By Solomon Crenshaw Jr. | For The Birmingham Times
When Alabama State University (ASU) and Alabama A & M University (AAMU) meet in the 84th Amazon Magic City Classic presented by Coca-Cola on Saturday, October 25, at Birmingham’s Legion Field, two student-athletes on opposite sidelines will not be strangers — ASU’s Jalen Jones and AAMU’s Jalen Wright.
“We text like every other week,” said Wright, a redshirt sophomore. “[He and I] talked like last week. We had a little conversation.”
Jones, a redshirt freshman, said of Wright, “I know his story, the hard work he put in. I just want to see the results he’s getting from all his hard work. I see that he’s started making big plays on defense. I’m just really happy for him.”
“Yeah, I’ve been following him for a while, even though he plays for a rival school,” continued the 5-foot-9, 175-pound Hornets wide receiver. “We grew up together.”
That’s right. Jones and Wright may be on opposite sides at the Magic City Classic, but they share a bond: They were schoolmates and teammates going back to their middle school days at Birmingham’s Phillips Academy and then at Ramsay High School.
But they’re not the only former BCS students at Legion Field for the Classic. Alabama State features six players who played at Birmingham City Schools. Two of those are products of Ramsay High School – Jones and sophomore Ashton Ashford. The others are freshman Aydden Moody-Copeland of P. D. Jackson-Olin, sophomore Eric Tarrant of Arthur Harold Parker, freshman Eldridge Shelton of Wenonah and freshman Jakoby Smith of George Washington Carver.
On the other side of the field, Alabama A&M has four BCS grads. Three of those players – Wright, freshman Marquel Patterson and redshirt senior Jaylin Peterson – hail from Ramsay High. Nikolas Barnes, a junior, is a product of Jackson-Olin.
But the relationship between the Wright at AAMU and Jones at ASU is even deeper than being schoolmates or teammates, Jones said.
“Going to middle school and high school with Jalen Wright was actually a blessing,” he recalled. “He was like a big brother to me. He always wanted me to come out and play football when I first came to high school, but I never went until his last year [in 2022]. He used to play basketball, as well, until he stopped playing and just focused on football.
“We just built a bond all the way from middle school to high school, a big-brother-little-brother bond,” Jones continued. “Always around, always laughing, always talking to each other.”
Fans of the Classic
Jones grew up near Tarrant, Alabama. Wright, a 6-foot, 210-pound linebacker, grew up near Forestdale, Alabama, first playing youth football for the Adamsville Tigers. Each grew up a fan of the Magic City Classic, the largest Historically Black College and University (HBCU) football classic in America.
Jones remembered attending the game while younger: “I used to go out there with some friends from middle school. As I got older, I kept going. But, no, actually, I really never thought I’d be playing [in the Classic], to be honest,” he said.
Wright shared a similar experience: “I really never thought about playing in it [either], but I always went to the game in Birmingham,” the Bulldog said. “Everybody would come out and watch it.”
AAMU’s Wright is a biology major. He enjoys “learning how the body works, and [understanding] the different types of muscles and stuff you need to know that help a person out when they are injured,” he said, mentioning athletes, in particular.
Wright grew up playing shooting guard and small forward in basketball and played third base, pitcher, and first base in baseball. Of football, he said, “[It’s] my first love.”
ASU’s Jones is a physical education major, who would like to work with up-and-coming athletes “so I can give back to the next generation,” he said.
Jones had middle school flirtations with football, but his heart belonged to the hardwood: “Actually, before ASU offered me [a scholarship], I was committed to basketball at Montevallo [University].”
Big Plays
Wright, the former Ramsay Ram, chose to attend AAMU and joined the Bulldog football team as a walk-on in the fall of 2022. Jones, Ramsay Class of 2023, recalls Wright’s performance on the middle school football field for Phillips.
“I played [football] the year after he left middle school,” Jones recounted. “The year before that, [Wright] made a big play in a playoff game in middle school where he caught [the ball on offense] over like two, three people. I don’t remember if it won the game for us or tied it up — it was one or the other — but I remember that [play].
“In every high school game, [Wright] was making a lot of tackles, doing things the leaders should be doing, being the head of the defense, … a lot of stuff for defense.”
Wright remembers being taken aback by a play Jones made for the Ramsay Rams. “My senior year, which was like his junior year at Ramsay, [Jones] caught a screen [pass] and scored a 90-yard touchdown,” Wright said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this kid is really fast.’”
Pageantry and Fanfare
With Jones playing wide receiver and Wright lining up at linebacker, it’s unlikely that the two will square off directly during this year’s Magic City Classic. But if Jones gets behind his defender, Wright may have to chase him down, and he’s up for that challenge. “Oh, yeah,” Wright said. “Of course. Wright and Jones agree that they must keep the pageantry and fanfare of the Classic in perspective.
“We’ve got to stay level-headed and just play the game,” the AAMU linebacker said. “We have to treat it like a regular game.”
Said ASU’s Jones: “We all know it’s a big game, a big rivalry between the two teams, but our strength is in the routine. As our coach Eddie Robinson will say, ‘Just stick to the things we’ve been doing, our preparation, paying attention to the little details.
“We’re just going to keep executing all our plays,” Jones continued. “We’re just going to play it like any other game. We don’t want to make it too high or make it too low. We know the importance of the game, but we want to make sure we keep our same routine so we don’t get off track.”
“All Love”
And when the game is over?
“We’ve always been close friends,” Wright said. “It’s an honor to be able to play in a big rivalry game.”
Jones said, “At the end of the day, it’s all love. Once we step [on the field], we’re competing against each other. But after the after the clock says zero, it’s just all love. We’ll come up, take a picture, talk about the game, just talk about what [we’ve] been doing.”
The 84th Amazon Magic City Classic presented by Coca-Cola pits the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University Bulldogs against the Alabama State University Hornets at 2:30 p.m. Central on Saturday, October 25, 2025, at Birmingham’s historic Legion Field. The game is available via livestream on ESPN+ and will air via tape delay on ESPNU at 10 p.m. Central.
