DAVID GARDNER
When Cornelius Ingram pledged to return to school for his senior season, he made a promise to himself.
“I told myself that I wouldn’t have any regrets regardless of what happened,” he said.
Coach Urban Meyer also made him a promise – the Gators were going to play Ingram as a traditional tight end with his hand in the dirt, attached to the offensive line.
A few days before fall practices started, Ingram and Meyer were walking near the stadium. Half-joking, Ingram had a message for Meyer.
“I want to show NFL coaches I can block,” Ingram said. Then the joke: “You don’t have to throw me a ball all fall.”
Ingram never got the chance to catch a pass. On the second day of fall practice, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. The injury didn’t hurt him, and he continued practice full-speed for the rest of the day.
The results of the MRI were crippling. For 30 minutes, his hopes and his season hit the floor as he cried in the doctor’s office. It was the last time he felt sorry for himself.
“It was one of the hardest things I have had to deal with,” Ingram said. “There were days when it crossed my mind if I should have just gone to the NFL. But everyone at the University – from doctors to coaches to players – were amazing. They kept me going. They kept me motivated.”
Rather than being the forgotten man with the bum knee, his teammates sent him daily text messages and visited him as he rehabbed. They voted him a captain even though he wouldn’t play a down all season.
“I started my rehab the day after my surgery,” Ingram said. “I worked out 4-5 times a week for 2-3 hours a day. I knew what was on the line.”
Instead of months, his season would last one week and one day. The NFL Combine and the UF Pro Day were Ingram’s only two opportunities to show scouts that he was still the playmaker from 2007.
Before the combine, Ingram picked Miami-based mega-agent Drew Rosenhaus to represent him. “I needed a dog in the corner,” Ingram said, “someone who would fight for me.”
At the combine, Ingram had his knee prodded and pulled and answered questions from 20 teams about the dreaded spread offense.
Could he block? Could he run crisp routes? Did he know football? As a high school quarterback and s student of the game, the answers came easily to Ingram.
“The coaches did a great job with us,” he said. “I had to understand everyone else’s position on offense. And having been back there (at quarterback), I know when he needs help and how to react to different defenses.”
After the combine, Ingram returned to his humble hometown of Hawthorne and worked out with Louis Murphy and Percy Harvin preparing for Florida’s Pro Day which was held March 18.
Throughout their time together, the three would tell each other: “If you get the ball, you better do something with it. You never know when you’ll get the chance to do it again.”
Although it wasn’t a competition, the three attacked the Pro Day as they did with every football game they every played – with the unrelenting desire to be the best.
“They’re two of the most competitive guys around,” Ingram said. “I wasn’t going to be the one who drops the ball out there.”
With his season over, Ingram continues to work out in Gainesville and heads home to Hawthorne often to spend the last month with his family before he moves to a new city.
There are two things, though, that he won’t forget as he heads for the NFL. He won’t forget Hawthorne, and he won’t forget his family. His mom, dad and his brother are the most important people in his life, and his hometown will always be there.
“I have got to shout out to my town,” Ingram said. “I love where I’m from. The people have always been great. I want to give them a chance to play through me, to be a positive role model for those kids. Regardless of what happens, Hawthorne will always show me love.”
The month of April can be a time that consumes NFL prospects with worry and doubt. To move to a new city, to be the new guy again, to lose money with each pick that doesn’t produce your name, it can be nerve-wracking. Ingram doesn’t have those fears.
“It’s never really been a concern of mine,” Ingram said. “Whatever team gets me will get a hard-working, competitive guy. With everything that has happened, I am just blessed to be in this position.”
Cornelius Ingram didn’t break that promise he made to himself. He didn’t falter, he has no regrets – he is ready for whatever comes next.