Written by Sandy Stevens
For decades, Joe Allen was away from the world of wrestling. As a jet pilot and an astronaut, in fact, he was often far removed from earth itself.
But Allen maintains that his out-of-the-world success was grounded in his time on the mat. “Wrestling takes discipline, and through discipline comes a level of self-confidence,” he explained. “If self-confidence in a match was not warranted, it teaches the individual to deal with a momentary failure — but not be defeated.” “Men and women (wrestlers) will easily pick themselves up and press on. That’s the ultimate measure of an individual.”
Allen’s introduction to the sport came as a result of his small stature but through a less-than-characteristic route. Growing up in what he calls a typical rural community of Crawfordsville, Ind., he was small for his age. By the time he reached sixth grade, bigger kids were taking advantage him because of his size. As a result, Allen’s dad tried to find someone to teach his son karate or boxing. “Back when I was growing up in Indiana, you hardly ever heard of wrestling,” Allen said.
Eventually his dad contacted a man named Chauncey McDaniel. “It turned out he was a very successful high school wrestling coach,” Allen said. “What I learned from him gave me a little confidence in myself — to not back down — so I was not picked on so much.
As a freshman, Allen made the Crawfordsville varsity squad at 93 pounds. “I had to ‘bulk up’ because I weighed 88 pounds,” he recalled. He qualified for the state tournament all four years, placing as high as third.
He then headed to DePauw University, a school without a wrestling team. “I just assumed that (wrestling) was part of my past,” he said. However, Allen and several others who had wrestled in high school convinced the university to start a wrestling club during his sophomore year. The next two years saw Allen as a starter as DePauw fielded a team that competed against such schools as Wheaton College.
“We may have lost just one meet,” Allen said, “but only because of these rag-tags who had laid out a couple years but were pretty decent in high school.”
Allen earned a bachelor’s degree in math and physics from DePauw and master’s and doctorate degrees in physics at Yale, where he served as a sparring partner a couple times a week with that university’s wrestlers.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Allen studied math and physics in Germany. “While I was at the university, they were training some very impressive young men for the 1960 Olympics,” he said.
A research associate in the Nuclear Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington before being selected as an astronaut in 1967, Allen was also a staff physicist at Yale’s Nuclear Structure Laboratory and a guest research associate at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. After serving in Mission Control for the Apollo 15 and 17 moon flights, he boarded the first fully operational shuttle flight in November 1982 as a mission specialist. The four-man crew launched the first two commercial communications satellites.
Allen returned to space in 1984 as a mission specialist on the second flight of the Discovery shuttle. At the completion of the flight, which launched and recovered satellites, he had logged 314 hours in space. He also logged more than 3,000 hours flying time in jet aircraft.
Allen’s return to the wrestling world began early in 1998 with a call from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He had been named to the Hall of Outstanding Americans that recognizes those who have used the disciplines of the sport to launch notable careers in other walks of life.
Then he told Bonnie, his wife of 45 years, that they had an opportunity to go to Stillwater, Okla., for the Honors Weekend. Bonnie, who had never seen a wrestling match, replied, “For the first 10 years (of marriage), it was physicists, then 15 years of test pilots and astronauts. Now you want me to hang out with a bunch of wrestlers? I don’t think so.” But Bonnie agreed to go along, partly for the chance to revisit Enid and Vance Air Force base, where they had lived while Joe was in astronaut training.
As the couple settled on the airplane after spending Honors weekend with members of the wrestling family in Stillwater, however, Bonnie said, “Joe, I own you an apology. They were the nicest group of people I’ve been around in a long time. And they never brag.”
Now both of the Allens, who are parents of David, a firefighter stationed in western Colorado with the Department of the Interior, and Elizabeth, an elementary school teacher in Virginia, travel often to major wrestling events, including the World Championships in Budapest.
Although retired, Allen serves on the boards of trustees for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and for several educational institutions.
“I continue to have a passion for education,” he said, “and that includes the education you receive from wrestling coaches.”
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