Area Sports

      By JIMMY WIGFIELD MONTGOMERY — Larry Henderson doesn’t like talking about himself but on Saturday, the words of praise from the Alabama Football Coaches Association and the lifetime achievement award it bestowed on the former Murphy coach said it all for him. Henderson, 85, who led the Panthers to their only state…

  By EDUARDO MAGAÑA Jackson star Ezavier “E.J.” Crowell, who is rated the No. 1 running back in the nation in his class, announced on social media Tuesday that he will reclassify from the class of 2027 to the class of 2026. Crowell, 17, a sophomore, will leave high school a year early, as did…

    By ARTHUR L. MACK Vigor coach John McKenzie parted ways with the school Friday for the second time in four years, according to the Mobile County Public School System. McKenzie was fired after leading the Wolves to a 12-2 finish and a berth in the Class 5A semifinals. He succeeded Marcus Cook, who…

  By ARTHUR L. MACK After 11 months on the job, Juan Johnson resigned Wednesday as Baker High School’s head football coach to take the job at Class 7A James Clemens High in Madison. “It was a family-based decision,” Baker athletic director Daniel Kertis said in confirming Johnson’s dual moves. “He saw an opportunity that…

          TUSCALOOSA — The man who once said of himself that he had a face best suited for a hemorrhoid commercial was a pain in the butt for many opponents in the years he pushed and shoved and hoisted Alabama basketball from good to great. As for the fans, they just…

    By JIMMY WIGFIELD One couldn’t tell if Larry Henderson had worked up a sweat during the 1983 state championship game, nor if he had wished to absorb the traditional ice-water bath accorded the winning coach. Those things had been rendered indiscernible and unnecessary because so much rain had been dumped onto Legion Field…

      Paul Davenport had no idea why he was being summoned to his head coach’s office in the offseason before his senior year but he did know three things: One, that coach was a large man whose head seemed to brush the sky and had a voice somewhere between thunder and a diesel…

    It won’t take long for a couple of Alabama high school football’s most monumental calculations of 2025 to be made and both will involve Terry Curtis. During January, the UMS-Wright legend will shape the future of two institutions — that of the Super 7 and of the coach himself. Curtis wields considerable influence…

      By JIMMY WIGFIELD MOBILE — A decision on a possible new rotation for the Super 7 that might include Mobile’s Hancock-Whitney Stadium could come in January, according to Alabama High School Athletic Association Executive Director Heath Harmon. “I certainly think it’s a venue that is really nice,” Harmon said during Saturday’s Alabama-Mississippi…

        MOBILE — Their final high school game complete, K.J. Lacey, C.D. Gill and Antonio Coleman posed for one last photograph for posterity with Saraland coach Jeff Kelly. It was the closing of one era for all four and the beginning of another in college football for Lacey, Gill and Coleman and,…