PINSON, Ala. — Melissa Jones pointed to what looked like an ordinary table in room A2 at Pinson Valley High School.

Then again, perhaps time at that table helped play a role in Bo Nix’s development as a quarterback and as a leader.

Nix will begin his third season as the Broncos’ starting quarterback in Monday night’s regular-season opener at Kansas City. A decade ago, he attended Pinson Valley, 15 miles north of Birmingham.

Jones, an art teacher at the Alabama school, had Nix in a homeroom class throughout his junior year of 2017-18 and for the first semester of his senior year in 2018.

“He was preoccupied most of the time,’’ Jones remembers. “He was drawing plays. That’s all he did. … We had a lot of his teammates in the class with him and they would all sit around him and talk about plays. He was very serious about it. … There would be at least five players that were on the team with him and they would go over plays.”

While many students in the class did homework, Jones said Nix did that work at other times and was a “stellar student.” As far as Nix working with teammates on plays during class, that perhaps helped Pinson Valley win Alabama state titles in 2017 and 2018 in his two seasons at the school. Nix then went on to star at Auburn from 2019-21 and at Oregon from 2022-23 before being taken by the Broncos with the No. 12 pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

On a recent day at Pinson Valley, it was quite evident how much Nix meant to that school. There are photos of the state championship teams on the wall opposite the office of principal Gerolyn Woodruff. There are also enlarged photos of those teams on an outside wall of the field house.

Inside the field house, there is a big photo on the wall of Nix throwing the ball for the Indians, another of him running the ball, and one of him with former high school teammate Kool-Aid McKinstry, a cornerback now with the New Orleans Saints. There is a banner to commemorate Nix being named Gatorade Alabama Football Player of the Year for 2018-19.

“He’s on all the walls here,’’ said current Pinson Valley quarterback Raymond Howard. “That’s the first thing we see when we walk into the building. Bo Nix is the GOAT for Pinson.”

Logan Colafrancesco is in his first season as the Indians’ head coach and has yet to meet Nix. But he has hopeful plans for him. Nix’s No. 10 has been retired at Pinson Valley, and Colafrancesco wants to bring him back at some point for a formal ceremony.

Cord Sandberg, a volunteer assistant for the Indians, knows Nix well. He was a backup quarterback at Auburn from 2018-20, first serving under Broncos current backup Jarrett Stidham for one season and then under Nix for two.

“When I’m at the school, they think it’s kind of neat that I was a teammate with him,’’ Sandberg said of students. “There’s no question the Nix name has been brought up multiple times.”

The Nix name was well known in Alabama before he enrolled at Pinson Valley. Nix had previously played for his father, Patrick Nix, a former Auburn quarterback, when Patrick was the head coach at Scottsboro (Ala.) High School. Nix was the starting quarterback for the Wildcats as an eighth grader in 2014 and then in the ninth grade in 2015 and 10th grade in 2016 while putting up big numbers.

After the 2016 season, Patrick Nix took the head position at Pinson Valley and his son enrolled there for the second semester of the school year. He was at the school until he graduated early in December 2018 and enrolled at Auburn in January 2019.

“When Coach Nix first took the job, there were coaches on the offensive side of the ball (remaining at the school),’’ said Michael Turner, who was Pinson Valley’s principal when the quarterback was at the school and is now superintendent of Bessemer City Schools, outside of Birmingham. “Of course, Bo already knew all the plays, so he’d go on a board with the offensive coaches who were still around and he was like coaching them.”

When it was time for spring football in preparation for the 2017 season, Patrick Nix declared the competition would be open at quarterback between his son and Jackie Matthews, a senior who had been the starter at the position the previous three seasons. It was decided that the loser would move to another position.

“When you saw practice, you could see that Bo threw the ball almost like a baseball,’’ Turner said. “You could hear it whistle in the air and the ball came out so fast that the receivers were dropping passes left and right at first because the ball was coming at them so hard. I think at that time, Jackie knew he needed to go somewhere else on the field.

“So he came into my office and said, ‘Mr. Turner, could you and I meet with Coach Nix?’ … So he said, ‘Coach, I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity at quarterback but what other positions do you think I could play?’’’

Matthews moved to defensive back and later played that position at Mississippi State. Nix went on to lead the Indians to their first state title since the school opened in 1972. He missed four games in the middle of the season due to a fractured right ankle but was back for the playoffs.

It was the first such injury for Nix, who suffered a fractured ankle at Auburn in 2021. He broke the ankle again in the Broncos’ 33-30 overtime divisional playoff win last January over Buffalo and sat out their 10-7 loss to New England in the AFC Championship Game. But Nix bounced back from that injury to play well in the preseason and has dubbed himself now better than ever.

“He was the same way in high school,’’ said Stephanie Graham, who was the school’s athletics trainer when Nix played there and remains in that role. “He always knew he was going to come back (from injuries) to be either as good or better when he returned.”

When the Indians won the 2017 state title at the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium, Graham remembers the euphoria at the school.

