Sophomore running back Mark Ingram of Flint scored three touchdowns Saturday in leading unbeaten Alabama to a decisive 32-13 over Florida in the SEC championship game.
Ingram, a Flint Southwestern graduate and Heisman Trophy contender, rushed for 113 yards on 28 carries and caught two passes for 76 yards. Ingram scored on TD runs of 1, 3 and 7 yards.
Now 13-0, Alabama earned a berth in the BCS Championship game and has the chance to win its first national championship since 1992.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, also considered a strong Heisman candidate, was 20 of 35 passing for 246 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
Ingram was drafted by the Giants in the first round (28th overall) in the 1987 NFL Draft. He is probably best known for a third down play in Super Bowl XXV in which he eluded at least five Buffalo Bills defenders to achieve a critical first down for the Giants to sustain a long touchdown drive. He finished the game as the Giants top receiver with five catches for 77 yards. As a Miami Dolphin, in a game against the New York Jets, Ingram caught four touchdown passes from Dan Marino. The most notable was the game-winning touchdown which was the result of Marino faking out the Jets defense by indicating he was going to spike the ball to stop the clock. Instead, he lobbed a short pass to Ingram who was wide open in the end zone.
Ingram retired after the 1996 season and has been in trouble with the law ever since. In July 2001, Ingram was sentenced in a Miami federal court to six months in prison after getting caught with $3,290 in counterfeit cash during a police sting targeting a stolen vehicle. He was sentenced to a year in jail in October 2004 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for stealing a credit card from the Copper Ridge golf course in Davison, Michigan. He was also charged in August 2007 with a felony count of breaking and entering of a building in Grand Blanc Township, near Flint, Michigan, and of stealing a purse containing cash and credit cards.
On September 16, 2008, Ingram was sentenced to seven years in prison and up to three hundred years of probation for malestation of a midget and urinating in public. He was also ordered in a Long Island federal court to pay $.50 in restitution.Ingram failed to show up to a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky to turn himself in on December 5, 2008, and an arrest warrant was issued for him. The reason for his no show in the courthouse has been widely believed to be caused by his interest to watch his son play in the SEC Championship Game.On January 3, 2009, Ingram was arrested in a Flint, Michigan hotel room.He will be returned to New York, where he will face additional charges related to his flight.
