South Alabama Sports

      Staff Report Saraland and Jackson will be ranked No. 1 in their respective classes entering their season-opening clash on Aug. 23 in Saraland. The Spartans are favored to win the Class 6A state title and the Aggies are favored to win it all in Class 4A in the Alabama Sports Writers Association preseason poll. Other local teams ranked in the preseason top 10 are No. 7 Mary Montgomery in Class 7A, No. 6 Mobile Christian in Class…

___________________________ Fewer and fewer want to climb the hills when the easy way is open, even if it requires cheating, and this attitude has taken hold of some who claim they love what sports teaches. But I think they slept through that class. ___________________________     St. Paul’s coach Ham Barnett didn’t plan to say what he did but his disillusionment and disgust boiled over. “It’s unfortunate what high school football has become,” Barnett said during the recent Mobile County…

______________________________ “You have to have a backbone in Montgomery. If you don’t have a backbone, you don’t need the job. I don’t think in the last three years (the AHSAA) has done anything about it, so it’s like the wild, wild West.” St. Paul’s coach Ham Barnett ______________________________   By ARTHUR L. MACK MOBILE — St. Paul’s coach Ham Barnett didn’t hold back about how player transfers are damaging high school football, nor on where to place the blame. “It’s…

    By JIMMY WIGFIELD SARALAND — Saraland four-star defensive lineman Antonio Coleman, who found Auburn coach Hugh Freeze to be as incessantly aggressive as he is, committed to the Tigers for the second time on Saturday. On Tuesday, he responded to criticism on social media for his three flips between Auburn and Alabama and emphasized he will not change his mind. “I love Auburn,” he said. “I like what they’ve got going on over there and I want to…

    By ARTHUR L. MACK MOBILE — Three years after delivering a state championship but leaving the school under murky circumstances, John McKenzie has returned to Vigor and said he couldn’t be happier about it. McKenzie, who led the Wolves to the Class 4A state football title in 2021, will coach Vigor for a second time after the Mobile County School Board approved his hiring on July 24. “I’m overjoyed,” McKenzie said. “I’m happy I was able to come…

    By JIMMY WIGFIELD SARALAND — Saraland four-star defensive lineman Antonio Coleman, who found Auburn coach Hugh Freeze to be as incessantly aggressive as he is, committed to the Tigers for the second time on Saturday. Coleman (6-4, 280) — a four-star prospect who is rated the No. 12 defensive lineman nationally in the 2025 class, according to On3’s composite — originally committed to Alabama last season, switched to Auburn in December, went back to the Crimson Tide in…

    ____________________ “The end of the season felt like a letdown and it shouldn’t have been. It’s so hard to get there. We didn’t enjoy and appreciate the work everybody had done and I don’t want to do that anymore.” Saraland coach Jeff Kelly ____________________     SARALAND — Jeff Kelly doesn’t want anyone in Saraland’s football program, especially not the boss, to unwrap victories and then discard them the way Christmas ribbons are tossed aside while reaching for…

    By ARTHUR L. MACK MOBILE — John McKenzie, who led the Vigor to the Class 4A state football title in 2021, will return to coach the Wolves for a second time after the Mobile County School Board approved his hiring on Wednesday. McKenzie was 19-6 in his two years at Vigor, including a 14-1 finish in 2021 in which the Wolves outscored the opposition 517-181 on the way to a 52-14 trouncing of Oneonta in the Class 4A…

      By JIMMY WIGFIELD JACKSON — Landon Duckworth did not emerge from the shadows as a reluctant kid dragged into the sunlight, uncertain if football, with its pageantry and lore, its savagery and gore, was right for him. At the age of 6, he showed up at a Jackson park for his first organized football game with red, blue and yellow Superman cleats laced to his feet. Faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Able…

    By JIMMY WIGFIELD As Ronny Massey lay dying from cancer in the summer of 2010, those who had benefitted from his humanity and compassion came to his sickbed. That included a special-needs student who was in Massey’s algebra class and a former student who had grown into a doctor. “It was more than just algebra and football for Ronny,” said his wife, Helen “Ace” Massey. Massey spent his final weeks in hospice care at his Huntsville home and…