Pasco back running toward his second chance
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Their laughter mingles together and makes Debbie Locati laugh, too. It's a snapshot in a montage of memories in the making, a story that makes Locati want to believe in fairytale endings. The kind where a hard-knock, high-school football star like Ailep chases his dream all the way to the NFL, making a better life for himself and those two adoring kids, who happen to be his 2-year-old daughter, Tasia, and son, Anthony, who turns 1 tomorrow.
Allen Ailep turned just 19 today. Tomorrow, he will put on his Pasco High School uniform one last time and try to celebrate Anthony's first birthday by helping the top-ranked Bulldogs capture their second straight Class 4A state football championship. Ailep, who moved from Tacoma to Pasco with his kids last spring after he and his wife separated, is the team's leading rusher and a big reason for the Bulldogs' return to the Tacoma Dome. At 6 feet, 195 pounds, he has the size, speed and strength to play at the next level.
"To me, it's kind of like watching one of those Super Bowl commercials with a Cinderella story," said Locati, who has given Ailep a home and grown close to the young man with the obligations of someone much older. "Sometimes, I think I'm watching one in my own living room. I hope so, for his sake and the sake of those kids."
Locati and her husband, Bob, got to know Ailep when he and his children moved in with his sister-in-law, Deona, who lives in the neighborhood with two young children of her own. Ailep had returned briefly to Tacoma and, after a falling out of sorts with Deona, it looked as though he'd have to stay, although he really wanted to go back to Pasco, where he felt he had a second chance — especially once the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association granted him a fifth year of eligibility.
The Locatis wanted to help give him that chance. After discussing it with their daughter, then a sophomore-to-be at Pasco, they offered to let Ailep live with them while his sister-in-law continued to care for the children, which allows him to see them regularly — as much as school and football allow.
"It's worked out really well," Debbie Locati said.
Ailep thinks so, too. He's having a blast playing football for a top-ranked team like 13-0 Pasco, especially after toiling with a 3-6 Stadium team last season. But his children are his true passion.
"I love them," Ailep said. "They're everything to me."
Ailep was just 16 when his daughter was born, a few weeks before what would have been his sophomore season at Lincoln. Instead, he and his girlfriend were married and he got a job as a waiter in a retirement home to help support his family. Ailep transferred to Stadium last year and returned to the game he loved. A month and a half after the season ended, Anthony was born. By spring, however, Ailep said his wife wanted out, wanted a break from him and the responsibilities of raising two young children.
He was devastated.
"I didn't want to be in the same city anymore," Ailep said.
But he wanted his children more than ever. After growing up without a father, he was determined to remain a big part of his kids' lives.
"My dad never did a thing for me," Ailep said. "I just want to be there for my kids."
And the kids love having him near, according to Debbie Locati.
"They're always really glad to see him," she said. "Anthony can almost say, 'Daddy.' He claps his hands and says, 'Yeah!' And Tasia is a daddy's girl. ...
"He's a good daddy and he loves his kids dearly."
Sandra Ailep is impressed with the determination of her youngest son, who is on track to become the first in his family to receive his high-school diploma. When Allen's wife left him, his mom agreed he needed a change of scenery, but thought he'd enter the Job Corps in Pasco.
"He was determined to go back to school and get his diploma, and he wanted to get back into football, too," she said. "I'm really proud of him for sticking to his goals of what he wants out of life."
When Pasco Coach Steve Graff first met Allen last spring, he wasn't sure how serious the young man was about sticking it out, in school or football. He wasn't the first newcomer looking to play for the Bulldogs.
"I sat him down and told him, 'This is how it works,' " Graff said. "Kids don't always have the discipline to do what we ask of them. But he's grown up a bunch. It was really important to him to have a second chance to do this."
Ailep's class schedule includes a parenting class at a nearby alternative school. He's the only boy in a room of teenage moms. He was not eligible to play football until Pasco's second game, but his impact was quickly apparent. Ailep rushed for 161 yards and two touchdowns in his debut, and there were much bigger nights to come. In the seventh game, he racked up 276 yards against a Moses Lake defense that had been allowing only 53 yards rushing a game.
Ailep has amassed 1,898 yards on 265 carries (7.2 yards per carry) with 25 touchdowns.
"He's big and fast and strong and he knows where the end zone is," Graff said.
College coaches call, but Ailep likely will be a nonqualifier who must sit out a year, according to Graff. He said Eastern Washington is especially interested in working something out. Ailep is determined to do whatever it takes to get to college, make a better life for himself and his family and have a little more fun on the football field, where he feels like a kid again.
Just like he does when he's on the Locati living-room floor with Tasia and Anthony.
"I just let them crawl all over me," Ailep said. "They're silly."
And the biggest reasons he has to smile.