Pokey Allen

The owner of the restaurant/tavern where I worked  during the early 1990s was a big Portland State booster.  PSU's football coaching staff came into the joint regularly to have lunch and down a few draft beers.

Head Coach Pokey Allen was a charming and friendly man.  He often came up to the bar to chat a little when his crew at the adjoined tables on the main floor became too loud.  He was the boss and exempt from it, but his assistants ribbed each other pretty good all the time; he'd take in a little of the ribaldry before escaping to the bar.

Let them have their fun.

We talked golf.  Pokey loved golf, he said, and I was just taking the sport up at that time.  He said once, "ninety percent of all golfers never break a hundred."

I don't know if that was true then, or now.  But it came from Pokey, so I wasn't going to question it.

Yeah, we agreed.  Golf is a tough game.

I was at that time working on a few plays for the stage.  Good, Pokey said.  He liked the theatre.  You see, Pokey was a well-rounded guy, a smart man.

He was like Chip Kelly without the terseness and arrogance.

My workplace became a sort of recreational nerve-center for PSU's football staff during the final two years of Pokey's reign.  The Vikings played in two NCAA Division II championship games in a row in Florence, Ala. and lost both of them.

But they got to the final game, that is what counted.  The games were televised nationally, too.  A few of my friends were lucky enough to go to those games.  One of them, my co-worker Char Wolters, was the official team photographer.

I got to stay home and work when my boss and Char went to Florence.  Which was fine, I wouldn't have had the money to pay for the trip anyway.

The Vikings played their home games in the same stadium they play in today.  Now it is called Jeld-Wen Field. Then it was just Multnomah Stadium, and sometime later PGE Park.

It's much nicer now, after the renovation for Major League Soccer, but the seating capacity hasn't really changed much since Pokey's day--around 20,000.

With that kind of capacity, Portland usually won the nod to host a playoff game or three under the Division II playoff system.  Few D-II stadiums around the country hold that many people.

The stadium easily filled up during the playoffs.  Then, just like now, it was about the asses you could put in the seats--the money.

Like the linked article above notes, David Hersh is back in town with a new sports promotions business and he's working with PSU to raise the visibility of the school's current lackluster program.

Understandably, they'd like to reclaim the old days while playing in the FCS, a considerable step up from Division II.

I wish them luck.

But there were two keys to the success and sellouts PSU enjoyed in that era.  Number one, the Vikings were a good team because Pokey Allen was a great coach, meaning they won a lot.

Number two, Pokey Allen's honesty and personality made him a great promoter.

Here's something that might start the ball rolling again for PSU and Mr. Hersh.  PSU needs to go down to Berkeley Saturday and beat Cal.

Not likely going to happen, but you never know.  Look at what happened in Corvallis last weekend.

ED:  RBP poet Charles Deemer reminds that he was a hand-selected stand-in Viking team mascot for one playoff game in the halcyon days of PSU football.  Who could forget that?  I was there and remember it well. Could have been another career!


TS