By Solomon Crenshaw Jr. | For the Birmingham Times
Milton Jones took the prize as the most valuable player, leading Fairfield High Preparatory School to the Class 4A boys state basketball championship.
The senior forward could have also taken the prize of having the most siblings among players of the Fairfield athletics program, with 11 — eight sisters and three brothers. But even if he didn’t have a single sibling by birth, he’s part of a brotherhood with teammates on the Tigers squad.
“That’s always been a focus of mine. Always has been,” said Coach Maurice Ford, the Tigers’ athletic director and head boys basketball coach. “We brought it here — one band, one sound. I feel like if (one player doesn’t) have it (and) you’ve got it, he should have it because it’s your brother. We’re a tight-knit group and they get along very well. We see them. They’re together all the time.”
That togetherness was evident when the champs went to Montgomery to visit the state Senate. Players were dressed uniformly but they weren’t wearing the purple and gold jerseys and athletic shoes that they wear on the court. This was a different uniform.
“They did that themselves,” Ford said. “They took it upon themselves, ‘We’re gonna wear black pants, white shirt, dress shoes. No tennis shoes.’ They did that themselves.
“I didn’t come in and say, This is what you’re gonna wear,” he said. “They said, ‘This is what we’re going to wear, Coach. We’re all going to look together.’”
Senior Jalen Kidd echoed that sentiment.
“That’s just bonding, building chemistry with the whole team,” he said. “That’s not a mandatory thing. That’s always optional. You always see teams that aren’t good where people are individuals. You might have players over here and three other players over here, a divided group. We’re all one.”
‘We’re A Brotherhood’
The brotherhood was never more evident than when a team member experienced a challenge at home. Like family, no one identified the player and nobody said what the challenge was, only that they were all there for him.
“Like I said, we’re a brotherhood,” Kidd said. “At one point of the season, we had a rough time. We were in a rough patch. One of our players had a rough time going on, stuff he had to deal with off the court. He was in kind of a dark place at the time. It took the whole team to come together … to help him overcome that.
“We went from that to him now being as happy as ever for winning a state championship,” Kidd continued. “As a team, it brought us so much closer.”
The family mindset goes beyond the locker room. It extends to fans in the stands and those that the players encounter on the street.
“It’s pushing our community to where they’re posting up flyers, posting us on Facebook, trying to donate us, give us something to eat,” Jones said. “A lot of folks, every time like we walk into the store, they be like, ‘Congratulations, champ!’ or something like that.”
Said Kidd: “Anywhere we go, there’s going to be somebody who spots us, who notices us and they’re always congratulating us.”
‘More Than Milton’
Coach Ford said the 2025-26 season started off rough. Facing a lot of Class 6A and 7A teams, the Tigers were at or below .500. But that was part of Ford’s plan.
“We scheduled like that because I lost a lot of guys,” he said. “I had to get these guys used to playing that type of competition and playing at their pace. At the beginning of the year, it was like all mental, mental, mental, mental. After Christmas break, the guys kind of bought in and said, ‘Hey, we can play also.’
“I was telling everybody we’ve got more players than Milton but I had to get them to believe that it was more than Milton,” Ford said. “Then we turned the corner. After January, we only lost one game all the way through the state championship. They started to play and believe in themselves, and they got a state championship.”
Jones said he and his teammates understood even when their record didn’t show it, they were playing for the ultimate prize.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but we always told each other during the season, when we get through this season, we’re going all out in the playoffs,” he said. “For us to accomplish that goal with each other, it meant a lot.”
