Deana Allen has never beaten her dad in one-on-one.
As Greg Stewart recalls, the last time they played against each other, Allen was in eighth grade.
With each basket counting one point, Stewart said he spotted his daughter three points in the first game and defeated her, 12-6.
He wasn’t so generous in the rematch, spotting Allen zero points and beating her again. However, Allen was not deterred.
“She said, ‘I want to play again!’” Stewart said. “And then I said, ‘What are we going to play again for? I beat you twice already.’”
The losses stung Allen, who was about to begin playing basketball at Ellender Memorial High in Houma, La.
Allen, the first player off the bench for Florida’s NCAA Tournament squad this season, was four years away from being named Miss Basketball in Louisiana.
“It made me mad,” Allen said. “I would cry. I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to stop playing until I get a game won.’”
Allen’s tears eventually dried, but her desire to come out on top never went away.
Stewart, a long-time youth basketball coach, said he denied his daughter victory because he wanted to motivate her to keep building on her promising game.
“That was definitely something I held over her,” Stewart said. “You’ve got to keep working. Stay hungry. Stay motivated. Know what you’re working toward.”
Part of Allen’s growth came from playing in a boys’ youth league when she was 7 years old.
At the end of her second season, she made the league’s All-Star team, but her path wasn’t free of bumps and bruises.
“It was competitive — rough,” Allen said. “They used to beat me, of course. I used to hate losing. I wanted to fight, but that made me only want to get better.”
Nowadays, Allen will challenge her dad to play another game of one-on-one, but Stewart does not want to tarnish his legacy.
He declines to become a victim of the monster he created.
“Every time she comes home, she says, ‘C’mon, let’s go to the gym,’ and I say, ‘Ah, I don’t want to go today,’” Stewart said. “(Allen says) ‘C’mon, let’s go to the gym, I’m ready for you!’ ‘Nah, I’m too old. I’ll catch you next time.’”
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Allen learned responsibility at an early age.
While she lived with both her parents during her early childhood, Allen spent the majority of her formative years living with her mother and three of her seven younger siblings in Houma.
She said growing up in Mechanicville, a “rough” neighborhood, was, at times, “a struggle.”
“It was a hard job for my mom because she was working like two jobs here and there just trying to provide,” Allen said. “So, she couldn’t really keep her eye on us like she wanted to.”
As the oldest child in the household, Allen decided to help her mother by setting a good example for her siblings, which she did through basketball.
Allen took her love for the game and turned it into a ticket for higher education, becoming the first person on either side of her family to attend college.
“I’m just taking pride in my role (as an older sibling),” said Allen, who will graduate in May with a degree in Anthropology. “I’m just making the best of what I did because I have younger siblings that are watching and wanting to follow in my footsteps.”
Perhaps the sibling most inspired by Allen’s efforts is her 18-year-old brother, Aaron Smith.
Their mother, Tasha Allen, said Smith, who plays basketball and football for Vanderbilt Catholic High in Houma, wishes he had been born earlier like his 21-year-old sister, Brittany Allen, so he could be in college with Deana.
“Everything he do, he bases it on Deana. Everything he do,” Tasha Allen said. “If he’s ever got a question about basketball or anything he needs to know, he calls Deana.”
Growing up in Houma, there were increased safety concerns for Allen’s family.
“[Mechanicville is] a drug zone, a crime zone,” said Cory Butler, the principal of Ellender. “It’s pretty tough to raise kids in it.”
Despite facing the odds of a tough neighborhood, Allen’s father expected his daughter to avoid the pitfalls of peer pressure.
He said Allen learned early on to be a leader rather than a follower, which has helped mold her into the person she is today.
“Everybody’s got to have discipline in their homes if you want your kids to go straight,” Stewart said. “That doesn’t mean they ain’t going to go cut around a corner on you or try to find something out on their own. But if you instill [discipline] in them from [childhood], they can always come back around and get back on track.”
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Allen signed with the University of New Orleans, a Division-I school, after her junior year of high school.
However, her plans changed senior year and she never made her way to The Big Easy.
“There was a period of time where we weren’t sure she was going make her ACT score or not to qualify to play Division I,” Pensacola State College coach Chanda Rigby said.
Rigby met with Stewart and explained to him that Allen could take the junior college route, the path Allen ultimately chose when she signed with Pensacola State College.
Allen drew national attention in her two years with the Pirates, leading the NJCAA in scoring for 14 weeks during her senior season.
Near the end of the recruiting process, Allen was ready to commit to Oklahoma, but Rigby convinced her leading scorer and highly coveted guard to take all her visits.
Allen signed with the Gators soon after visiting Florida, a place where Rigby believes the Houma native has thrived.
“Deana is probably my favorite coaching story,” Rigby said. “A lot of people she was surrounded by maybe didn’t get out of town and do anything, and she could have definitely done what was easy and made that choice.”
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In her second season at Florida, Allen became the Gators’ do-everything player.
Averaging 19.3 minutes per game, Allen was constantly involved in the gameplan, leading UF with a 27.1 usage percentage, according to WBBState.com.
She also ranked second on the team with 16.1 points per 40 minutes, a 14.3 rebound rate and a 3.9 steal rate.
“She really gets to the basket well; she’s a great penetrator,” fellow senior guard Lanita Bartley said. “But one thing she has that really stands out to me is her defense.”
Allen’s play on both sides of the ball impressed rival SEC coaches enough for them to name her the league’s Co-6th Woman of the Year.
“Everything she do is awesome, to me, when it comes down to basketball because she do it with her heart,” Tasha Allen said.
While Allen leaves Florida as a member of the senior class that helped propel the Gators back to The Big Dance, her pursuit of success runs deeper than just adding another year to the banners hanging by the practice court.
Allen said she would like to remain involved with basketball for the next five to 10 years, preferably playing.
She got a head start on her post-college basketball pursuits at this year’s Women’s Basketball Coaches Association National Convention, attending the “So You Want To Be A Coach” program, a seminar for graduating seniors who have used up their eligibility.
UF coach Amanda Butler says that Allen still has some learning to do before she pursues coaching, a profession made up of more than just practices and games.
“She’s the type of person, with her experiences, that she could really be an impact on a lot of young ladies’ lives,” Butler said.
No matter what Allen does from here on out, she proudly represents her family and her past. But until she is satisfied with her success, she’ll keep begging for a rematch.
“A lot of people may look back at Houma and kind of like frown on it just because of where it’s at and what it is,” Allen said. “But a lot of good people have come from there. And I think of myself as a good person that has made the doors open for myself from a neighborhood, a home like Mechanicville.”
Contact Joe Morgan at joemorgan@alligator.org.
