Jalen Wayne didn’t get stoked up about the Reese’s Senior Bowl as some sports-minded youngsters growing up on the Gulf Coast do.

Now if Mobile had a Senior Bowl for basketball, that would have been different.

“I was such a basketball dude,” Wayne said, “so the Senior Bowl, I really didn’t know much about it. But when I got in college, I learned about what it meant to all these people out here, I started to pay attention to it then.”

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Wayne played in the final four of the Alabama High School Sports Association’s basketball tournament every season of his prep career starting when he was an eighth-grader, first with Faith Academy and as a senior with Spanish Fort. But Wayne earned an invitation to Saturday’s Senior Bowl as a wide receiver from South Alabama.

How did an aspiring basketball player wind up at a football all-star game?

“My friends just told me back in high school that football would probably be a better situation,” Wayne said. “Better opportunity to get student aid to play football. There’s not a lot of 6-1 guards playing NBA basketball. …

“I love it, but football’s just a lot easier, a lot funner to play, and I get the ball a lot more than I did in basketball.”

Wayne hasn’t abandoned his basketball instincts, though. He just applies them to football now.

“I feel like playing downfield when the ball’s in the air is kind of like rebounding,” Wayne said, “so I just kind of implement the rebounding aspect of the game for football. Try to go up and high-point it and try to jump over dudes. And just competing really. Basketball, you feel like you have to score every time you have the ball in your hands, so every time I get the ball, I try to do the same thing.”

After catching 28 passes for 469 yards and three touchdowns and running for 279 yards in his final prep campaign for Spanish Fort, Wayne appeared in six seasons with South Alabama. In his first three, he totaled eight receptions for 115 yards and two touchdowns when he lined up at running back and tight end as well as wide receiver. Then came 33 receptions for 418 yards and one touchdown in 2020 followed by 53 receptions for 630 yards and two touchdowns in 2021 building to 58 receptions for 816 yards and nine touchdowns in 2022.

“It’s just humbling,” Wayne said of reaching the Senior Bowl. “I’m grateful for this opportunity. I’m just trying to take advantage of each shot that I get. Every ball that I get thrown to me, I’m trying to bring it down.”

Wayne got a Senior Bowl rundown from a member of the game’s Hall of Fame. Miami (Fla.) wide receiver Reggie Wayne made the transition from college to the pros at the Senior Bowl and started a 14-season NFL career after the 2001 all-star game.

“He called me three days ago,” Jalen Wayne said on Tuesday of his uncle. “Let me know what I should be prepared for, what I need to be ready for. Just making sure I was doing all right.”

As a member of the American team, Wayne will play one more time at Hancock Whitney Stadium, his college home field, when the 74th annual Reese’s Senior Bowl kicks off at 1:30 p.m. CST Saturday in Mobile. NFL Network will televise the game. Tickets can be purchased online.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.