Mark Valentino Ingram Sr. (born August 23, 1965) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

wide receiver in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

who played for the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

(

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airpor ...

–

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

), the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team pl ...

(

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

), the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the th ...

(

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

), and the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...

(

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

). He is the father of

Mark Ingram II Mark Valentino Ingram II (born December 21, 1989) is an American football running back for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Alabama, where he was the first Alabama player to win the H ...

, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2009 and is the

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

' all-time leader in rushing yards.

Early career

Ingram played

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, partl ...

at Flint Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan. In high school, Ingram played at the quarterback position with

Andre Rison Andre Previn Rison (born March 18, 1967) is a former American football wide receiver who played professionally for the National Football League's Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Green Bay Packers ...

at halfback. He then played college football at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

East Lansing, Michigan East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County. At the 2020 Census the population was 47,741. Located directly east of the state capital ...

. At Michigan State, Ingram was moved to the position of wide receiver, where he remained throughout his collegiate and professional career.

Professional career

Ingram was drafted by the

Giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

in the first round (28th overall) in the

1987 NFL Draft The 1987 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 28–29, 1987, at the Marriot M ...

. He is probably best known for a third down play in

Super Bowl XXV Super Bowl XXV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the ...

in which he eluded at least five

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division ...

defenders to achieve a critical

first down A down is a period in which a play transpires in gridiron football. The down is a distinguishing characteristic of the game compared to other codes of football, but is synonymous with a "tackle" in rugby league. The team in possession of the ...

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 Daniel Constantine Marino Jr. (born September 15, 1961) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons with the Miami Dolphins. After a successful college career at Pittsburgh and b ...

. 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 open in the

end zone The end zone is the scoring area on the field, according to gridiron-based codes of football. It is the area between the end line and goal line bounded by the sidelines. There are two end zones, each being on an opposite side of the field. ...

. Ingram retired after the 1996 season.

Legal problems

On September 16, 2008, Ingram was sentenced to seven years in prison and up to five years of probation for

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdiction ...

and

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...

. He was also ordered in a Long Island federal court to pay $252,000 in restitution. Ingram failed to show up to a federal prison in

Ashland, Kentucky Ashland is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city in Boyd County, Kentucky, Boyd County, Kentucky, United States. The largest city in Boyd County, Ashland is located upon a southern bank of the Ohio River at the state border with Ohio a ...

to turn himself in on December 5, 2008, and an arrest warrant was issued. On January 2, 2009, Ingram was arrested in a Flint, Michigan hotel room, where he was preparing to watch his son play in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. Alabama lost the game to the Utah Utes by a score of 31–17. On March 22, 2010, in a courtroom in Central Islip, New York, Ingram was sentenced to an additional two years in prison for jumping bail to see his son,

play for Alabama. He was housed at Yazoo City Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) as inmate 22749-050, and was then in the custody of the Residential Reentry Management Detroit. Ingram was released from prison in early 2015.

Personal life

Ingram's son,

, played for the

Alabama Crimson Tide The Alabama Crimson Tide refers to the intercollegiate athletic varsity teams that represent the University of Alabama, located in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I as a m ...

and won the Heisman Trophy in 2009 and was drafted in the first round of the

2011 NFL Draft The 2011 NFL Draft was the 76th installment of the annual NFL Draft, where the franchises of the National Football League select newly eligible football players. Like the 2010 draft, the 2011 draft was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York ...

by the

, where he is their all-time leader in rushing yardage.

References

External links

Ingram's profile on ''America's Most Wanted''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingram, Mark Sr. 1965 births Living people African-American players of American football American football wide receivers American money launderers American people convicted of fraud American prisoners and detainees American sportspeople convicted of crimes Green Bay Packers players Miami Dolphins players Michigan State Spartans football players New York Giants players Philadelphia Eagles players Players of American football from Illinois Players of American football from Flint, Michigan Sportspeople from Rockford, Illinois 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople