Key, 46, left Birmingham — and more specifically Clay, Alabama — nearly 30 years ago. Sure, he’s been here hundreds of times (he joked this month that he’s made thousands of trips along I-20) on recruiting visits and seeing his family again, and he lived down the road in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he served as Assistant worked I was a coach in the second half of the last decade, but there was no such homecoming yet.

Old friends visited Key at the team hotel while he was on the phone recruiting for the 2025 squad. Key’s high school football coach spoke with the Jackets after practice Thursday. Rickey J’s Bakery in Birmingham learned that Key was in town and sent a caramel cake, Key’s favorite, to Donna’s house.

“He just had the support of everyone,” Donna said.

As a child, Key grew up in Trussville, Alabama, before Key and his mother moved to Clay when he was 12. Key’s father, James Key, and Donna divorced when Key was young. James Key died in 2011 at the age of 60 and there was never much of a relationship between him and Key.

So Donna and her parents were the role models for Key, a child who was tested in the school’s gifted program at age 7, who was active in church and on the student’s bowl team, was a Boy Scout and was a standout youth baseball player . He maintained close relationships with his maternal grandfather, Don Martin, a man who ran glassmaking operations across the state and taught Key to fish as well as golf and other sports.

Martin also taught Key a lot about life, Donna said.

It wasn’t until middle school that Key, whom Donna called a gentle and sweet child, was allowed to play soccer. He had always loved the sport, but when he finally put on the pads, he immediately fell in love. Hewitt-Trussville High School coach Jack Wood also brought another father figure into his life.

“Brent was always number 1, he always worked extremely hard. That’s probably one thing that stands out to me the most,” Wood told the AJC. “He worked in the weight room and the track program in the offseason. He kept getting better with everything he did. And he worked really hard in the classroom. He was a very good student and that is the most important thing there. He was a good teammate. I think that’s how the others saw him there, and for me that’s the ultimate.”

Key developed into a pretty good offensive lineman despite only weighing 225 pounds as a senior. His work in the classroom and on the field earned him a scholarship offer to play for Tech.

In 1996 he left Alabama and went to Atlanta.

“I can still see it in my head. I was upstairs in his room packing, and he was up there with several of his friends because they were all so happy for him,” Donna remembers. “I was kind of sad and he was like, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal.’ I’m just going over to school. I’ll be back all the time.’ He wasn’t.”

Key’s work ethic didn’t waver in Atlanta. Between training, playing and studying, Key needed to earn extra money, so he worked as a pressure washer for decks and windows as a junior, then as part of the security team at a concert hall as a senior.

Nineteen years after Key played his final game at Bobby Dodd Stadium, Key returned to Tech to serve as his alma mater’s offensive line coach. In 2022, he was named the program’s interim coach after eight games of that season before being given the title of full-time coach in November of that year.

Now Key has a chance to lead the Jackets to eight wins in a season for the first time since 2016. An eighth win could come in the same city where Key, alongside Martin, saw his first college football game in person: the 1985 All-American Bowl between Tech and Michigan State at Legion Field.

“This means the world to me, the family and the friends that will be around me,” Key admitted earlier this month. “Birmingham is college football. It’s always been like that. Playing in a bowl game here is really special.”

As for Wood, he said he will be at the game on Friday. Tech offensive lineman Jordan Williams and defensive lineman Jordan van den Berg said the veteran coach explained to the team before the matchup with Vanderbilt the importance of hard work and effort, traits Wood recognized early on as a young Key.

However, Donna will not be able to take part in the game as she recovers from two surgeries. But she will have some family friends over to watch it on TV and help her cheer on her son, one of Birmingham’s sons.