Tom Allen is a Teacher at Heart Which Made His 'Pep Talk' with Me and Other Teachers Hit Home

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Teachers around the state of Indiana had a chance to hear from Indiana head football coach Tom Allen on Wednesday evening about his experiences as a teacher, coach and mentor. Allen participated in the event put on by the Indiana eLearning Lab. As a teacher at Tindley Summit Academy in Indianapolis, I attended this webinar with my teaching hat on instead of as a member of the media. It’s late May and teachers have been grinding out another year in a pandemic and Allen’s “pep talk” was just what I needed.

Usually professional development after the school day in late May is met with eye rolls and groans, but knowing what Allen is about I made it a point to stay in my office, which is a makeshift supply closet for my gym equipment, and take it all in. It was worth the 30 minutes. Allen was great and his message is something I, and hopefully our TSA family, will carry with me into the next school year at TSA.

Allen, who has a Masters degree in educational leadership, did not think he would be a teacher, but it is now his passion. “What makes what we do so special in education is we have such an amazing opportunity to impact. I saw that from my dad all those years that he spent education. That's really what drew me into this profession, and just the opportunity to impact young person's life.” Allen said.

Impacting young lives is what teachers hang their hat on. It’s not the pay, time off or the occasional dress down day. It is the fact that we have a chance to be the reason someone finds their purpose.

If you know anything about college football, you know that Indiana football does not have a long history of success. However, Tom Allen came in with his Love Each Other mindset and changed the culture. School culture is just as important to their success as it is to IU football. A poor culture will produce poor results. There are three pillars to Allen’s LEO culture. Number one is accountability, number two is toughness and number three is love.

“We have the ‘LEO’ mantra, which stands for love each other. That's really the branding of how I believe I want this program to be known, and it's definitely three letters and they're all over this building here at the stadium, but it's bigger than that. I always says it should be tattooed on our heart, That to me is really what this is all about, and it's about accountability toughness and love. Those are the three things I want to kind of talk about here for a few minutes because that to me is really the core of what those three letters represent.” Allen explained.

Teachers have seen and heard it all when it comes to chants, mantras and catch phrases. Sometimes we poo-poo them, sometimes we laugh and sometimes we just ignore it. But having seen the ‘LEO’ culture up close since 2016, it’s genuine and its results are real.

“Sometimes people when they hear those letters they don't understand what it really means” Allen said. “But the accountability piece is really to me at the heart of everything that I feel like you want to be able to do as a great teacher, as an educator, as somebody who's going to lead in the classroom lead in the school setting, really just lead in life.”

Accountability is a major key to success in education and quite frankly it is influx. If nobody is accountable we all fail. It falls on teachers, administration, parents and of course the students. All four have to work as one toward a common goal.

In order to achieve Allen’s three pillars one has to create relationships, something Allen has done extraordinarily well in his career.

“It's about relationships,” Allen told the attendees, “and to me, you prove to somebody that you love them, by the way that you invest in their life. And I just think about when I was a teacher and I think about now as a, as a college football coach and I spend so much time with our players one on one, and I want to get to know him, and that's what we have to do you want to really impact young person's life and we got to find out what do they care about, okay, what do they, what do they love to do, how do they enjoy spending their time how do they, you know, what's their dreams that they have in their heart, what do they want to become one day, and when I do this without words I write everything down, and I actually have a big database file and then Excel on my computer I have every single of our players. I know exactly what they want to be as and when they finish out their their career here, I want to know what's most important to them I wonder all about your family. I wonder what their status, all the things that make them who they are, I don't know but that takes time to invest in our players in that way because here's the reality. Once you do that, and you invest in their life and you get to know them, and you get to know what they care about and what they value, and then you can help them accomplish those goals and when they get off track, and maybe they make some decisions that don't align with that end goal, then they will say hey, you told me out of your own mouth. This is what you want, but your behavior doesn't align with that, so therefore I want to do this, this and this to change it.”

It is no accident that Allen has led IU to back-to-back winning seasons and bowl games. He knows the strategies that work and has shown the world that his strategies work.

Allen is a huge advocate that a person is a product of what they read, listen to and who they associate with. Allen even has his coaches read for 30 minutes a day.

“I believe we're products books we read, music we listen to (and) who we hang out with. So it's what you fill your mind with, it's what you associate with, and the people around you that's going to drive who you become.” Allen explained. “I think that's true when you're a teenager I think that's true when you're in your 20s they get you in your 30s, and now I just turned 51 So, now I'm a little bit older but, but it doesn't change and so and I want to surround myself with coaches and at want to be great teachers and understand that that coaching and teaching is much the same.”

As a reporter on the IU football beat, I always listen to what Allen has to say about football. Today, as a teacher on the Far Eastside of Indianapolis, I was taking Tom Allen’s message to heart. Our profession is too important not to bring a little accountability, toughness and love into our classrooms.

I also want to thank Coach Allen for taking the time to talk to us on a professional level and share his stories and advice with us. He is also speaking from the heart and as a teacher I appreciate it coach.