JTC 26: Fields of Dreams

When Will Allen and Channing Foster Allen talk about the University of Mississippi, they do not describe it as just a university. They describe it as the place that kept pulling them back. 

It was where Will first arrived as a baseball recruit. It was where Channing found a second chance after an injury changed the course of her own recruiting process.  

It was where both built athletic careers, made lifelong connections, got engaged, got married and, eventually, returned as husband and wife to take on law school together. And in May, they graduate together. 

“I don’t think we would have met had it not been for Ole Miss,” Channing said. 

Will came to Ole Miss after being recruited to play baseball. Raised in Gainesville, Florida, by two parents who attended the University of Florida, he once assumed that if he had the chance, he would become a Gator too. But a visit to Oxford changed that. 

As former Ole Miss football cornerback Senquez Golson once said, “If you don’t want to go to Ole Miss, don’t take a visit.”  

The campus, the coaches, the people and the atmosphere around Ole Miss baseball made the decision feel easy. After attending a Friday night game at Swayze Field, where more than 10,000 fans packed the stadium, Will knew he wanted to be part of it.  

The All-American catcher was team captain of the 2014 Ole Miss baseball team that reached the College World Series. After graduating with a general studies degree, Will was drafted by the Detroit Tigers. He spent several seasons in professional baseball before retiring in 2019.

After baseball, he began a career in medical device sales with Arthrex, a sports medicine implant company. Will had undergone 10 surgeries and already had Arthrex products in his body. His sales career put him in operating rooms with surgeons and gave him a different kind of professional experience.  

Channing’s route to Ole Miss began with an injury. While she was being recruited during high school in Murray, Kentucky, she had knee surgery. Ole Miss had not originally been on her radar, but the soccer coaches continued recruiting her during her recovery.  

When she visited campus, she felt the same pull that Will had felt years earlier. For Channing, Oxford offered more than a place to compete; it offered a community. 

“The town of Oxford itself is so invested in the university and the sports,” she said. “It feels like you’re committing to a place that you’re going to be really valued, not just coming here to play a sport for four years or just to get an education.” 

By then, both had already begun building lives beyond athletics. Channing earned an accounting degree and later an MBA while finishing her soccer eligibility. During her time at Ole Miss, she was also named All-American and was the conference's first five-time All-SEC honoree. She was drafted by the Chicago Red Stars and played professionally in the U.S. and in Europe.  

Their Ole Miss years did not overlap, but the university still became part of their love story.  

Will first noticed Channing while watching an Ole Miss soccer game on television. He had heard about her accolades and records, and they eventually connected through social media and later met in person when he returned to Oxford for a visit.  

They dated during Channing’s final season at Ole Miss. While she was preparing for her final game, Will was planning a life-changing surprise with the help of some connections in the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.  

On a big November weekend, the soccer team was hosting the NCAA Tournament and the football team was hosting Texas A&M, with ESPN "College GameDay" set up in Grove.  

“I knew I wanted to propose and I thought around New Year's when we were together would be a great time,” Will said. “My family and friends asked ‘Why not do it in Oxford where you guys have so much history and the place you guys love?’ They were playing in the NCAA tournament at home, and her parents were coming to Oxford for the game. 

"So, we worked up this elaborate plan to basically explain why my parents were here, and she had no clue.” 

The athletics department hosted them on the field during the pregame festivities, which didn’t give away any of the surprise, since they were both members of the M-Club. During the first commercial break, the athletics staff told the pair they would introduce them on the jumbotron to wave to the crowd.  

Instead, Will got down on one knee.  

“I had no idea what was coming,” Channing said. “They were so incredible because all of the people within productions and sports marketing and stuff did such a good job of hiding it from me and making the excuses for why things were happening.  

"I just completely believed them, so I had no idea. I was shocked.” 

Through the screaming of 65,000-plus fans, Channing realized what was happening.  

“Just being back here at Ole Miss, it was just perfect,” Will said.  

After getting married in Oxford in December 2022, they contemplated the next step.  

For both Will and Channing, law was familiar. Will’s father and sister are both attorneys, and his mother helps run the family firm. Channing’s father, Chuck Foster, was an attorney whose career included tax law, mergers and acquisitions work, and, later, a small-town practice that exposed her to a little bit of everything.  

Channing had long considered law school but wanted to play soccer while she had a chance. Will said that if he had not played professional baseball, he probably would have gone straight from undergraduate school to law school. Instead, he pursued baseball, then medical sales, before deciding the timing was finally right. 

The decision became easier because they could do it together. 

