What’s Your Story? “I am the richest man in town,” the Allen Wise Story

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - We all love a great comeback. In this edition of What’s Your Story, hear the story of a 58-year-old comeback kid - a tale of faith, football and family.

Allen Wise’s touch has always left an impression on his wife Karla.

“It is strange I looked at my friend and said, I am going to marry him,” Karla says.

Their 35 year marriage has produced two children, two grandchildren and two medical emergencies in two years.

“Last person holding my hand taking me for MRI and the first person holding my hand when I got off that ventilator,” Allen says of Karla.

In July of 2023, the veteran coach’s game plan changed as he squared off against his toughest opponent.

“Tomorrow morning we have to take your right kidney out because you have stage three cancer - six weeks later you have a tumor on your left kidney,” Allen says.

His game face cracked when Northeast Louisiana players and coaches rallied behind him. “I just broke down in the driveway because I could not believe it, that night I got 100 hugs plus.”

Two surgeries and 14 rounds of chemotherapy left Allen battered, but healthy.

“We thought it was over, I rang the bell, I’m cleared, scans are good,” Allen said.

In the fourth quarter of his coaching career, he tackled a new challenge - for the first time in his career, he was a high school head coach.

He made quite a first impression as Riverfield advanced to the MAIS Semi-Finals.

The spring of 2025 came in like a lion, and would leave marks.

“My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I quit breathing,” Allen remembered.

Hallucinations drive Allen back to the emergency room, where three days of tests revealed little. An MRI at another hospital forced Allen back into an ambulance for the ride of his life.

“I coded, my heart quit breathing for five straight minutes, that nurse sat there and gave me chest compressions for five straight minutes and didn’t give up on me. I woke up three days later on a ventilator surrounded by my family and asked what happened.”

Allen has never been short of words, but he met his match with the ventilator.

Karla recalls, “he was trying to write in the air, here is my hand.”

“So I grabbed my wife’s hand and I wrote the word die with a question mark?”

“When he wrote the word die, I am not telling him. You did not die your body just needed some rest,” Karla said.

The old ball coach had one more question for his biggest fan.

“The second thing I asked was job, because I had not signed a new contract with Riverfield,” Allen recounts.

“I said we have him back, he is worried about other people,” Karla says.

With his thyroid condition now diagnosed, Allen has been given a clean bill of health. “I was allowed to live for a reason.”

Armed with a two-year contract, he is not taking his second comeback for granted.

“I used to cross the dates off the calendar and rush through life. Now, every morning is a new opportunity. When I wake up the first thing I do is thank the Lord for letting me wake up again,” Allen says.

Taking practice notes on a legal pad may be conventional, but coach will never forget the day he had to call an audible.

“My favorite movie is ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ and at the end of the movie when the entire town rallies around George Bailey and comes to his aid, that is what it felt like. “CHEERS” I got to see my flowers before my funeral. I can’t think of anything else to say but I am the richest man in town,” Allen says.