BURLESON, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – There’s a reason each practice begins with 20 jumping jacks and each workout ends with 20 pushups.
And there are those who find comfort in taking photos at the 20 yard line. That is no ordinary number at Burleson High. It’s a number that will always have a very special place at the school.
“I don’t know that I think about the number but when I see 20 I think of Tre,” said head football coach Jon Kitna.
Tre Allison wore number 20 as a defensive back headed into his junior year. Those who knew him best say certain things were already mapped out in his future.
Tre’s brother Jarrel Stenson says he was destined to be a “D-I athlete… going to the pros without a doubt.”
Those dreams vanished the night of June 8, 2020, when Tre was a passenger in a car that was struck by another vehicle less than a mile away from the school.
Everyone else in the accident walked away. That was not the case for Tre.
“The last thing Tre said to me before he went to play sand volleyball was ‘I love you,’” Allison’s mom Jeanette Myers said. “That was the last time I heard his voice, and that was the last time I saw his face”.
A father who also knew right then and there his son was gone too soon. Anthony Allison, calls it “heartbreaking. For anybody to go through something like that, you never expect it to happen in your home. You hear about it happening to someone else’s kid.”
Gazing at the dumbbells, you start to think about the weight of the pain this family has to carry and the questions that will always remain.
His father explains “the hardest part is we never got to see our son go to the prom… never got to see him graduate. I think about that all the time… all the what ifs.”
His brother Jarrel says, “It’s a feeling I have I wish would go away. I know it’s not, so I just deal with it.”
The feeling of helplessness also extends to Burleson head coach Jon Kitna. Last year was his first on the job.
He had just conducted his very first team workout. Tre was part of that workout. Later that night, it became clear a player he had heard so many wonderful things about he would never get to coach again.
“My one regret is I didn’t get to know him like they did.” Kitna said. “His legacy they carry around is so special. I get to live through them on that.”
That legacy is visible as soon as you step inside the school’s athletic facility… visible through an award in his honor… most visible through a locker remains untouched with Tre’s jersey, his equipment, and his everlasting presence.
Burleson School Honors Life, Legacy Of Player Taken Too Early (Credit: CBSDFW)
The reminders of Tre are everywhere you turn around Burleson High School… even as his buddies enter the locker room.
His best friend, Jaden Kindles recalls, “Everything we did together made me wanna be just like him. He’s not gone. He’s still here with us”.
When asked what Tre would say to him, his brother Jarrel says he would say “I’m alright… handle your business… take care of mama… I’m good”.
As for Tre’s Mom, her saving grace is simple.
Jeanette says her comfort comes from “knowing that I’m gonna see him again”.
