Meet the Staff: Rob Allison

For our final article in the Meet the Staff series, Rob Allison shares the details on his baseball experience. For the last seven years, he has been the State Director of Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska at PBR. Prior to that, he had a successful stint coaching at Iowa Western.

Allison has been around baseball for the last 42 years. “I’ve been involved in baseball since I was three years old as a player starting out in t-ball and coach pitch and playing Little League and gravitating into high school,” he said. “I played beyond high school in college and was fortunate enough to have a short stint in organized baseball, playing in the Northern League for an independent team, the Sioux City Explorers. I quickly realized my playing career was done and immediately went into coaching.”

But while coaching at Iowa Western, he was approached by PBR. “It would have been in the late fall of 2013 when Sean Duncan, who’s the executive director of Prep Baseball Report, reached out to me via email and expressed some interest in wanting to expand Prep Baseball Report to the midwestern states of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, etc,” Allison said. “I had been recommended to him as someone to reach out to as a possible candidate, and that’s kind of where our conversation started and went from there.”

He enjoys the impact that his work at PBR can have on players, families, and baseball programs. “I really enjoy going out even though it becomes harder and harder in this age of technology to find guys out in the weeds,” Allison said. “But that’s a big driving motivator for me. Finding players with the ability to move on and play at the college level, finding guys that not a lot of people are readily aware of, and being able to put them on our platform and in a spotlight to show everybody else in the world what they can do and creating opportunities for that player. That’s the fun part of the job.”

Allison’s favorite baseball memory stems from being a hard-nosed player in Little League. “I was on the on-deck circle violently warming up and swinging the bat,” he said. “Well, I wasn’t paying attention to who was around me and my coach had walked up behind me. And I swung the bat and clubbed him in the knee, knocking him flat on the ground. At the time, it wasn’t my favorite moment; I was pretty scared of what was going to happen. But he brushed it off and we ended up laughing about it.”

But winning three titles at Iowa Western provided some neat memories too. “Winning the first [Juco World Series] was special,” Allison said. “Winning the second one was great. But selfishly, I really enjoyed winning the third one. And the reason is it provided an opportunity. I really wanted to give championship rings to my three boys, so to win that third one was quite a big accomplishment.”

Allison became a fan of the Braves at a young age. “Growing up in small-town Iowa, the only two TV stations that we got that consistently had baseball games on were WGN, which always broadcasted the Chicago Cubs, and TBS, which was out of Atlanta and broadcasts all the Braves games,” he said. “So I really enjoyed watching the Atlanta Braves play.”

Chipper Jones is his favorite player of all time. “I thought he was a great player for [Atlanta], being able to switch hit and hold it down defensively,” Allison said. “He was a leader on that team. He was a leader in the clubhouse, and he ultimately was there when I got really interested during my teens and early 20s.”

Beyond baseball, football is a top sport on Allison’s favorites list. “I like football,” he said. “Shockingly, I gravitated away from football when I was in high school because I was about five foot eight and 155 pounds as a junior. I like the aggressiveness of football. I like the training and the amount of time spent in the weight room.”

Rob Allison has dedicated the last seven years to working for PBR and helping midwestern baseball players follow their dreams of playing in college and beyond. Over the years he has helped numerous players continue on their path and find success. If you ever see him at a showcase, ask to see his dance moves because it is a treat you do not want to miss out on.