Pro Player Insider’s Theresa Villano was able to catch up with Will Allen, #26 of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Allen is a baller, a former Ohio State Buckeye, and a philanthropist making moves in children’s lives with his foundation.
Pro Player Insiders: How have you been Will?
Will Allen: I’m doing well, I mean actually, I’m headed to my after school program now we have a specialist coming in to talk about bullying and you know just common good for man and how to respect people how to treat people and you know how that works in everyday lives especially as teenagers. So you know, I’m on my way there now. A school in Pittsburgh, North Hills, and Wayne in Dayton, Ohio (that’s my hometown) and what we’re doing is help them raise money for the kids helping them to help further their education by raising money now for their college because I want to give a scholarship out, a full ride scholarship, out you know for a deserving kid.
PPI: Is there a success story that you’ve seen in a kid that’s been part of your program or a most memorable moment because I want to help out and I want to get other football fans to help out what is that moment like aha, this is why I started this foundation?
Will Allen: I had this young girl she was a junior back in 2006 in high school. She was getting suspended all the time. This is when I was in Tampa because I started the program in Tampa. Yeah, but she was getting suspended all the time, didn’t know anything about ACT and SAT and what she wanted to do with her life, but she was a good girl a really good girl, good heart friendly but had a bad attitude.
You know I worked on her, kept showing her who she was and who she could be and you know she didn’t start off at a 4 year college initially, she ended up at a community college. She ended up graduating from high school, stopped getting in trouble as much, got her grades up because she made her mind up that she wanted to be somebody.
So we kept bringing in individuals from the community to see, to show her you know, just because this is your path this isn’t where you’re going to finish. Just because it’s where you’re starting off that doesn’t mean it’s where you’re going to finish. She just adhered to that and stuck to it and she ended up going to Hillsborough Community College and then she said I’m going to a 4 year university.
You know she had a plan before she left and she executed it and that’s the most powerful story, because she wrote a letter to me on Facebook probably a year ago or 6 months ago, so 6 years later, and talked about how much it helped her, how much it improved her life and how much the program was impacting her and helping her to impact others around her, it brought a tear to my eye because just because you don’t see the results that same day or same week or even a year later you never know what words you say or your actions or how they influence someone. We’ve had several success stories like that. We gave her money for school, we gave her a laptop and it’s been wonderful and hopefully I can continue to impact people lives and impact these kids’ lives and they can impact the other people’s lives around them and we can continue to have multiple success stories as we go.
PPI: Wow, that’s great. The things that you’re doing, that story, gave me chills. Off the field a lot of players are doing similar things and you need to share your stories like that. So you personally go into the programs when you get a chance and you are there to mentor the kids?
Will Allen: Yes, in Pittsburgh – I’m in Pittsburgh so I go to the meetings every week if I don’t have anything work related. We Skype with the kids in Dayton so I get to see them and interact with them as well and they get to interact here with the kids in Pittsburgh, so it’s a good group. It’s a good fun group that we have in both cities – in Pittsburgh and in Dayton – so it’s a lot of fun. The kids over in Dayton, Ohio, they did a mock election for the election that just passed and it was just to get the kids more familiar with politics, how politics run and how you go vote and do other things of that nature and we over here in Pittsburgh, we did we are doing something here with hunger awareness so these kids are doing their own campaigning with national hunger awareness. It’s pretty good, we’re just trying to get the kids to be more well-rounded more conscious of and aware of their surrounding and what’s going on in the world.
PPI: Speaking of politics it sounds like you’re big into advocacy. With Obama reelected, what do you think that means for people like you that are trying to help education and the education field itself?
Will Allen: Well I hope that the president would spend more attention and more time in the health sector, the education sector and our energy sector. I think that health and sciences, energy and education, I think those are the three catalysts for the future. You know I think those are the three main topics that we really have to hit hard, especially for youth and that’s why I spend so much time in education and after schools in Pittsburgh and Dayton because I want to see these kids progress. I want to see a difference. I want to see them make a difference in other people’s lives. There’s no way you can do that if you’re not educated, if you’re not healthy, if you don’t know what’s going on around you so those topics I stress heavily with my after school program. I just hope that the president would. Hopefully he will and I think he will over the next four years.
PPI: I love your passion. There’s got to be a reason behind you starting this Foundation beside your love of education and helping youth succeed. Has there been anyone in your life that inspired you or mentored you like you’re doing to these kids?
