was one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

Doing his job was a lot tougher now with the war all around him. “There was always an element of ‘man, at any time…’” Joe says. The insurgents posed problems to a lot of the convoys Joe was in, and twice he got caught in sticky situations.

One thing that wasn’t a problem for Joe was the climate. “It wasn’t that hard for me. I hate rain, so I actually enjoyed that part of it,” Joe says.

Unlike many soldiers who have spent a year or longer in Iraq, being one of the first there allowed Joe to leave Iraq on Sept. 11, 2003.

He flew back to Fort Hood, Texas, where he was processed. Joe’s long stint in the Army was over. Finally, he was going home for good.

St. Mary’s University in Texas had watched him in the All-Armed Forces Games. With the performance he put up in the basketball tournament, the D-II school gave Joe a scholarship for the 2004-05 season. Sitting out for the fall semester because of eligibility reasons, Joe joined the team after classes ended in December.

Despite only playing half of the season, Joe killed the conference opponents and came away with Freshman of the Year honors in the Heartland Conference. As a sophomore, Joe was bumped up to the All-Conference team. That was when some doubts about St. Mary’s started creeping into Joe’s mind.

“I was starting to feel more and more like a big fish in a small pond,” says Joe. “Then I saw all the winning that UWM was doing, and it was too hard for me to stay at St. Mary’s.”

Watching Bruce Pearl take his team to the Sweet Sixteen and Rob Jeter going to the second round of the NCAA tournament in his first season made Joe homesick.

His father, Glen, played men’s basketball at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his mother, Elaine, was a cheerleader. The black and gold blood was pumping in his veins, and Joe decided in the spring of 2006 to leave St. Mary’s for good.

To say that Glen had played basketball is a gross understatement. Joe’s dad is a member of Milwaukee’s All-Century team for the 1970s, and that kind of pull from his father got Joe a tryout with the Panthers.

Being the physical specimen that he is, Joe impressed Jeter and the assistant coaches so much they offered him a roster spot on the spot.

It has been a year and a half since Joe put on the St. Mary’s uniform, so you can forgive him for being a little excited at Panther Madness. During lay-up drills before the team scrimmage, Joe and other players were showing off with some flashy dunks for the fans. Joe went up, and Joe went down.

The injury, which went largely unnoticed by the fans until he missed the scrimmage afterwards, turned out to be much worse than they had hoped. An MRI showed that Joe had torn his quadriceps tendon, so that was that for this season. Joe will have to wait another year before he can take the hardwood again. Once he medically redshirts this season and plays out his final two years of eligibility, Joe will be 28 years old.

That’s quite a long time to wait for your Senior Night.

For those of you who are skeptical that Joe will be a big part of the team, he has a message for you.

“I just want people to know that lack of talent is not why it has taken me this long. I made some mistakes in life, and now I’m paying for them. Wait ‘til 2007-08 and all will see.”

Yes Joe, we will see.

> Comments