South Alabama Sports

By JIMMY WIGFIELD The state’s winningest high school football coach doubts much can be done to stanch the influence of NIL deals and the allure of easy transfers now occurring with regularity in college football. That influence on high school football came to the foreground when Mobile Christian star linebacker and Alabama commitment Sterling Dixon announced he is transferring to Spanish Fort for his senior year, ostensibly to improve his name, image and likeness value. UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis, who…

While high school football has never meant more to Alabama’s burgs, cities and rural hamlets, the flag is already being lowered to half-mast for the sport in honor of the way we have long idealized it — a bastion of community pride and loyalty, an incubator without peer from which boys are transformed into men. It’s on its way to the hospital and may not come back alive — or at least not the way many of us remember it.…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Faced with much faster competition, Sterling Dixon was happy being quickly forced to put any controversy connected to his transfer from Mobile Christian to Spanish Fort behind him. Starting Monday on the Toros’ practice field, Dixon began learning to survive and then thrive in perhaps the state’s most demanding region. Dixon, a four-star linebacker and Alabama commitment, officially transferred from the Class 3A Leopards to Class 6A Spanish Fort on Monday, his father told the Call News.…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Four-star linebacker and Alabama commitment Sterling Dixon is transferring from Mobile Christian to Spanish Fort for his senior season, his father told the Call News Monday. Dixon’s decision comes one week before AHSAA teams open formal preseason practice. The Toros begin the season Aug. 24 at home against Fairhope. Dixon’s entry into 6A Region 1 — the home of defending Class 6A state champion Saraland and five other schools which have won Blue Maps, including Spanish Fort…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD UMS-Wright’s Terry Curtis was named the National High School Athletic Coaches Association National Coach of the Year Thursday night in Lincoln, Neb. Curtis, 72, who became the all-time winningest high school coach in Alabama history last season, is about to embark on his 35th season as a head coach. He is 348-93 overall with eight state championships, all in 25 years at UMS-Wright. Curtis gave credit to others for his accomplishments and said he got emotional during…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Proving it belongs among the nation’s elite high school football programs and setting the stage to win a second straight state championship aren’t priorities for Saraland coach Jeff Kelly and his players, although both could happen in the Aug. 25 season opener against Lipscomb Academy. ESPN announced Wednesday it will nationally televise the 7 p.m. game between the Spartans and Mustangs from Saraland. While the Spartans finished 14-1 and won their first Class 6A Blue Map last…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Four-star linebacker and Alabama commitment Sterling Dixon shocked his Mobile Christian coaches and teammates after a Monday morning workout by announcing he is transferring for his senior season. Dixon’s father, Sterling Dixon Sr., told the Call News the family is talking to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and also considering some bigger local schools to expose his son to more advanced competition. “Sterling wants to compete against a higher talent level and see where he is as…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Semmes’ Tucker Musgrove arrived at the University of Mobile with a fastball that didn’t match his body. But when his body caught up, so did the professional baseball scouts. Musgrove (6-3, 185) — a junior five-tool prospect who hit .401 in the last two years of his college career and whose fastball has reached 97 mph — was selected by the San Diego Padres in the seventh round of last week’s Major League draft as the Rams’…

By JIMMY WIGFIELD Four-star wide junior receiver Dillon Alfred announced on social media Wednesday his intent to transfer from Gautier (Miss.) to Saraland, deepening the defending state champion Spartans’ elite athleticism at the skill positions. Alfred (5-10, 170) — already considered the No. 14 prospect in Alabama in the On3 composite rankings — has been offered by Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Penn State. At Saraland, he will join reigning Mr. Football and…