On Saturday, Rose Allen and her two sons Robert and Dennis shared a special one-year anniversary. However, it was not a celebration. They shared a day of mourning at Providence Park Cemetery in Metarie.
On January 31, 2003, Rose Allen had to bury her 23-year old son, James.
The sophomore offensive lineman died of brain trauma on January 24, 2003 after being shot once in the back of his head following an altercation outside of The Varsity, a local nightclub outside of the north gates of Louisiana State University.
“He was a real good person,” said Jags’ senior linebacker and longtime friend Eddie Green. “He had a great personality and he knew how to make everyone laugh.”
The Southern University football team has collectively dedicated the 2003 season to the memory of Allen. The team, along with other members of the Jaguar Nation paid homage to the slain player throughout the season with tributes and memorials.
“He would have been an important part of the team,” said senior linebacker and longtime friend Kendrick Paul. “He worked so hard as a member of the team and I know he would have been one of the ones who would have made a difference.”
Support groups and booster clubs have also paid homage to Allen. Mrs. Allen was even offered a free trip to the 2003 Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship in Birmingham, Ala.
The game, coincidentally and eerily, was on the same day as her son’s birthday. She declined the trip because she was upset she would not be able to go to the cemetery to tell him that his alleged murderer would be put behind bars.
She eventually watched the Jags win the game and dedicated the game to her son, but that she was hoping that “everything would come to a close so that he (James) could rest in peace.”
She said that the trial of his alleged murder, Marcus Thomas, was supposed to occur on December 8, but was postponed for the second time. The trial has been rescheduled to March 15.
Thomas turned himself into the police on February 18, 2003 and along with the charge of murder in the second-degree, he was charged with the illegal carrying of a weapon.
A spokesman from the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office said that many things can cause a trial to be postponed such as motions, continuances or the finding of new evidence.
“I’m mad because that was the second time this has been postponed and I just want to ask him (Thomas) why he killed my son,” Mrs. Allen said. “I want to ask him why he took my son’s life. James was such a happy-go-lucky person. No one deserves this.”
James has left behind a son of nine months to carry on his legacy. Now James Jamel Allen, Jr., or “Big Mel,” as Mrs. Allen affectionately calls her grandson, is going to have to grow up knowing only but a trace of who his father was.
But she said that she has pledged to remind him of who her son was.
“He’s going to have a lot going for him, like his father,” Mrs. Allen said. “He’s special just like James.”
