Memory Of The Week: How Cecil 'Hootie' Ingram Got His Head Coaching Start In Tuscaloosa

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The Crimson Tide community is mourning the loss of former football standout and Alabama athletics director Cecil "Hootie" Ingram, who died Monday.

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He was 90 years old.

A native of Tuscaloosa and a 1991 Alabama Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Ingram served as the athletic director at his alma mater from 1989 until he retired in 1995. During this time he is credited with being the man who hired head coach Gene Stallings, who led the Crimson Tide to the 1992 national championship.

"We will miss Hootie dearly," UA Director of Athletics Greg Byrne said on Monday. "He was such a wonderful man and always greeted you with a big smile. Hootie left a lasting impact on the University of Alabama as both a student-athlete and administrator. Our condolences go out to his family and friends."

Scores of stories about Ingram's college football and administrative careers have already been written following news of his death, but very little has been penned about the start of his coaching career.

As the latest installment of our Memory of the Week series, Tuscaloosa Patch decided to take a deep dive into the start of Ingram's high school head coaching days at Brookwood High and Tuscaloosa County High School.

COMING HOME

Cecil "Hootie" Ingram was a three-sport standout at Tuscaloosa High School, but truly shined on the gridiron as a halfback and defensive back for legendary head coach Frank Kendall.

Fresh off winning a state title the year before, the 1950 Tuscaloosa High Black Bears were a talented squad that finished 8-2 thanks in part to the likes of Ingram, who earned All-State honors as a senior.

This team also featured All-State honorees such as Tom Danner, who joined Ingram playing for the hometown Crimson Tide, before going on to be a teacher and coach in the Tuscaloosa city school system for nearly four decades.

Other All-State standouts on that squad included quarterback and longtime Tuscaloosa Police officer Billy Tinsley and lineman Hugh Thomas — the son of legendary Crimson Tide football coach Frank Thomas, who would go on to play football at Georgia Tech before a knee injury saw him transfer to Alabama.

Thomas was killed in a car crash on his way to Montgomery in 1967 at the age of 33 after being elected to his first term in the Alabama House of Representatives. The bridge spanning the Black Warrior River from Northport to Tuscaloosa was named in his honor when it opened in 1974.

Of such a talent group of young athletes, though, Ingram shined the brightest when he went on to play for Crimson Tide football head coach Red Drew. He also played on the Crimson Tide baseball team.

Playing halfback and safety, Ingram earned All-SEC honors as a sophomore in 1952 after he finished with a nation-leading 10 interceptions — a school and SEC record that still stands.

He then played a crucial role in Alabama's blowout win of Syracuse in the 1953 Orange Bowl, most notably his record-breaking 80-yard punt return.

Ingram married his sweetheart, Mary Antoinette Snider, and then set out on his journey to become a coach.

Following a commendable stint as an assistant at Manatee County High School in Bradenton, Florida, Ingram got the call from Brookwood High School for his first head coaching job following the resignation of Gene Elmore after his lone season at the school that saw the Panthers finish a dismal 1-8.

"It's too early for me to tell," Ingram told sports editor Charles Land of the Tuscaloosa News as fall camp began, before mentioning that he had about 40 players come out for the team. "I haven't seen all the boys, although I've met quite a few of them and talked with them. I'll have to wait and see what they can do and what we have. At the same time, I've been away a year and I'm not as familiar with the other teams in the area as I would like to be. But if the boys keep a good attitude and hustle, we can have a season to be proud of, I think."

After a 13-6 loss to Pickens County and a 6-6 tie with West Blocton to open the season, Ingram secured his first win as a high school head coach on Friday, Oct. 4, 1957 in a 12-6 road win at Oakman.

Thanks to the leadership of All-County quarterback and three-sport star Jimmy Teat, along with the hard-nosed running of backs like Billy Teat, Nathan Walker, Carl Price and James Kizziah, the Panthers won four of their last five games on its way to a 5-2-1 record.

Brookwood High football wouldn't have another winning record until Jack Cook's 1970 team that went 6-4.

To make the successful campaign a bit sweeter, the season was capped off with a 19-6 win over Holt at Foundry Field that gave Brookwood a "mathematical share of the mythical county championship" and its first win over Holt in five years.

Jimmy Teat was also good enough to be selected for a 1957 North-South All-Star Game at Denny Stadium that also featured future Crimson Tide stars Pat Trammell and Tuscaloosa County High lineman Billy Neighbors, but didn't play due to an injury.

Still, Ingram was able to convince UA Athletic Director Hank Crisp to offer the young signal-caller a scholarship less than two weeks after it was announced that former a Crimson Tide end named Paul W. "Bear" Bryant had been hired to replace J.B. "Ears" Whitworth as the head coach at his alma mater.

