Looking back at Mike Allison's everlasting impact at Adams State
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This is the fifth profile of seven individuals being inducted into the RMAC Hall of Fame on Friday, July 8 at the Colorado Springs Marriott Hotel. The 1982 and 1983 CMU Football teams are also being inducted. Tickets for the Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet can be purchased by clicking here.
Hours before his first match at Adams State, Tom Cortez was defeated. Hopeless that he wouldn’t make weight, he had taken off his gear, sitting dejected in Plachey Hall when an experienced senior on the team approached him. The senior told Cortez to get his stuff back on before leading him on a grueling seven mile run down the Rio Grande. “I have never sweated so hard,” Cortez states, reflecting on the experience. The veteran wrestler told his new teammate to get in his back pocket and stay there so Cortez did just that; the two didn’t stop running until he said: “We’re done.” That first match, Cortez made weight thanks to the man who had intimidated him for months prior. This intimidating, 190-pound wrestler who motivated his teammate was Mike Allison.
Although he only overlapped one year with Allison at Adams State, Cortez was constantly impressed with Allison’s presence on and off of the mat during wrestling. “Mike has a persuasive way,” he asserted. “Not just with his size but he has the words to back it up too.” When Allison was a two-time NAIA National Wrestling Champion during his time at
?Adams State. He finished his career 46-4 and recorded 38 career pins, including 12 straight during his 1973-74 season. Even during his last year at Adams State 73-74, a season that Cortez describes one in which the team “fell flat on their faces” coming in eleventh nationally, Mike was “the most redeeming thing for the program at the time. He got his second title and he did it in a marvelous way. I don’t think anyone scored a point on the guy.” Allison shares the career winning percentage record (.920) at Adams State. In 1973, he was a member of the National Championship Wrestling Team. He was a four-time Rocky Mountain AAU Champion and a 1972 and 1976 Rocky Mountain Region Olympic Qualifier Champion.
After completing his collegiate career, Allison did not leave the wrestling world. He was assistant wrestling coach at his alma mater from 1976-78 under fellow RMAC Hall of Famer Richard Ulrich, before coaching wrestling and football at Dakota State and Fort Lewis. Later he would move to the high school realm. He coached at Cheyenne Mountain, Douglas County and Montezuma- Cortez High School. During this time, he became closer with his former teammate, Cortez as they would run work outs together and help each other at different wrestling camps. They even worked together for ten summers with the Junior National Team in Colorado.
From 1990-1995 he served as the Colorado USA Cadet and Junior Director (Freestyle-Greco). He was the Colorado USA Cadet/Junior
?National Team Wrestling Coach between 1987 and 2001. Allison was inducted into the NAIA Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1986, Adams State College Hall of Fame (2007) and RMAC Hall of Fame for 1973 ASC National Championship team in 2007. Recently retiring in May, Allison was assistant principal at Redlands Middle School since 2006. Cortez comments on his former teammate’s passion for young people: ‘Mike always had that magnetism. He is just tremendous around young people.”
Aside from his work as a wrestler, coach and administrator, family was always paramount to Allison. His wife Carolyn was constantly by his side allowing him to devote time and effort to wrestling. Additionally, Mike passed on some athletic genes to his three children who were all athletes in their own right. His boys, Cole and Micah, both wrestled (Cole at the college level at UNC) and his daughter, Stefanie, was 2007 RMAC Volleyball player of the year when she played at Metro State. Even though Allison is remembered by many as “Griz”, the big and tough wrestler, he’s really all heart, especially with the addition of grandchildren to his family.
43 years later, Cortez still wishes nothing but the best for his friend, colleague, and teammate. In regard to his induction into the RMAC Hall of Fame in a month Cortez declares: “Mike, congratulations, well earned, and about time!”