Football - News Football - News
News | Roster | Schedules--Results | Archives
9/30/06-Football
OLSM's Allen more than just a football talent
By KEITH LANGLOIS
The Oakland Press
ORCHARD LAKE - George Porritt has won state championships and coached an endless stream of big-time football players in his 18 seasons running the show at St. Mary's Prep, but there was one thing he'd never had. A junior captain. Until Dionte Allen showed up. "That's where he's so special," said Porritt, a man not exactly prone to gushing. "He's a leader in the school, not just in football. He's a well-rounded kid. I could go on and on about that. I think the world of him in that way.
"He says the right things, he's very humble and he's always saying positive things to his teammates. And he's been that way since his freshman year. First kid I've ever made a junior captain because of his positiveness and his work ethic and how he gets along with kids and teachers."
"That's an accomplishment," Allen said of getting tabbed captain as a junior. "When I was a sophomore, everybody on the team was like, They're not going to name you a junior captain. They're not going to do it.' I was like, 'OK, watch.' "
Watch. It won't take long to see a special talent wrapped up in a special kid. Dionte Allen stands out in a crowd, whether it's amid the backdrop of stars George Porritt churns out at the corner of Orchard Lake and Commerce roads or among the preposterous amount of talent that ripples across Oakland County's football fields this fall, by all accounts the deepest and most top-heavy year in anyone's memory.
Just on Porritt's team, there's sleek wideout Taurian Washington, committed to Ohio State, and lanky quarterback Justin Siller, a Purdue pledge.
Washington would be the top receiver in the state nine years out of 10, but this year there are three others in Oakland County alone who are pushing him. Pontiac Northern's Martell Webb and Madison Heights Lamphere's James Rogers are both headed to Michigan, and Farmington Hills Harrison's fabulous Mark Dell is poised for a big career at Michigan State.
Over at Birmingham Brother Rice, good enough to hand Porritt's Eaglets their first loss last week, Darris Sawtelle (Tennessee) is among the nation's most coveted offensive tackles, while Chris Colasanti (Penn State) is similarly ranked at linebacker. Unbeaten Lake Orion's defense is anchored by Minnesota commitment Josh Allison.
And on and on it goes. But there wasn't a whole lot of debate when this newspaper named Allen, born to play cornerback, the county's No. 1 player before the season began.
Assessing Dionte Allen has always been just that easy.
Pete Orman, Porritt's junior varsity coach, took all of three days three years ago to tell his boss that Allen didn't belong with him, but with the St. Mary's varsity. They hadn't even put the pads on yet when his promotion came.
Allen, just a few months past his 13th birthday at the time, arrived at St. Mary's with that as his goal after being fascinated by the school when he'd watch the Eaglets play Detroit DePorres as a kid. It also didn't hurt St. Mary's that the best friend of Dionte's father, Brian Allen, was a great player at St. Mary's in the mid-'80s, Filmel Johnson, who was a starter for Illinois.
"I was motivated," he recalls. "I was coming in and I wanted to play on varsity as a freshman. I worked hard because that's what I wanted to do. I was trying to win every sprint. I was just being myself, bascially."
"I saw him in conditioning," Porritt said, "and thought, boy, this is a kid to watch. Pete came up and said, with his intelligence level, knowing the game, his ability to cover, his athleticism, this kid can play."
It took Allen himself about the same time frame to reach the same conclusion. He was 8 when he first pulled on a helmet, playing in Saturday morning Police Athletic League games on Detroit's west side.
"The first week of practice, I was kind of nervous and scared," he said. "But the first time I got hit, I was like, 'All right. I'm OK.' My first position was cornerback. I guess it came easy."
Among the players in Porritt's pipeline are Grant Mason and Morgan Trent. Mason started at corner for Michigan after transfering from Stanford, while Trent is a sophomore starter at corner for the Wolverines.
Porritt won't say Allen is the most talented, but says he has a lot of Mason's toughness and a lot of Trent's speed and something beyond what either of them possessed in his ability to change direction on a dime. Football coaches like to refer to a cornerbacks' hips, and Dionte Allen has the swivelingest hips since Elvis.
