May 18th, 2024 8:00am
As Ashley Ingram adjusts from being an assistant coach at the U.S. Naval Academy to being head football coach at Carson-Newman University, he sees it a perfect opportunity to come back to the South. Ingram is a 1996 graduate of the University of North Alabama, who defeated the Eagles three times in the NCAA Division II playoffs while C-N was coached by the late Ken Sparks.
Ingram has hit the ground running. He has started workouts with his team. He sees being a football coach and a Rotary Club member having similar aspects.
“I look at what you do (as Rotarians),” Ingram said. “It’s pretty simple. Rotary provides service to others, promote integrity and advance world understanding, goodwill and fellowship of business. That’s what we kind of do in the football world. Obviously, we want to win football games, much like you people in business want to do well, make money and have employees.
“The longer I’m in this, the mission changes,” Ingram said. “I got into football for a few reasons. My dad was a football coach, my brother’s a coach and I love the game. I still love the game and I’m very competitive, too. I like to win.”
Ingram outlined his vision for the Eagles, a vision that mirrored Navy under Head Coach Ken Niumatalolo. Ingram has put up signs all over campus detailing the vision. He talked first about the program’s mission.
“We want to graduate and develop young men of faith and character,” Ingram said. “We want to take young men into our program and want them to walk out the door 4 to 5 years later with a college degree and to be better people because they have been in our program. Carson-Newman is a Christian university and we’re not going to run from that. We want to develop their faith and my role in that is to provide the example. In the Christian faith, there’s a lot of talking. I would rather do the walking. Hopefully my actions and my example are what the guys get from me most.”