“Three years is going to come and pass regardless,” Will said. He realized he could either remain in a good career or finally answer the question of whether he could get into law school and become an attorney. 

They applied to multiple schools, knowing that finding the right fit at the same law school could be difficult. But when both were accepted to the Ole Miss School of Law, the decision was obvious. 

They had been married in Oxford, and their pastor at Pinelake Church still checked in on them. Friends, faculty and familiar faces were nearby. They were not simply coming back to campus; they were coming back to a support system. 

That support mattered because law school brought pressure quickly. 

Their first wedding anniversary fell during final exams. It was very apt that year one is traditionally celebrated with paper.  

“We spent our one-year anniversary studying for a contracts final,” Channing said. 

They joke that surviving the first year of marriage and the first year of law school at the same time proved they could handle just about anything. Law school teaches students how to argue, and the Allens were learning that skill while also learning how to be newlyweds. 

“What’s better for a marriage than learning how to argue professionally?” Channing joked. 

But they also say the experience strengthened them. They were on the same side, studying the same material, navigating the same pressures and preparing for the same future. 

Both found ways to connect their past as athletes with their future as attorneys. They pursued the sports and entertainment law concentration and took courses that helped them understand the legal side of the sports world they had once experienced as players. 

For Channing, who competed during the early days of name, image and likeness rules, studying sports law offered a new perspective on a rapidly changing landscape. She has watched NIL opportunities grow, including athletes in nonrevenue sports, and has followed legal developments through class discussions. 

Will has found that legal education helps explain issues that once affected him and his teammates. Rules about NIL, agents, transfers, amateurism and antitrust law gained legal context. 

William Berry, the school's associate dean for research and Montague Professor of Law, has taught both Channing and Will in several sports law classes, noting how they would both bring a unique perspective to the courses.  

“Perhaps even more than the subject matter overlap with sports law, I am convinced that their experience in intercollegiate athletics has provided the foundation, particularly in terms of discipline and perseverance, to equip them to contribute in meaningful ways both in their classes and in the law school more broadly,” Berry said. 

“I am excited to see how Channing and Will will positively impact the legal profession.” 

The Allens also explored other areas of law. Channing became involved with the negotiation board and found herself drawn to the practical skills involved in negotiation, settlement and transactional work.  

“It's been a really cool experience because before coming to law school and for people that maybe didn't grow up around the law, you just have this vision of what you see in movies and TV shows, and it's always somebody going to court and litigating,” Channing said.  

“But there's so much negotiating, whether it's settlements or if you're representing some sort of client in an artist capacity or a business, there's a lot of negotiating contracts and a lot of transactional type of work. It's been really neat to get some hands-on experience in developing those skills rather than just reading the books and learning that way. 

The Allens both got to shadow Channing's dad at his firm in Kentucky and learn directly from him before Foster died in December 2024 from multiple myeloma. 

“He had such a meaningful impact on us and so many others,” Will said. “He truly loved the profession and loved people, and he was incredibly proud that Channing and I would be following in both of our dads’ footsteps.” 

The couple plan to move to Gainesville, where they will join Will’s family firm, Allen Law Firm. 

“We feel really grateful for the opportunity to step into a firm together like this,” Channing said. “Getting to learn from family and be part of something that’s been built over time, with people who are invested in us not just professionally but personally, is really special.” 

The firm began in 2007 with Will’s parents, one employee and three cases. It has grown to about 60 employees, seven attorneys and three offices in Gainesville and Ocala.

The growth came with challenges. Six weeks after starting the firm, Will’s mother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which she later battled twice with chemotherapy and radiation. Years later, around the time Will and Channing were planning their wedding, she was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

After treatment, she is cancer-free. 

For Will, the firm represents more than a job. It represents family, resilience and the chance to help people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. 

He knows personal injury law can be misunderstood. But he has also seen what happens inside a firm when clients are injured, grieving or overwhelmed and do not know where to turn. 

“You do see the help that they provide to people in some really desperate and difficult times,” Will said. 

As they prepare to leave Oxford again, the Allens do not see it as a final goodbye. They hope that, someday, there may be a way to bring part of their future back to the place where so much of their story began. 

For now, they are leaving with three Ole Miss chapters behind them: student-athletes, newlyweds and law school graduates. 

The next one, they will write together. 

Top: Channing Foster Allen (left) and Will Allen, both graduate in May from the School of Law before joining the Allen Law Firm in Gainesville, Florida. The couple, who met through their shared connection to Ole Miss athletics, returned to Oxford to complete their law degrees after careers as professional athletes. Photo by Srijita Chattopadhyay/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services