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Cecil “Hootie” Ingram, former All-SEC football player for the Tide and University of Alabama athletics director, has died at the age of 90. The news came from Ingram's family on Monday.
Ingram spent most of his life in Tuscaloosa. In 1991, after Ingram became heavily involved in the Tuscaloosa area sports world, he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Mr. Ingram had a 43-year career playing, coaching and managing.
Ingram was born at Druid City Hospital in 1933 and became a three-sport star at Tuscaloosa High School. In 1951 he enrolled at Capstone and went on to letter to the Crimson and his Tide in both football and baseball. On the football team, Ingram played both halfback and defensive back. During his sophomore season in 1952, Ingram led the nation with 10 interceptions, a record that still stands at Alabama and the SEC. On the baseball field, Ingram was an All-SEC second baseman for the Tide.
Ingram remained under contract with the Philadelphia Eagles and retired without appearing in a game in the league. After he retired from the NFL, Ingram returned to Tuscaloosa and he began coaching at a local high school. After coaching at the high school level for four years, Ingram moved to the college level, where he would spend the next 12 years. Ingram's college coaching career included stops at Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Georgia, Arkansas, and Clemson.
After spending 20 years as a coach and player, Ingram served as assistant commissioner and administrator in the Southeastern Conference (1972-1981) before moving on to become director of athletics at Florida State University (1981-89). I spent 17 years there. In 1989, Ingram returned to the University of Alabama as athletic director, a position he held until his retirement in 1995. Shortly after being hired as Alabama AD, Ingram hired Gene Stallings as the new head football coach, who went on to lead the University of Alabama. The lead up to the 1992 national championship.
After being inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1991, Ingram was named to UA's “Team of the Century” in 1992 as a second-team defenseman.
In 2007, he was awarded the University of Alabama National Alumni Association's Paul W. Bryant Alumni-Athlete Award, which recognizes an athlete whose post-college accomplishments are “outstanding on the basis of character, contribution to society, professional accomplishments, and service.” Awarded.
(Information from University of Alabama)