"It's just a natural position for him," Porritt said. "He just has that knack of coverability, the good hops to be able to follow receivers' moves. He has that command of the game. That change of direction, that's one of his great strengths."
Add up the package - a serious student who checked out all the business management courses at the schools that interested him, a natural and willing leader, an elite player at one of the game's toughest positions to fill - and it's no wonder he heard from every coach in the country who regularly shows up on Saturday TVs.
Allen whittled his fi nal list to five: Michigan, Notre Dame, Florida State, Ohio State and Miami. Around here - and on the Internet - the heavy betting favorite was Michigan. There were even credible rumors that Allen was actively recruiting other top players to join him in Ann Arbor.
So jaws hit the floor last month, just before the season opened, when he committed to Florida State. Even Porritt was surprised, though he also remembers Allen long ago proclaiming his love for the Seminoles .
"The day he walked in the school, the day I got to know him, that's the school he talked about," Porritt said. " I'm going to Florida State someday.' He absolutely loved coach (Ron) English (Michigan's defensive coordinator) and Michigan, but he was somebody who had the chance to stick to his guns, and you don't often see that."
Allen even caught the Florida State coaches offguard. But he scoffs at the notion that he committed because of a childhood infatuation. Yes, he loved Deion Sanders - he wears No. 21 - even though Sanders was well into his NFL career before Allen knew he'd played at Florida State, and, yes, he loved watching Peter Warrick and still loves that war chant with the accompanying tomahawk chant.
But he didn't commit until he visited Tallahassee in July - and if you've ever been to Tallahassee in July, you know it's like trying to sell Ann Arbor in January. He got the business school rundown, he saw the campus and the city, and he asked Bobby Bowden, almost 77, how long he'd be his coach.
"He said, As long as the man upstairs doesn't take me, I'm going to be here.' I think he will be. The campus visit was the biggest thing. Being up here, of course I can say, I love it, I love it.' But if I hadn't gotten down there, it would have been hard for me to say I was going there. It felt comfortable. It felt real comfortable. It was everything I thought it would be."
The also-rans haven't stopped trying. Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State - they all text message him a few times a week. Is it hopeless? Maybe not. He says he'd still consider taking official visits to those schools, if that's what he and his family decide is best.
But nobody should get their hopes too high. Dionte Allen is an extremely level-headed kid who fully understood the impact of offering a commitment. If anything could change his mind, it would be the tug of family. He's the oldest of three children. Brianna is 14 and Jalen is 6, a brighteyed bundle of energy who shares an extremely tight relationship with Dionte.
"We're very close," Dionte said. "He's a really good baseball player and he's a smart, smart kid." But is he a Florida State fan? "Now he is."
And an Orchard Lake St. Mary's fan. Part of the reason a very big part of the reason why the St. Mary's stars committed early, when so many kids who revel in the drama drag their recruitment out until February's signing day and beyond, was to focus on a season with endless possibilities.
The Eaglets lost last year in the quarterfinals to Brother Rice, a team they'd beaten twice previously, when Siller couldn't play due to a hand injury. In basketball, they lost in the semifi nals.
"Winning a state championship is very important," Allen said. "We've come so close in basketball and football the last few years. It was just right there. It's very important for the seniors. Like coach Porritt says, You'll never get this back. Enjoy it, because you can never come back to high school.' "
Last week's narrow loss to Brother Rice stung - an undefeated season was one of St. Mary's goals - but Allen grabbed his captaincy by the horns when the game ended.
"The bigger goal is still out there," he said. "That's history. That's behind us. That game, Brother Rice was the better team. But we can still get that state championship. I told the team, It's over. We've got to come back. It's homecoming week and we've got a great team, Catholic Central, coming in.' There's a lot of football left to play."
For a kid born to play cornerback, there certainly is. This year and beyond.
Copyright 2006, St. Mary's Preparatory, Orchard Lake, Michigan. All rights reserved.
No logos, photographs, or graphics on the site may be reproduced without written permission.