A TRIBUTE TO OUR LATE TEAMMATE AND FRIEND - JASON ALLEN

When the idea for the Mixed Events in Sports History (MESH) Games was born, we three founders, John Moore, Steve Fishwild and Tim Knipper, knew in our hearts we needed to bring this concept to the world.  But we also recognized we’d need more manpower to accomplish our ambitious goals.  As leader of the group, I knew we needed someone who was intelligent, hard-working, trustworthy, easy to work with, and most of all, a visionary sports fan.  Jason Allen immediately came to mind.   

I’ve known Jason for over 25 years since the mid 1990’s from our college days at Iowa State University.  We definitely hit it off as college students with a shared love of creative design work (he was a landscape architect and I am an engineer).  We’d kept in touch through many phases of his life from graduating college, marrying his wonderful wife Kristi, having three great kids, and even moving across the state to open the incredibly successful Iowa City branch office for his landscape design company. He was also a part of our close-knit group of Iowa Hawkeye and Iowa State Cyclone fans that gather annually for March Madness.

Jason’s addition to our company was immediately impactful.  He contributed a number of incredibly creative ideas and his input was awarded with a spot as one of the original four patent holders of the MESH Game concept.  

Jason’s passions were his family, his professional work, and sports.  The MESH Games were the nexus where his passions met.  His vision was to create a thriving, profitable sports media company that would help provide financial stability for his family.  It became even more urgent after he was diagnosed with terminal glioblastoma brain cancer, a very aggressive disease with life expectancy measured in months.

Jason was the biggest sports fan I ever met. He was a lifelong KC Chiefs fan, even through the down years. But he was infatuated with golf, both as a player, but especially as a fan.  While our team originally focused on team sports, as Jason became sicker, he called a team meeting specifically to discuss his MESH game ideas about golf.  At this point, he was too ill to take the lead on that effort but definitely had ideas he wanted as his legacy.   So the team rallied around him and created the materials and presentation he requested.   Little did I know that my last conversation with him would be the two of us discussing his desired golf documents, hot off the press.

  A month or so before he became incapacitated, he called me to chat about various things (especially golf).  At that point, he knew his body was giving out but he was still putting up an incredible fight.   He told me something I’ll take to my dying days.  I’d commented on how much of a fighter he was when it came to his cancer battle.  He replied, “John, in life there are no timeouts.  I will play the game as hard as I can until the end.”

 It’s with that indomitable fighting spirit that we as the MESH Games team are striving to fulfil Jason’s vision of creating a thriving sports media entity built on the MESH games concept.   Life is not the same without him but we press on because it's what he’d want us to do.  Jason left us 2 days after Christmas in 2023.