1 Humble Beginnings When one looks back on the football coaching exploits of George Allen, certain characteristics about him inevitably take shape: his exceptional work ethic, his ultracompetitiveness, and his unyielding quest for perfection. Those traits defined him to the core. It''s not too difficult to pinpoint why he became so driven or the origin of his Type A personality. Growing up poor during the Great Depression likely played a significant role. The way he described it, his hunger to succeed existed from the very beginning. "I was born motivated," Allen wrote in his 1990 book, Strategies for Winning. "Not everyone is. But I believe motivation can be passed on and acquired, like a vaccine.
" George Herbert Allen was born on April 29, 1917, in a home at 62 Fulton Street in Detroit. His birth certificate identifies his father, Earl Allen, as a "machinist auto worker" and his mother, Loretta Hannigan Allen, as a "housewife." By his teenage years, George would be called on to help support the family, which welcomed a second child, Virginia, in 1921. But the Allens seemed financially comfortable for the time being. Earl and Loretta had moved to Detroit from the town of Rensselaer, New York, on the east side of the Hudson River opposite the state capital, Albany. In the 1800s many Dutch immigrants settled in Albany, Rensselaer, and other nearby areas. Rensselaer is today the only New York State site devoted to Dutch culture and is home to Crailo, the museum of the colonial Dutch in the Hudson River valley. Earl and Loretta were both of Irish descent, with Earl also possessing Dutch lineage.
By the turn of the century, millions of Americans were migrating to the country''s rapidly growing cities in search of economic opportunity. Detroit, which had evolved into a mecca of industrial production led by auto companies, held a wealth of potential jobs. The city''s population skyrocketed in the first half of the twentieth century, with waves of European and Canadian immigrants, as well as residents of southern U.S. states, seeking work in the booming car industry. The Allens took notice, although when they relocated to Detroit is unclear. Their home in 1917 at 62 Fulton Street was in a blue-collar industrial area in the southwestern part of the city. Many working-class people settled there around the end of World War I.
That same year, the Allens headed east to the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Shores, which by the early twentieth century had become a popular destination for the rich and powerful. Their residence was on Lake Shore Road, which featured some imposing mansions on multiacre estates, with architecture so grand that one house resembled an "early English Renaissance Castle" and cost $2 million to build, the equivalent of about $40 million today. Members of the Ford family--the auto-manufacturing dynasty--owned some of the mansions. Grosse Pointe Shores as a whole was trending upscale, with a fair number of residents listing themselves as professionals, merchants, or industry owners of some sort. One called himself a "capitalist." Other people such as Earl Allen were there to service the wealthy. He and his family resided at 1025 rear Lake Shore Road. The "rear" in the address likely meant they lived in a cottage on the property or in an apartment above the garage.
Earl Allen was a chauffeur for a successful businessman named Edgar H. Houghton, who lived with his family in the main residence at 1025 Lake Shore Road. Houghton, a Canadian immigrant who became an American citizen, managed the Lawrence Publishing Company before becoming secretary-treasurer of the Michigan Farmer, an agricultural publication. Having a car and being able to afford a chauffeur made him quite upper class for that time. Houghton thought highly of Earl Allen as an employee and penned a letter of recommendation for him on January 20, 1920: "The bearer, Earl R. Allen, has been in my employ for three years. I have found him to be perfectly honest in every way and a consistent worker. I cheerfully recommend him, and I am certain that he will ably fill any position he may accept.
He is taking a vacation for three months, while I am away in Florida, and I will gladly take him back on my return if he will accept the position."8 In addition to being a chauffeur, Earl spent time as a car mechanic at a local Ford plant. Loretta was a domestic worker. The family''s 1025 rear Lake Shore Road residence was across the street from the estate where the family of Edsel Ford, the only son of automobile mogul Henry Ford and the president of the Ford Motor Company at the time, began residing in 1928. According to the 1930 U.S. Census, the Allens relocated about six miles north, to 23511 Allor Boulevard in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, a bedroom community with many workers in the Detroit auto industry.
It was also a transport site for "rum running," the illegal business of shipping alcohol during the Prohibition era. The 1930 Census says Earl Allen was still a chauffeur for a "private family." He also played the saxophone and performed in clubs. The Allens owned a radio, which at the time meant they were probably in the middle-class portion of the socioeconomic spectrum. But the Great Depression, which began in 1929, shook the nation, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment. Many companies laid off workers, and Detroit was hit hard. Some fifteen million Americans were out of work by the nadir of the Great Depression, in 1933. Earl Allen struggled, although not entirely because of the tight economy.
In an incident that prevented him from working, he suffered a debilitating head injury on the Ford assembly line. At the same time, he was a heavy drinker, a pattern that his son observed. George Allen never drank alcoholic beverages in excess in his life, limiting his consumption to a blackberry brandy or a beer that he shared with his wife. "My father''s determination not to drink and to make sure his children did not drink much could be because his father drank too much," said the oldest of George Allen''s four children, George Felix Allen.