Jimmy Allen ‘75 I n 1 9 5 3 , J imm y Allen , a small boy with big challenges, forged a relationship with McMurry football that would set the course for his life. Forty-seven years later, that relationship, combined with his strong faith and a dogged determination to succeed, would be called on to save his life. Jimmy suffered a brain injury during birth and has been challenged with overcoming Cerebral Palsy since that time. He has never walked and has very limited use of his arms and hands. Jimmy, now 66, remembers as a small child sitting in his yard a few blocks from the campus and looking toward the football field. “My thoughts and my vision focused on the same point—the rock fence that enclosed Indian Stadium. I had a dream of someday entering McMurry.” He had no idea at that time what God had planned for him behind that rock wall. When Jimmy was 11 years old he received physical therapy at the newly formed West Texas Rehabilitation Center. There he met several members of the McMurry football team. Among them were Joe Bill Fox ’56, Billy Atkins ’55 and Elroy Payne ’56. They volunteered their time to help the physical therapists give exercises and administer physical therapy to the children. They chauffeured kids to and from treatment and even helped raise funds to provide wheelchairs and other items of equipment needed in their therapy. A strong bond developed between Jimmy and the McMurry players. He soon knew more statistics regarding the McMurry football team than most of the coaches did. Years later, that desire to know and analyze McMurry statistics would become his life’s work. It was at Cooper High School where he received his first opportunity to help coach football. He began as a “whistle blower.” He blew the whistle to start and stop workout drills. What began with the sound of the whistle on the Cooper football field grew and developed beyond graduation. After seven years of dedication to those young men, Jimmy was inducted into the Cooper Cougars Hall of Fame in 1994. By the fall of 1970 Jimmy entered his first class at what was then McMurry College. At that time McMurry was not wheelchair accessible. Before he could get to the
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elevator in the building where his class was held, he had to climb four steps. Each day he had to rely on others to lift him in his wheelchair over the stairs to get into the building. The first semester he took one class—college algebra; the second semester—trigonometry and English; and the third semester—he took a full load. Jimmy brought carbon paper to different members of his class. They used it when they took their notes and shared the copies with him. Because he couldn’t hold a pencil in his hand, he had to come up with another way to do his homework. He used an electric typewriter and a pencil clinched firmly between his teeth. He tediously located and typed each letter by mouth. “I used a lot of correction tape. The computer has made my typing much easier!” McMurry professors had to be creative in teaching gifted and challenged students like Jimmy. “Dr. Moore, my biology teacher…took me to his office, put the test in front of me, turned on a tape recorder and returned to the class. That was one heck of a surprise!” It was fulfilling to have overcome the challenges of the stairs and the classroom, but
