For most of the free football camps that AJ McCarron has held for eight summers in Mobile, his next stop was an NFL training camp.

Asked after Saturday’s camp at Mobile Christian School if he knew what was next for him, the former Alabama All-American said, “Not right now.”

But after McCarron’s new experience as the St. Louis Battlehawks quarterback in the XFL restart this year, he indicated his life as a baseball dad also would include more football.

“I just think everything I got to experience with my boys,” McCarron said about what he most enjoyed about his return to the playing field in 2023. “That’s what means the most to me. That’s something money can’t buy. To have those memories and them still to this day almost every day ask: When am I going back playing? When do they get to go back to St. Louis and watch a game?

“Just this whole past season was just an experience I could have never imagined and something that as a dad and playing professional sports you always want to do and have your boys watch, so, hopefully, I can play for many more years and experience some more. It’ll be fun.”

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After serving as the starting quarterback for two BCS national-championship teams at Alabama, winning the Maxwell Award, finishing as the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and setting the Crimson Tide’s career records for passing yards and yards of total offense, among other marks, McCarron spent eight seasons in the NFL.

But his most recent NFL season was spent on injured reserve after he sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during an Atlanta Falcons’ preseason game on Aug. 21, 2021.

The father of three sons returned to football this year, when he led the XFL in touchdown passes, completion percentage and passing-efficiency rating for St. Louis.

McCarron returned to St. Louis on Thursday and Friday to help with the XFL Showcase held by the league there. At the event, prospective players sought to earn an invitation to the XFL Combine, which will be held July 25-27 in Arlington, Texas, in preparation for the next XFL Draft.

“I was just there for the past two days,” McCarron said. “That city took myself in, took my family in and treated us like we were one of them.

“And you want to talk about passion? They love football. I said from the start that it reminds me a lot of Tuscaloosa and being at the University of Alabama. The passion that those fans have, for them to come out and basically put 40,000 people in the seats in the Dome almost every week we played there, I mean, it’s special, especially for the first year back. I hope they continue to grow, and I know the support’s only going to continue to grow.”

The Battlehawks had an average attendance for their five home games that more than doubled the turnout for any other XFL team during the 2023 season.

Before Alabama, the NFL or the XFL, McCarron was an All-State football and baseball player at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Mobile.

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