Blue Bomber Brandon Alexander talks faith, football, and music

Going from a walk-on for his collegiate football team to becoming one of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive backs, Brandon Alexander has had a difficult road to get to where he is today.

“I was playing out of position in high school for three and a half years. I was playing defensive end and I was 140-150, but then I walked over to UCF (University of Central Florida) and I had my opportunity there when they put me at the corner,” Alexander says.

While he says his size played a role in not getting a receiver role, he started defensive back. “They asked me what position I wanted to play and I said I wanted to play receiver and they kind of looked me up and down and was like, no, you’re going to be DB.”

After an injury sidelined him for two years, he had a tryout with the Bombers in 2017. “It’s kind of how I got here and I mean that would be just an incredible story of just coming on as a trial, a walk-on, through college and now with the Blue Bombers.” While it wasn’t an easy road, Alexander says he wouldn’t change anything if he did it over again.

Alexander, along with his teammates and most people in Winnipeg are looking forward to the annual Banjo Bowl set for Saturday, September 7 at Princess Auto Stadium against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a matchup of two of the top teams in the West Division.

When he’s not busy with football, Alexander is also a musician. He goes by the name A’BA and has two EPs and one album out.

“I’ve been writing since about 2010, 2011, and I didn’t take it seriously until hours of getting into the studio and actually trying it out until COVID-19 happened. I just had a lot of time on my hands and wondered what am I going to do now? I didn’t know if football was going to be coming back and at that moment, I didn’t know if anything else was going to happen. So I was like let me just try something out and see if I can make something of it, make something that I care about.”

He says that while he hasn’t done much music recently, “I was very proud of that album. It’s what I’ve been doing and I definitely look forward to it for the future of what’s going to come.”