Mark Ingram is inspiration for family and ’Bama’s fans

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Mark Ingram plays for Alabama — and so much more.

He plays for a father who watches his games from jail.

He plays for a family that has stayed strong and close during hard times.

He plays for the people in his hometown of Flint, Mich., a city whose residents have received far more bad news than good in recent years.

For Alabama, Ingram has helped the top-ranked Crimson Tide reach the BCS championship game against No. 2 Texas on Thursday and delivered the storied program its first Heisman Trophy.

For those who helped Ingram get to where he is, those accomplishments have brought joy and pride unsurpassed by even the most grateful Tide fans.

The stocky sophomore tailback is a bit overwhelmed by it all, but is trying his best to remain the humble and hardworking guy who first arrived in Tuscaloosa.

“I know it comes with it, but at the same time I know that there’s lots of things I have still have to accomplish,” Ingram said Monday. “I’m not too bothered by it. But sometimes I just want to be able to focus on the game.”

It was the relationship between Ingram’s parents and Alabama coach Nick Saban that led Mark to choose to play for the Crimson Tide.

Mark Ingram Sr. was a star wide receiver for Michigan State when Saban was an assistant for the Spartans.

The coach grew close to Ingram Sr. and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Shonda. Then when Saban became Alabama coach in 2007, he returned to Michigan to recruit their son.

Ingram’s first season at Alabama was a good one, at least on the field. As a freshman in 2008, he ran for 728 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Off the field, it was a troubling time for his family.

His father, who played in the NFL for the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins, was convicted of money laundering and bank fraud.

He was sentenced to 92 months, but failed report to a federal prison in Kentucky in December 2008. His family believes Ingram Sr. did not want to miss his son playing in the Sugar Bowl.

He was captured on Jan. 2 in a Michigan motel room hours before the Tide kicked off against Utah, and now could face an even longer sentence.

“It just shows the type of relationship we have, the type of bond that we have as a father and son that he’d sacrifice that,” the younger Ingram said.

In 2009, Ingram Sr. watched his son become a star.

Ingram ran for 1,542 yards, scored 18 touchdowns this season and on Dec. 12 in New York — just a few miles away from where his father is incarcerated — he won the Heisman Trophy.

“Just the fact that I can bring that joy to him when he’s in a hard time is just real important to me,” Ingram said about his father. “All my family, all we’ve been through, my mother and my sisters, that I can do that for them was really special to me.”

The father’s message to his son after winning the Heisman: “He said congratulations. He said we still got one more thing to do.”