Little did he know that what he learned back then would come in handy more than a decade later while working in the UM athletic department.
Since January 2006 Allen has been serving as the interim assistant athletic director for business operations, filling the capable shoes of Ed Wingard who was called up to serve in the military and is about to wrap up his deployment in Afghanistan.
The change came at a time when Grizzly Athletics was in the process of trying to dig out of a well-chronicled and thoroughly investigated $1 million deficit.
Fortunately for Allen and the department Wingard had mapped out a strategy for erasing the debt and avoiding future red ink working with policies that resulted from the investigation into the deficit.
Allen said while growing up he wanted to be a dentist, but he was encouraged by a couple of accounting teachers at Butte High School to look at accounting as a possible course of study and career. He took their advice.
Following graduation Allen took a job with an accounting firm in Ketchikan, Alaska. One of the jobs his firm took on was an audit for the town of Klawock on Prince of Wales Island. Allen learned that Klawock -population under 1,000 - was looking for a city treasurer. He applied for, and got, the job.
Allen had been carrying on a long-distance romance with his girlfriend, Bridget, back in Missoula and decided to propose to her with the idea that she would move to Alaska. She said yes, but rather than Bridget joining him in Alaska Allen returned to Missoula.
After working for a plumbing contractor Allen successfully applied for the position of assistant accounting manager at UM business services. He started in November, 1999.
In 2005 Duringer told Allen he had a short-term and long-term problem needed to be taken care of. Wingard first was deployed in September, 2005 to do Hurricane Katrina relief. Following that he was sent to Afghanistan in January, 2006.
“Apprehensive,” Allen said when asked how he felt about filling in for Wingard.
Much of that apprehension was tied to the huge deficit which Grizzly Athletics had just begun working to come out of. The final pay down came in December, 2006.
“I knew there was so much scrutiny,” Allen recalled, “media and … boosters and lots of administrators. I knew that it would be a huge challenge and … a great resume builder.”
One thing Allen said he has learned from the experience is that players of his era and the athletes of today have no idea what goes into running a college athletic program which now has a budget of around $12 million.
“To say the least,” Allen replied when asked if the experience has given him a deeper appreciation in that area. “It’s a collective effort form a lot of skilled individuals and I’m just blessed to be a part of it … and very happy that I was able to come in and contribute as much as I could.”
Asked how long it took the apprehension to wear off Allen joked, “Just until last week.”
“You don’t walk in and know every little nuance of the business side of it,” he explained. “It took me a year to start getting accustomed to the process … and to the complexities that surround the athletic department.”
Allen called the deficit “a shot over the bow” that a lot of athletic departments around the country were facing, many to a greater degree than UM’s. He said it was unfortunate that the deficit became the major focus of Grizzly Athletics.
When Allen says everybody in the athletic department is involved in the budget process he means exactly that. Everybody who oversees an area within the department is “on the hook” for their budget.
“I often tell them … I will do everything as much as I can to help them prepare it and to be in compliance with it,” Allen said. “We always seek their buy-in to make sure that what we’re doing on the business side is in fact what they need to be successful.”
Allen provides monthly financial statements to coaches and others in the department and meets quarterly with them to make sure they are on track with their budgets.
“Probably the biggest challenge is … quantifying the unknown,” Allen said. “Where are we going to be on football ticket sales, and where are we going to be on Lady Griz travel. Those things are very, very difficult to pinpoint.”
That part of the job keeps Allen and others plenty busy, but in addition there is “quite a bit of reporting to be done.”
The three major reports are the Equity in Athletics report that comes out each October, the NCAA report out in December and the Commissioner of Higher Education report usually done in January. Allen said the reports take up the bulk of his time in the fall and early winter months.
Wingard is due back in Missoula the third week of June and is expected back in his office in July. Once the transition is complete Allen will return to business services.
“It shouldn’t really be a problem for Ed considering that I took his system and didn’t alter it at all,” Allen noted. “So he should step right in.”
Looking back Allen sees more similarities than differences in playing football and working with the athletic department budget because “there is pressure to perform.”
“In the early 90s the pressure was to take up as many blockers as I possibly could and let the linebackers have a lot of the glory,” Allen said. “It’s not too much different here. I put my head down and try to prepare people and give people as much information as they need to do their job.
“The pressure is to perform at a very high level,” Allen added.
Allen and Bridget now have to daughters - Aisley, 4, and Lilly, 2. He called them the biggest reward in his life to date.
Now that Allen has experienced working inside an athletic department he admits that it has whetted his appetite somewhat.
“Having this experience certainly expands my horizons,” Allen said, “and the doors I think will open. Right now I’m going to fulfill my obligation … at the athletic department and go back and fill my obligation … at business services. And then we’ll see from there.”
Click here to listen to the complete interview with Lance Allen.
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