Ingram's success at Brookwood certainly didn't go unnoticed, either, as Tuscaloosa County High School offered him its head football coaching job for the 1958 season.

In stark contrast to the small numbers of his team in Brookwood, Ingram inherited 80 County High football players, but only nine football lettermen from the previous season.

Among the biggest challenges for the Wildcats in Ingram's first season would be replacing talented All-State offensive lineman Billy Neighbors, who eventually became a consensus All-American at Alabama in 1961 before playing seven years of professional football and being elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

Also walking the sidelines with Ingram that year was assistant coach Adrian McKinzey — one of the most legendary coaches in County High's history who stepped down as head football coach to focus more on his role as the school's head basketball coach.

McKinzey served as Wildcats football coach for 17 seasons and posted an 88-66-9 record, but delivered the school a basketball state championship in 1960 during his decades-long career.

In Ingram's first season, the Wildcats were coming off a 7-2 campaign, having only lost to powerhouses Tuscaloosa High and Walker County.

Running Ingram's split-T offense, the Wildcats were led by quarterback Gene Reynolds and running back Buster Sullivan — a talented basketball player for McKinzey who went on to play for Alabama.

An inexperienced roster, however ended up making the season a long and difficult one that only saw the Wildcats win one game, a 25-0 blowout of Fayette County. The only other bright spot for that 1-7-1 season was a 6-6 tie with a talented Walker County team.

In total, the Wildcats were outscored 129-48 in Ingram's first year. This included a 21-0 loss to his alma mater, Tuscaloosa High, which was still led his former head football coach Frank Swede Kendall and powered by standout receiver Mitch Marcum, who earned a football scholarship to Mississippi State.

Ending On A High Note

Going into the 1959 season, there was far more cause for optimism as many of Ingram's players benefited from a year of experience. With "Bruising" Buster Sullivan returning, the team was also bolstered by standout lineman Clark Boler — an eventual All-State selection who earned a scholarship from Bear Bryant.

Ingram said the Wildcats opened the campaign with "a good team effort," on defense, along with Sullivan rushing for over 100 yards in a 7-0 road win over Winfield. He also praised end Travis Glover for playing the entire game on both sides of the ball.

After firing off wins against Fayette County and Holt, along with a tie with Walker County, Ingram's Wildcats hosted a talented Sheffield squad led by longtime head coach Walton Wright, who was in his 23rd season.

The Wildcats got behind early trying to move the ball against a stingy, hard-hitting defense, with quarterback Roy Kelly hitting Sullivan for a touchdown pass for Tuscaloosa County's only score of the game. With 5:20 left on the clock after the late score, County High saw its extra point blocked and lost the heartbreaker 7-6.

Ingram managed to rally the troops the following week in a 6-0 win over a much-smaller Parrish team, before the Wildcats began prepping for its biggest annual rivalry matchup with Tuscaloosa High School.

The Black Bears (7-1) were led by running back Jerry Beard, who racked up 1,323 yards by that point in the season. On the Tuscaloosa County side, the 6-1-1 Wildcats saw the power-running Buster Sullivan scamper for 622 going into the final game of the season.

The game was scheduled to be played at Alabama's Denny Stadium, but was delayed twice in three days due to torrential rain and storms.

Despite the excitement around the contest between two ranked teams, the Wildcats were blown out by the Black Bears 34-7 in what would prove the 25-year-old Ingram's final game as a high school head coach. Although he was able to turn two struggling programs into winners, he could never quite clear the hurdle of his high school alma mater.

In January 1960, Ingram was hired as a defensive backs coach on the staff at Wake Forest under head coach Bill Hildebrand and embarked on a decades-long career in the college ranks.

Before his departure to North Carolina, though, Ingram was showered with praise and gifts from the TCHS community at an assembly hosted by the school's cheerleaders and members of the Blue Letter Club.

The gifts were presented by Blue Letter Club President Herman Parker and head cheerleader Rebecca Anders.

The next week, Ingram was well on his way to climbing the ranks of the college football world, in a journey that saw him eventually take assistant coach jobs at the University of Georgia and University of Arkansas, before being hired as head coach at Clemson University, where he roamed the sidelines from 1970 to 1972.

After becoming an administrator with the Southeastern Conference, he then worked as athletic director at Florida State University from 1981 to 1989, before returning home to lead the athletic department at his alma mater.

A memorial service for Cecil "Hootie" Ingram will be held Saturday at Calvary Baptist Church, beginning with a visitation from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., followed by the service.

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