If you’ve watched any of Mississippi State’s softball run this postseason, you more than likely have noticed a peculiar vegetable in the dugout and throughout the stands. That’s because Jim Stewart Allen, now lovingly referred to by Bulldog fans as the “Broccoli Guy,” decided to bring what he calls “nature’s pom pom” to the Eugene Regional.
While Allen – an outright sports fan from the Pacific Northwest who aims to bring “energy” and create “synergy” at every ballpark he visits – was originally attending the Eugene Regional to cheer on the Oregon Ducks, he said it took just one minute of being inside Jane Sanders Stadium for his postseason fandom to shift to the maroon and white.
“Our energy collided,” Allen recounted on Good Things with Rebecca Turner. “I’m not making this up. Within the first minute of getting to seat in the bleachers, I started dancing and (Mississippi State utility player) Ally Supan saw me. She started dancing along with me, doing my moves, and I said, ‘You know what? I like this team. I like this team.’”
As the regional continued, more Mississippi State players began interacting with Allen. The fans caught on, too, especially after ESPN broadcasters noticed Allen’s gambol with the greens and decided to send stems of broccoli to the Mississippi State dugout. By the end of the regional, a handful of softball dads had made several trips to the produce section to ensure their daughters’ dugout stayed stocked with broccoli.
“As regionals wore on, the energy just kind of kept continuing from me to the Mississippi State team and then from the Mississippi State team back to me,” Allen said. “If a team picks up on my energy, I go with that team. I started really relating to and liking Mississippi State and just the way that they play softball.”
Following the Eugene Regional, which Mississippi State won, Allen followed the team to Norman to see them match up against Oklahoma. Players, fans, and of course Allen waved their broccoli loud and proud throughout the series. Heading into a decisive game three, the team even posted a starting lineup video to social media that featured stalks of broccoli instead of the players.
Less than four hours after that video dropped, the Bulldogs pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent college softball history – preventing Oklahoma from advancing to the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2015 while securing a spot in the program’s first-ever World Series.
“Oklahoma doesn’t even lose one game, much less an entire super regional series, so it was absolutely wild seeing this thing unfold,” Allen said.
Allen, who often spends his free time at any game he can get to, first made national headlines at a football game in 2020. During the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, he went viral – and was even on ESPN’s SportsCenter – for dancing with and eating raw potatoes.
But he said he’s never felt such a connection to a team than he does with Mississippi State softball.
“I’ve been doing this for six years now, and I’ve never met a team like Mississippi State that embodies the energy that I try to create when I go out and do my own thing. It’s just so cool,” he explained.
Mississippi State will begin its World Series journey Thursday against Texas Tech, and while players like catcher Anna Carder have said rallying around broccoli may have provided “a final push,” both Carder and Allen agree this team is special – broccoli or not.
“People sometimes attribute [the World Series run] to the broccoli, but this is just how this team plays,” Allen said. “And the energy with my broccoli happened to meet the team.”