MINNETONKA, Minn. – Beau Allen is a kind of prairie John Kruk — a guileless, unpretentious, whimsical, big-bellied, Suburban-driving professional athlete who happens to play in Philadelphia.
Though he’s only 26, Allen is already a legend here in this suburb 12 miles southwest of Minneapolis where he grew – up, out, and in every other direction. In part, that’s because he was a four-year football force at Minnetonka High. But what’s maybe more important to residents here in Minnesota’s Nice Belt is that he never allowed his local celebrity to go to his ponytailed head.
So unaffected was Allen, friends said, that when then-University of Minnesota coach Tony Brewster helicoptered in to a Minnetonka game at halftime to watch him, the player was so mortified that he crossed the home-state school off his list.