Will Allen: Yes. I’ve had a lot of people come along the way and push me and motivate me and keep me focused and keep me on the right track, but I say the person I admire the most has to be my father. He never labeled himself as a mentor or someone who was influential but he looked at the little things in life and worked hard. He was a baseball coach. He was a football coach and he helped mentor a lot of young kids. Every now and then we’ll be together, we’ll be home and some kid will come home and say, “Hey, coach Allen, remember when you told me this or told me that and you know it helped me out. It pushed me.” And I just saw him do that growing up many times and he was like the neighborhood dad, so watching him just kind of motivated me and pushed me in the direction which I’m going now.
PPI: That could be you one day, you’re a product of your parents! What is this event you have going on with your foundation?
Will Allen: Right now we have this net raffle going on, an online raffle for two tickets to see us play Baltimore this Sunday night in Pittsburgh. It’s a pretty big deal you get two tickets you get sideline passes you get a meet and greet with me you get a dinner voucher and it’s a pretty unique deal.
PPI: I just followed you actually @willallenwaf so that’s for the raffle taking place right now?
Will Allen: Yes you can take the Twitter or you can go to netraffle.org and netRaffle.org will give you all the details and specifically how to sign up and what to do. So it’s pretty good. We got a lot of good positive feedback and a lot of people want to be involved. It’s really something. The tickets are only two dollars though. So it’s really good it’s a really good deal for 2 bucks.
PPI: So if people don’t catch this raffle they can follow you on Twitter to keep updated on your foundation in events that you’re doing.
PPI: I’ve seen in your past interviews I’ve heard you say twice when you’re in positions of leadership you’re called to service, it sounds like you’re being a leader through your foundation but what does leadership really mean to you?
Will Allen: You’re in a position to serve others and I think when you have that responsibility of a leader. When you have the responsibility, you are accountable to other people. How was that accountability placed into action? What are you doing? Are you being a tyrant? Are you being prideful? Are you being resentful? What are you doing?
When you are in a position like that you know you have to lead with compassion, you have to lead from a place of humility, you have to lead from a place of servitude, but also you have to have direction and you also have to be assertive in understanding how the whole operation should be reflected. Who you are and everybody around you should be reflective of how you treat them in the direction where you want to go. So that’s my definition of a leader.
You know if I look at the people who I’ve been under, great leaders Jim Tressel, Mike Tomlin, those guys are supreme leaders. You know even Jon Gruden, even though he had a reputation of yelling and screaming, I still commend him for being a leader. Those guys like Jim Tressel, Mike Tomlin they lead by serving, they lead by providing information and resources and tools that are completely beneficial for the team’s advancement. You have to commend people like that. Those are special individuals, special people that I’ve learned from and I just use those tools. I use what they’ve said to help other people around me.
PPI: So a little bit about football… That was a close game [last week]. I saw #26 because I know I was talking to you. You had a few tackles out there, what was the game like?
Will Allen: It was rough I’m not gonna lie.
PPI: It was close!
Will Allen: Yeah Kansas City is… They’re a good team. They’re record doesn’t show how hard they fight and you know how hard they run the ball and how good they are on defense. You know they’re just missing a few pieces and they’ll be well put together. They have a lot of talent on their team, a lot of first round draft picks, but we knew what they were going to do when they came in. It was rainy, it was cold -so you know it was just a tough game. Tough, hard fought game. I’m glad we got the victory but it was tough. I’m not gonna lie about it.
PPI: Ryan Clark he’s part of our One Team movement and Troy Polamalu, they’re injured. How are you going to be stepping up to fill the gaps?
Will Allen: Well I’ve been starting the last 5 games and we won 4 of those 5. That’s just not on me but my team area really pushed themselves very hard and been very determined to keep this thing intact and to keep pushing along and to keep stacking wins. You know I’m just trying to help as much as I can and give energy to this team and make plays where need be. You know I miss some plays at times, I make some plays at times, but we just keep fighting. We stay resilient as a team and we keep building and that’s what it takes to win a championship. And that’s what it takes to run games in the NFL.
PPI: And that’s how the Steeler nation will get to the playoffs, am I right?
Will Allen: Absolutely
PPI: So will Troy be back this season or no?
Will Allen: Yes He will. He’s almost there. Every week he’s getting better and better and better so I’m excited. I’m excited to see that to see him back on the field and we need him. We’re going to need him down the stretch.
PPI: Everyone asks you about his hair have you touched Troy’s hair? Is it as glossy as it looks? Has he given you any head and shoulders samples?
Will Allen: Troy’s hair is very sacred to him. It’s a part of his culture ,part of the Samoan culture, so you know he only pulls it down on game day. He keeps it up during the week. He’s a very peculiar person. He’s a very sweet, sweet and loving man, a really good heart and he loves football, he loves his family, he loves the Steelers, I enjoy being a teammate and I enjoy being his friend.
Catch Will on Twitter @willallenwaf
–Joey Rivaldo contributed to this interview
