LEXINGTON, Ky. _ In a multitude of minuscule ways, Josh Allen has been training his entire life to be an outside linebacker.
Rarely has there been a direct path, or a path of least resistance in front of him.
The Kentucky senior always has had to twist and turn, to contort his body to get around a 320-pound guy _ whether real or metaphoric _ standing in the way of his desired destination.
Allen, whose name is being mentioned among potential first-round NFL draft picks next year, has had plenty of bypasses and bumps along the way.
Those detours led Allen to an elementary school assembly this spring where he talked to kids during special needs awareness week about working hard and being fine with being different.
"My message is you're going to have challenges, you've just got to make the best of it," Allen said this summer, brown eyes wide, smile slightly wider. "You've got to look for the good parts of everything. That's how I dealt with a lot of that stuff.
"Nothing ever comes easy."
It's a lesson Allen learned early as one of two twin boys in a house full of older sisters. Josh and his twin, Isaiah, formed quite the pesky, dynamic duo.
"My mom was a single parent with six kids in the house, working two jobs," Josh said of Kim Allen. "It was really hard at some points."
It was especially hard for Allen, who always has been a bit of a jokester. But those jokes often came out in fits and starts.
Allen stuttered for much of his childhood, still does, he said. "It's just not as much as I used to when I was younger."
Allen always had a quick wit, but his mouth sometimes betrayed him.
"He wanted to tell us stuff so bad that he didn't even take the time to say it," his mom said of the stuttering problem that landed Josh in special education classes growing up.
He made many friends in those classes, but he longed to make different friends, to switch classrooms like the other kids at his school.
"I literally had a teacher telling my family that I wasn't capable," said Allen, who also has since been diagnosed with ADHD.
After so many years in the special education system in New Jersey, Allen wanted a change of scenery. He wanted to see if he could be like those kids he watched from his classroom window.
So after middle school, Allen decided to leave New Jersey and move in with relatives in Alabama to get a fresh start at Abbeville High School.
"I had to show people that I was capable of doing this, going to classes by myself, doing the workload, doing everything right," he said. "I had to prove myself."
