Allen Left Zornes With A Lot Of Memories; Optimism Was Strength Of Former Coach
Pokey Allen’s death came as no surprise to former Eastern Washington football coach Dick Zornes, who had closely followed his longtime friend’s courageous battle with cancer.
But news of Allen’s passing left Zornes struggling with his emotions, nonetheless.
“You just feel bad,” said Zornes, who is now an assistant athletic director at EWU. “It’s one of those things that you’ve kind of known was going to be the end result of his illness from the very beginning - it (the cancer) was pretty severe and his chances of survival weren’t great.
“But one thing you always noticed about Pokey was his optimism, and with him there always seemed to be hope. This is really sad, because I know how hard he fought it.”
Zornes first met Allen in the late 1960s while he was an assistant for the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions and Allen was a co-head coach at Simon Fraser University.
A little more than a decade later, in 1980, Zornes hired Allen as his defensive coordinator and secondary coach at Eastern. And the story behind that hiring says as much about Allen’s character - in Zornes’ mind, at least - as any other.
According to Zornes, Allen had inquired about an assistant’s job at Eastern shortly after he was released, along with rest of Gene Carlson’s staff, at Montana following the 1979 season.
Zornes didn’t have an opening at the time, and Allen ended up hiring on with Pete Riehlman at Weber State in what proved to be the shortest stop in his coaching career.
“The guy (Riehlman) was a real military type, dictatorial coach,” Zornes recalled, “but Pokey took the job anyway because it was the only one available.
“When he got to the office, according to Pokey, the first words out of (Riehlman’s) mouth were, ‘You’re going to have to get a haircut and shave your mustache.”’
Allen responded with an about-face, retreated to the airport in his rental car and phoned Zornes.
“He called again to see if I could help him,” Zornes explained. “I told him I could come up with $5,000 and a room in my basement. He said, ‘I’ll take it,’ and 3 hours later I picked him up at the airport, moved him into my basement and he was my assistant coach.”
Allen’s snap decision to leave Weber was typical, Zornes said, explaining that Allen “wasn’t going to make a change if he didn’t think it was necessary.
“I think that’s why he got along with kids so well,” Zornes added. “All the little things didn’t matter to him. With him, it was how you competed and how you played. The end result was what was important.” , DataTimes