Alabama State wins Battle of the Bands at the Magic City Classic

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Alabama A&M may have beaten Alabama State 20-19 in the 70th annual Magic City Classic at Legion Field today, but Alabama State claimed the Battle of the Bands title.

AT&T sponsored a contest in which game attendees could vote to decide who won the Battle of the Bands, and the Marching Hornets came away the victors. The prize was $1,500 for the school.

The 70,000-seat Legion Field was nearly full at halftime as the crowd roared for the two bands. The crowd appeared to be bigger at halftime than for the game itself.



















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The record shows Jones has been great for A&M Bulldogs

HUNTSVILLE, AL - Alabama A&M's football program was at a crossroads nine years ago. The athletics director at the time, the late Jim Martin, convinced that A&M had outgrown NCAA Division II and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, led the Bulldogs to NCAA Division I-AA in football and Division I-A in all other sports and into the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

He hired Ron Cooper, a local product who virtually grew up on campus, played at Jacksonville State and later coached at Notre Dame and Louisville, to put A&M's football program on the map. Cooper did a good job, but could have done better had it not been for all of his off-the-field projects. When he left after going 22-23 from 1998-2001 and leading A&M to a berth in the 2000 SWAC championship game, Martin needed someone that could improve what Cooper had built.

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A&M to drop men's soccer program‎

HUNTSVILLE, AL - The men's soccer program at Alabama A&M will be cut after this season, The Times has learned. Sources says budget cuts have forced athletic officials to drop the program, which is an NCAA Division I independent and not sponsored by the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which A&M is a member.

Neither athletics director Betty Austin nor coach Salah Yousif could be reached for comment, but an official announcement is expected to be made today.

The Bulldogs had one of the most feared programs in the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s, winning national championships in 1977 and 1979 and were runnersup in 1978 and 1981, but haven't been nearly as relevant the last two decades. A&M is the only school in the SWAC that has men's soccer, but the league doesn't sponsor it as a championship sport.

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