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Competitor Profile on Shelly Allen
By Boice Lydell
From Sport Karate Magazine
(Sept-Oct 2000)
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Date of birth: March 23, 1982
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Ballet-no, tap dancing-no, skating rink is to far away, gymnastics-no, I don’t like wearing tights, cheerleading-no, all the girls are prissy and act like airheads…but I do kind of like that stuff the karate kids does! Thus were the answers that the parents received or experienced when they sought an activity for their seven-year-old daughter, Shelly Allen. So grandpa, known simply as “poppa”, who like most grandpas, enjoy having their grandchildren adore them, found a nearby karate school and enrolled her. It may not have been exactly what the parents had in mind for their petite young daughter, but they supported it and Shelly persevered for two years in traditional karate. They were living in Sacramento in northern California at this time when her father was suddenly transferred to the high desert area of southern California. It was off to a new start and Shelly found a karate home with former world champion E. J. Volta’s school. It was under Volta’s tutelage that while attending a nearby tournament, she and other schoolmates were temporarily unattended and running the floor, when the promoter, thinking they were the students of another school instructor, Steve Amaro, told him to attend his brats. Amaro was so irritated by the incorrect association that in turn he lectured the rambunctious kids which led to a horrible distaste by Shelly of this “mean man”. However, as fate may have it, a short time thereafter Volta left the school and the students were introduced to their new instructor…Steve Amaro. Allen thus told her mom that she wasn’t leaving the school…he was! But Amero coaxed her into exhibiting a few forms for him, which led him to the goal to conquer this young girl and disdain and thus told her parents that he would make her into a world champion! The year-1997, the place-Colorado Springs, the event-Super Grands World Games VIII. It was the year of rivalries-Team Leiker, the Firefighters Team and of initiations and surprises-Team Kani and Dragon Force and the year that Amaro’s Team Unison was riding high in both the Super Grands and the Amateur Internationals. His Unison school would become the most winning school in the USA that year. Firefighters Team member Shannon Gallagher was the reigning world champion in the junior girls’ contemporary forms division and perhaps the favorite for yet another world title again in the division for that year. She won five titles that year total, which is still the record for any female. But the rookie, Shelly Allen was determined that she must win the empty hand division after a devastating drop of her long bo in her beloved weapons division elimination’s two days earlier. By one one-hundredth she won the eliminations over Gallagher sending both into the Grand Finale for the world title contention. It was a Grand Finale rarely rivaled for excitemen6 and the intensity of the run-off was high. With scores of 29.96 to 29.96 coaches, parents, instructors, teammates and the fans all gasped as there was no relief of tension and a run-off was imminent. And again they tied 29.96 all. With everything on the line an ensuing judge’s show of hand was in store. It was hard for Allen to express to this writer exactly how she felt at the time of the judges show of hands as she had been diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection several days earlier and was even advised not to compete by her doctor. All she remembered at that point, as well as during her entire second delusionary performance, was that she was about to keel over from exhaustion at any moment. Three to two the judges gave her her first world title and kept a beaming Set Amaro true to his word that he would indeed turn the obstinate youngster into a sport karate world champion. Additional world championships for Allen have been four fold since then with the female musical forms win in both ’98 and ’99 along with creative forms and team sparring in ’99. It was shortly after Super Grands VIII that Team SMASH International membership, Chris Millares approached her and unauthoritatively told her that his coach wanted her on their national team. She had tabled many other team offers but was somehow attracted to the SMASH Team and its members, thus she took the initiative to call the coach, Mark Russo. The unprepared Russo, caught by surprise and slightly embarrassed by her enthusiasm to be part of the team, did put her on the team even though he hadn’t decided positively to do so previously. She has been a mainstay ever since. Her last big harrah may be this year’s Super Grands as her tournament competition attendance will be limited in the future by her enthusiastic goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Graduating from high school in the top 5% of her class, she has obtained a much needed scholarship and will be attending MCP Hahnemann College in Philadelphia this fall to pursue her career goal. Intermittently she will be an assistant instructor at Mark Russo’s Amerikick Karate School and try to catch a tournament or two when time permits. But before she gets heavily engrossed into her new medical career she intends to give her best shot towards winning her first world title in the adult divisions. |
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