By Solomon Crenshaw Jr. | For the Birmingham Times

The battle lines for Magic City Classic are usually well established. You either bleed black and gold or maroon and white. Either you swarm with the hornets or you bark with the bulldogs.

But there are some people who have lived on the other side. And some of them can transition seamlessly – or somewhat seamlessly – from the west stands of historic Legion Field to the east stands.

And some are deliberately positioned in the middle.

Here are the stories of some who spent time on both sides of his friendly civil war.

“You know I went to Alabama A&M, right?”

Huntsville, Alabama native Jennifer Anderson earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in urban regional planning from Alabama A&M in her hometown and set out to find an employer where she could apply that skill. This employer ended up being the rival of Alabama State University in Montgomery.

“After I graduated with my urban planning degree, I came to Montgomery and worked as a planner for five years,” she said. “I was asked to come to Alabama State to serve as director of development and ultimately executive director of the foundation. I remember being asked, 'You know I went to Alabama A&M, right?'”

Coincidentally, her office at ASU was in William Hooper Councill Hall, named after the former slave who founded Alabama A&M. She learned to appreciate ASU in Montgomery.

“I love Alabama State University and I love what it does for our people,” Anderson said. “I think the stronger A&M is, the stronger ASU is, and the stronger ASU is, the stronger A&M is.”

Anderson was director of development at Alabama State for 11 years. In this role, she was responsible for fundraising for ASU, particularly related to the Magic City Classic.

“This is a big weekend for us, a big engagement weekend for us,” she recalls. “I went to the Magic City Classic as a Hornet for 11 years and wore black and gold to every Classic for 11 years.”

And every year, Alabama State alumni greeted their development director with the request, “Let me see.”

“I open my jacket or pull back my scarf and underneath my black and gold there is an Alabama A&M.”

During her tenure at Alabama State, Anderson filled two seats at Legion Field.

“I sat on both sides,” she remembers. “It was a joy to be able to love my institution and then be able to serve another institution. I tell people all the time when they give me a hard time, like, ‘You’re a bulldog.’ I think Alabama A&M trained me to be able to support all of you.”

The former development director said she met several fundraising goals while I worked for ASU. “While I was there, we received our first stock gift,” she remembers. “I attribute this to the training I received at Alabama A&M on working with people and processes.”

Anderson retired from ASU two years ago and started her own company, JSA Consulting. She is also the program director of The Alabama Collective, which works with various HBCUs. Since her retirement, she has attended the Classic exclusively as an Alabama A&M graduate and has no outside connection to her former employer.

“Just hugs and smiles and greetings because I still love the graduates that I worked with and the administrators that I worked with,” she said. “But I will definitely be wearing maroon and white from top to bottom because it has always been in my spirit.”

But don't make the mistake of unfairly vilifying the Hornets when Anderson is around.

“When someone who isn’t one of us says something about the state of Alabama, I have to have a conversation,” she said. “If they say something negative and are not family, it comes out loud.”

I go to A&M every time they don't play state.

Lucy Cohen, of Hillsboro, Alabama, studied early childhood education at Alabama State University and began teaching before graduating. She would complete her bachelor's degree from Alabama State with a master's degree from A&M. At that point, she and her husband Ronnie had their first child and the commute to the Huntsville campus was much shorter.

“Ronnie was a (student) at Alabama A&M. He left A&M because General Motors came in and they all got jobs,” she said of Ronnie and others in the Lawrence County community. “They didn’t return to A&M.”

Although Ronnie was no longer a student at A&M, he remained an ardent fan. Lucy's loyalty was to Alabama State in Montgomery.

“We went to one side and then the other,” she said of the Classic. “But all of my family members were Alabama A&M fans, so they sat on the A&M side. I put on my Alabama A&M stuff, went over there and sat down.”

Lucy says she remains loyal to the Bulldogs most of the time.

“When they play Alabama State, I root for Alabama State,” she said, laughing at the idea of ​​being in enemy territory. “They're messing with me over there, but I don't care. They’re killing me on this side.”

“915 South Jackson Street is always home”

Dawn Sutherlin graduated summa cum laude from Alabama State University in the spring of 1997 with a degree in business administration with a concentration in finance. After taking a break in the private sector, she decided to pursue higher education.

“I chose Alabama A&M University because I lived in the area and my employer offered tuition assistance,” she said.

Attending all the evening classes after 8-hour workdays and driving her beat-up Mazda 626 more than 30 miles each way from Decatur to Huntsville was tiring, but worth it. Her graduate school was different than what she had known as an undergraduate.

“In undergrad, I made lifelong friends and learned how to figure things out without my parents’ help,” she said. “The limited days and interaction with other students outside of class made the experience different than at ASU. However, because of the networking opportunities I had, I wouldn't trade my experience at AAMU. The Office of Career Development has always promoted job fairs, resume writing workshops and internships.”

A classmate told her about a U.S. Army scholarship program. Less than a month after graduating with her MBA in 2003, Sutherlin was offered and accepted a job with the Army, where she has worked for the past 21 years.

“Magic City Classic is always a great time,” she said. “As my best friend says, it’s her favorite time of year. I usually sit near the end zone and cheer for ASU. 915 South Jackson Street (the Alabama State address) is always home.”

“Stinging and biting continues”

Erick Wright, a Birmingham native, graduated from Alabama State University in 1980 with a degree in journalism and communications. From 1982 to 1984, he worked in sports information at Alabama A&M. Was he conflicted during the Magic City Classic? Not in the slightest.

“I was once asked by (Huntsville Times reporter) Reggie Benson, 'Who are you rooting for?'” he recalled. “My quote that I told him was, 'My heart says one thing and my pocket says another.'”

Wright was sports information director at Alabama State University from 1984 to 1986. “It’s always good to go home and be able to contribute to your alma mater,” he said. “In this case, I was part of the sports staff, sports information director, and worked there for two and a half years.”

He has since founded an ASU alumni chapter from the ground up in Nashville, Tennessee. He served as its president for four years and eventually I moved to Atlanta and became president of the Atlanta Metro Alumni Chapter. Wright later became vice president of the ASU National Alumni Association and then served two consecutive terms as president of the National Alumni Association.

In one sense, Wright chose Alabama A&M when he married A&M graduate Ethel Brown Wright in 1980.

“My wife always likes to tell me that I married an A&M Bulldog as an ASU Hornet,” he said, choosing to respect her opinion, if not outright agree. “Our slogan around the house is: 'There's nothing but a little biting and stabbing.'”