“We went from never winning a state championship and then we get Bo and Coach Nix,’’ said Graham, also a Pinson Valley teacher. “When they came onto the campus, it was almost like the whole culture changed.”

The next year, the Indians repeated.

“It was amazing,’’ Turner said. “And they won the second one at Auburn (at Jordan-Hare Stadium) where Bo had already committed. That was huge.”

In his two seasons at Pinson Valley, Nix rewrote Alabama high school records while leading the Indians to a 28-1 record. As a senior, he threw for 3,795 yards and 50 touchdowns.

By then he was setting lofty goals.

“We talked about his future goals in class and he wrote down that his football goal was to win the Heisman Trophy,’’ Jones said.

Nix came close to that. In 2023 at Oregon, he was third in voting for the trophy, which earned him a trip to the ceremonies in New York. LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels was the winner followed by Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

But as good as Nix was on the football field at Pinson Valley, he also is remembered there for what he did in the classroom. He was said to be an ‘A’ student.

“He was one of the best students I ever had,’’ said Alana White, who taught Nix in anatomy as a junior. “The boy is brilliant. He always turned in his assignments on time and it was 100% effort. He’s one of those students you never forget.”

White said Nix was so dedicated that he showed up one day when clearly ill for when students were to dissect a baby pig.

“I had told the kids on Thursday that we’re starting dissection tomorrow and I need you all here,” White said. “The next day, Bo is green. He’s just so sick. I looked at him and said, ‘Are you OK?’ He said, ‘No, I’ve been sick all night.’ And I said, ‘Bo, why are you here?’ He said, ‘You said you needed us here.”’

Nix was then sent home, and he did his pig dissection the following week.

White pointed to the desk where Nix sat during her class. It was near where another Indians football player sat in wide receiver Allen Dailey Jr.

“Bo kind of took him under his wing,’’ White said of Dailey, who later played at Kentucky and South Alabama. “Allen was kind of struggling a little bit academically and Bo was there for every assignment, helping him study for tests. They came in early and stayed late.”

At Pinson Valley, Nix also played with wide receiver Tez Johnson, who had experienced a challenging home life and ended up while at the school being adopted by Nix’s family. Johnson later played with Nix at Oregon and is now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“(Johnson) just gravitated to the Nix family,’’ said Woodruff, who was assistant principal at Pinson Valley when Nix was a senior and when Nix’s younger brother Caleb was a freshman at the school. “They have a wonderful family.”

Caleb Nix is now a fifth-year safety at Jacksonville (Ala.) State. Patrick Nix left Pinson Valley after the 2019 season for Phenix City (Ala.) High School, where he coached from 2020-25. He announced his retirement after last season.

Woodruff remembers Bo Nix being “a very good student” at Pinson Valley.

“He’s always been a leader,’’ she said. “He goes out of his way for people … The stands were packed every Friday night when he played here, but I think (while being a student at the school), he just wanted to be a regular person. I think Bo is very humble.”

Susan Goggins, a teacher at the school, once worked with Nix in an ACT preparation class.

“He handled everything with integrity, humility and just went about his business,’’ she said. “He was very goal driven.”

Since leaving Pinson Valley to enroll at Auburn, Nix has returned to the high school on a number of occasions, including to hold a football camp. He returned shortly after he was selected by the Broncos in the 2024 draft and warmly greeted administrators and teachers.

“He always let me know when he was there,’’ said Jean McNew, a longtime administrative assistant at the school who retired in 2025. “I loved him to death.”

Meanwhile, plenty of remnants of Nix’s football days at the school remain in the Birmingham area. Turner has in his office footballs autographed by Nix from the two state championship teams and a photo of him receiving his Alabama Football Player of the Year award.

After Nix moved on to Auburn, Turner added to his collection a picture of him with McKinstry, who defended against the quarterback while playing at Alabama. After Nix left Auburn for Oregon, he was married to Izzy in June 2022, and Turner was invited. He has a photo on display of him with Nix at the wedding. And after Nix entered the NFL, Turner got an autographed Broncos football from him.

When Nix was a junior at Pinson Valley, Russ Cofield was the assistant principal. He is now director of education at the Academy of Craft Training in Birmingham. With the school designed to train students for skills to immediately enter the work world rather than get a traditional academic education, Cofield uses an anecdote from Nix’s days at Pinson Valley when giving talks.

“I would arrive at the school every day at 6 a.m.,’’ Cofield said. “There were several cars in the parking lot already and the stadium lights were on. Bo and his receivers were throwing every morning. I tell that story to remind students that he is successful because he worked at being the best quarterback he could be every day. I tell my students in the same way, ‘If you want to be successful in our training facility, you have to work at it. No getting around it.’’’

And in room A2 at Pinson Valley, Jones’s students still hear at times about Nix.

“She talked about how she used to teach him junior and senior years,’’ Howard said. “She loved Bo, his character and said he was really smart and spoke the highest of him.”

But considering it was an art class, rather than a homeroom class, Howard said he hasn’t been drawing up any plays in that room.