Eastern Michigan University alum Kevin Allen spent more than 30 years covering sports, mainly hockey, for USA Today. He started his journalism career at The Eastern Echo and returned to Eastern as a lecturer to share his talents with a new generation of journalists.
Allen was a student at EMU when he published his first paid story in The Eastern Echo. He was still a student when he published his first NHL story, and he became the managing editor of The Eastern Echo before his time at the school had come to an end.
His former titles include being the national hockey writer for USA Today and president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. But right now, most journalism students who see him on campus probably just call him professor when he walks by in a pair of slacks and a golf shirt.
Q: What brought you to Eastern as a student?
Allen: Originally, I was planning to go to Michigan actually. I already knew I wanted to be a journalist, but I chose to go to Eastern because a student teacher of mine at my high school gave me some advice. She had gone to Eastern, and she told me that if I went to Michigan, I wouldn’t even be working at the student paper until my junior year. But if I went to Eastern, I had the potential to be the managing editor at The Echo by the time I was in my junior year.
Q: What was your impression of The Echo when you arrived at Eastern?
Allen: It was a great paper. We had 10 or 11 people already on the staff when I got here who I would have thought, 'These people are going to go and perform at a high level in journalism.' If you look at who was here my first year in 1974, all of them ended up doing big things. Really, the group at The Echo, they were all only a year or two older than me. But I really looked up to them like hard-bitten newshounds.
Kevin Allen, the inaugural inductee into The Eastern Echo Hall of Fame, is a sports journalist who covered hockey for USA Today.
Q: Who or what was the biggest influence on you at that time?
Allen: I’m going to sound like Hillary Clinton, but it was almost like a village. You know, I had great teachers. There was Bernie Decker, who was from Massachusetts. He not only was my teacher, but he worked side by side with The Ypsilanti Press. His desk was right next to mine, so at work, even though I was 18 and he was in his 40s, I called him Bernie. But in class, he was still Professor Decker for me.
Q: What was it like at The Echo?
Allen: There was such a dedicated group, these people were totally dedicated to the idea of just doing really good work. Even though they were, you know, 20, they seemed like they’d been at it a while. We had long discussions about ethics and how to do things the right way.
Jim Paffel, I’ll never forget this, whenever he started his story he did it exactly the same way. He would go out to the cigarette machine we had outside the building back then. He would get a fresh pack, unwind it, take it out of the plastic, and tap it twice. He’d take out one cigarette, draw on it twice, put it out in the tray, and start writing. Everyone had their own idiosyncrasies that I’ll never forget.
Q: What do you think was the most valuable thing you got out of working there?
Allen: Probably what I gained aside from gradual experience was confidence. In high school I was kind of in the middle in terms of the social scale. But when I got within that group at The Echo, because I could write and because I was like them, I gained a lot of confidence. You know, I interviewed the head football coach, George Mans, at the time within my first week at The Echo.
Q: What was that like?
Allen: I walked down to the office, saw a secretary and said I’m Kevin Allen of The Eastern Echo and I’m here to do a story. I wonder if he [Coach Mans] has some time for me or if I can make an appointment? And she said, 'I think he has time now,' and I walked in. That took confidence, and I wasn’t sure I had it in that moment. But it didn’t take long before that was the norm.
Q: Did you keep in contact with the staff after Eastern?
Allen: You know, I just recently had someone tell me from one of my classes that she’s amazed that I still have connections with people that I went to college with, because I’ve utilized those people in the teaching I’ve done here. We spent four years working, drinking and playing together. It was a real social gathering, like a family. We might not be super close, but if I called up and someone said 'Kevin Allen’s on the phone,' they’d take my call and vice versa.
Q: Why did you decide to come back to Eastern to teach?
Allen: It was sort of an accident. I knew Christine Uthoff (current editor/advisor to The Echo) from the journalism profession, who I didn’t work with at The Echo. Christine married one of my first bosses, and they were talking about people who they thought had the right background and personality to teach. I’m not sure if it was Jim or Christine, but one of them said, 'I think Kevin Allen might just do it.' I’d just been let go due to downsizing in the professional world of journalism and I tried retirement, but I wasn’t good at it. I have to feel like I’m being productive. I’ve worked another job for four years now, and with this, I’m back to the same sort of high-volume work environment.
Q: What has teaching been like for you?
Allen: I’m very busy. I teach two days a week and I have one office hours day where I'm available to students. I write daily about the Red Wings, and it turned out I needed it. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy teaching like I am right now, because I’m at the age where my wife and I are talking about what would make it a little less hectic for me. So, the question is, how will that work? And right now, I’m thinking if I had to keep one job, I would keep the teaching job just because I like it a lot.
Allen teaches sports writing, journalism history and news writing and reporting at Eastern Michigan University. He also serves as chairman of The Echo Hall of Fame selection committee.
