How Mississippi State bonded with a broccoli-wielding fan and went on a Cinderella run

OKLAHOMA CITY — After failing to make the high school baseball team, Jim Stewart Allen spent afternoons running laps around the track, usually still in his jeans. A friend suggested Allen join the track and cross-country teams. So he did.

“I was terrible,” he said. “But I really enjoyed it.”

Allen rarely beat anyone to the finish line. But he never quit a race or stopped running in practice. Every season, he was voted “most inspirational.”

“That gave me quite a bit of pride,” he said. “I might be slow. … But I’m doing it because I love it.”

Allen, 37, has always loved sports. And he has found a way to belong in them, as a superfan waving broccoli like pom-poms while dancing nonstop in the bleachers.

That’s how Allen ended up at this year’s Women’s College World Series supporting the Mississippi State Bulldogs, the team that’s embraced him and his vegetable of choice.

“I’m a fan of the kindness and the good energy in sports,” Allen said. “I follow the energy.”

Two years ago, Allen found that energy in softball.

Two weeks ago in Oregon, he found it in the Bulldogs — and he has followed them since on their Cinderella run all the way to Oklahoma City.

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ALLEN GREW UP in Tacoma, Washington, the oldest of three. Allen’s father, Mike, took him to sporting events whenever he could — NAIA basketball, minor-league baseball and, once a year, a Washington State football game.

Allen loves sports, but connecting with people is his passion.

He’s worked as a special-needs substitute teacher and now teaches at Renton Academy, a specialized school for students facing behavioral or emotional challenges. He’s currently pursuing his master’s degree so he can become a full-time special-needs teacher. He also spent a decade doing stand-up comedy in Seattle.

“When he was 17 years old, he asked me to take him to Comedy Underground so that he could do an open mic there,” Mike Allen recalled. “We had to sit in a section that was kind of roped off from where they served alcohol.”

As a history major, Allen based his comedy routines on anything from the American Revolution to the Black Death.

Stand-up comedy and substitute teaching never made Allen much money. But he always found a way to get by. At one point, he spent two years living at a YMCA camp while working as a counselor.

“He’s always made a living and supported himself, but he lives very humbly,” Mike Allen said. “He doesn’t spend a lot of money except on gasoline to drive to all the games he goes to.”

Allen goes to just about any sporting event, from San Diego Padres baseball games to women’s college hockey. Allen and his father also still go to about a half-dozen games a year together.

Last month, they went to a Division II softball game. Allen prefers to arrive before the gates open, so his father makes sure he brings something to read. When Allen starts dancing, his father moves over a few feet to give him his space.

“I just like being there,” Mike Allen said. “It’s a good way I can be with him.”

Every December, Allen and his father drive seven hours to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise. Seven years ago, the two stopped at a store on the way so Allen could buy an energy drink.

“I saw this display of Russet potatoes,” he recalled. “And I thought it would be really fun to bring them into the stadium and dance with potatoes.”

The next year, Allen brought potatoes to the bowl again, and this time he appeared on ESPN — eating a raw potato.

Allen relished the reaction. Afterward, he decided to bring his favorite vegetable to every sporting event.

“I wanted to keep dancing and decided on broccoli,” he said. “They look like natural pom-poms. It’s very noticeable. And it’s green and a lot of the Pacific Northwest teams have green colors.”

In 2024, Allen went to his first softball game. He meant to attend a rugby game at his alma mater, Western Washington University. When the rugby match got delayed, he ended up at a Western Washington softball game instead.

“I remember hearing the third baseman talking up her pitcher: ‘You got this. This is you,'” Allen recalled. “I went, ‘Oh, I like this.’ There was this silly energy, this fun-loving energy. The chants, the positivity. Out of everything I’d ever done with broccoli dancing, softball connected the most with what I do.”

Allen bought University of Washington softball season tickets. He’d planned to go to their regional this season.

But when the Huskies got shipped to Arkansas instead, Allen decided to go to the Eugene Regional to cheer on the Ducks.

There, he connected with another team.

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MISSISSIPPI STATE WAS warming up for its regional opener against St. Mary’s when freshman Ally Supan, the Bulldogs’ go-to pinch-runner, noticed something odd.

“I see this man with a green shirt and these two things in his hand and he’s dancing alone,” she said. “You don’t see that anywhere, especially in the South.”

Supan started mimicking his dance moves, and soon the two were dancing back and forth.

The following day, Alyssa Faircloth threw a no-hitter against Oregon to send Mississippi State into the regional championship. With the Ducks eliminated, Allen considered driving home to go watch the Seattle Seawolves rugby match.

“I ended up staying in Eugene because I had already been here all weekend,” he said. “I had put so many hours into supporting this and I just felt the need to finish it off.”

After arriving at the stadium, the Bulldogs saw Allen already back in his spot dancing in the outfield bleachers. All-American pitcher Peja Goold called her father, Dean, who’d just pulled into the stadium parking lot. She asked if he’d go to the store and buy as much broccoli as he could.

“I know he’ll do anything if he thinks it’s going to make our team do better,” Goold said.

Dean Goold returned to the dugout with bags of broccoli.

“They did a team huddle, and they all put their hands up,” Allen said. “And I was like, ‘Is that broccoli?'”

Mississippi State knocked off St. Mary’s to reach a Super Regional for only the second time in program history. Afterward, the Bulldogs celebrated with Allen.

“He’s all positive vibes,” Dean Goold said. “When he talks, it’s like he’s floating on a cloud.”

Allen didn’t want those vibes to end. So he surprised the players by traveling to Oklahoma for Mississippi State’s Super Regional against the Sooners.

With Allen dancing with broccoli in the stands, the Bulldogs delivered one of the biggest upsets in softball history, snapping Oklahoma’s streak of nine straight WCWS appearances, which included six national championships.

The morning of the deciding third game, the Mississippi State parents sent the players off from the Norman hotel holding broccoli as pom-poms.

After the Bulldogs’ 6-0 victory, the players handed Allen the Super Regional trophy and took a team photo with him.

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ALLEN DOESN’T KNOW how many vacation days he has left at work, but he imagines he’s close to using them all up. He stayed in Oklahoma this week to go to the WCWS.

“It was one of my bucket list items because Oklahoma City is the epicenter of softball,” he said. “The fact I get to do it with a team I’m so connected with makes this even more special.”

The Mississippi State parents and players put together a GoFundMe account to help cover Allen’s travel expenses.

On Thursday, he was among the first to arrive at Devon Park, standing on the back row of the left-field stands waving broccoli long before first pitch. The Jumbotron featured a Broccoli Dance Cam. Between innings, fans came up to talk to him.

The Bulldogs lost their first ever WCWS game to Texas Tech, 8-0. But Friday, they’ll have a chance to keep their magical season alive against Texas (7 p.m. ET on ESPN), the defending national champions.

“Mississippi State has meant so much to me,” Allen said. “I’ll be here dancing for them to the very end.”