Alabama A&M makes it four in a row at Magic City Classic as bands, tailgating, parade make comebacks
The Magic City Classic is the biggest event of the year for both Legion Field and HBCU sports. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr. / Alabama News Center)
Once again, Aqeel Glass finished what he started.
The graduate quarterback continued his streak of winning every Magic City Classic that he started when he led the Alabama A&M Bulldogs Saturday to a 42-28 victory over Alabama State in the 80th Classic.
“It feels great,” Glass said. “My first start, I won. My second start, I won and then just kept it rolling.”
As in the spring Classic this year, Glass was named the offensive most valuable player. This time he had a 20-of-33 passing day that featured 321 yards and four touchdowns to four different receivers.
Senior running back Gary Quarles added 126 yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns to balance the aerial assault.
A&M coach Connell Maynor said the Magic City Classic is a game for the fans.
“Every year, it’s the last weekend in October,” he said. “You don’t have to wait for the schedule, like homecoming, to see when it is. People have already put their vacations in for this game.
“This is the game everybody wants us to win,” Maynor continued. “This is the game our alumni want us to win. All the fans, Bulldog Nation wants to win this football game. I’m just proud of our team that we were able to win it four straight years.”
The Bulldogs’ longest win streak in the series was seven games from 1960 to 1966. The Hornets’ longest streak was six, from 1990 to 1995.
[vimeo 641173427 w=640 h=360]Sights and sounds from the 2021 Magic City Classic from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
The Classic was the final one for Donald Hill-Eley as Alabama State’s head coach. Jason Cable, ASU’s athletics director, announced Monday that defensive coordinator Travis Pearson will be interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
Hill-Eley went 20-21 in four-plus seasons at the helm of Alabama State, including 3-4 this season.
The pandemic had deprived fans of the full experience of the Magic City Classic. Charles McClelland, commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, acknowledged that the Classic played in the spring lacked each school’s band and there was no tailgating.
“That took a lot away and people were not accustomed to spring football,” he said in the press box of Legion Field. “But I can tell you the spring football season did so much for the Southwestern Athletic Conference and it did so much for these two institutions. People that would not normally get an opportunity to see Alabama State and Alabama A&M got an opportunity to see them in the spring because they were the only teams playing on that Saturday, SWAC and a couple other games were on.
“This is the true experience because of COVID being reduced,” McClelland continued. “Because of the vaccinations, we were able to release a lot of the restrictions that we had. We urge everybody to get vaccinated, but clearly there’s nothing like the Magic City Classic.”
Maynor said an announced crowd of 28,096 was smaller than it might have been because of off-and-on rain on Saturday. But for the fans who came out early for the parade downtown, tailgated throughout the day and stayed in the stands – or came onto the field – for the postgame concert of DJ D-Nice, nothing could have been grander.
Karen Mitchell fended off the chill by pulling her jacket around her neck as she sat outside Regions Harbert Plaza on Sixth Avenue North. That’s her favorite place to watch the parade even though she has no rooting interest in the Classic game and had no relatives marching in the parade.
“I just love it,” the Adamsville resident said. “I love listening to the music. I love looking at the dancing. It’s just a tradition. I’m used to doing it and I do it every year. I’m not a big football fan. … I am a parade fan.”
Brook Highland’s Gerald Ephraim took in the parade with his family.
“We definitely missed it,” he said. “We try to come out here every year and we were so excited to be able to finally see it again. It’s so awesome and it’s so wonderful for the kids to come out here and experience this.”
Roderick Mack bought the lot on the corner of Fifth Place and Graymont Avenue as an investment in 1990. Since then, it has been a source of income as vendors have rented space to sell their goods and motorists have paid to park their cars.
Mack, an accountant, lamented that police block the streets near the stadium at 9 a.m. to manage traffic. He’d rather they let potential patrons into the area until 11 a.m.
“With Legion Field being across the street, I knew that that will be an added bonus,” he said, recalling clientele coming during the SEC Championship. “That was bigger than all of the events or the Alabama-Tennessee game, but the Magic City Classic is still a very good event for us.”
Organizers report that tickets to the game were sold in 32 states. Some of those patrons took residence last week in Birmingham’s 100th neighborhood – the tailgating RV village in McLendon Park around Legion Field and in yards of neighboring properties.
Carlos Fluker of Detroit was part of the Classic tailgating experience for the first time.
“I’ve got a family here and this is what they do,” he said. “They do this every year, so I came here with them and I like it.”
Another Detroit resident, ASU fan Latoya Hall-King, has been here before. She was still tailgating hours after her team lost the game.
“This is a family affair,” she said. “It’s like a family reunion. It is the fellowship and enjoyment of being with fellow alumni and just enjoying the atmosphere of being here at the Magic City Classic.
“We definitely missed it,” Hall-King said. “Being in quarantine during COVID didn’t allow for everybody to come together. Being able to actually come face to face and enjoy this time is something that I think everybody was missing and definitely wanted to experience.”
Birmingham native Valerie Givan-Martin moved to Atlanta two years ago after years of living in Michigan. Saturday was her first time at the Classic in about 40 years.
“This brings back memories,” she said. “Real memories. Good hometown memories.”
