Coach Ingram Remembered For His Tough Love

When he was a freshman in high school Aaron Ingram's parents divorced and he went to live with his grandparents, Jim and Pat Ingram.

That was more than two decades ago.

As Fremont sports fans mourn the passing of Jim Ingram, sometimes called Coach I, his grandson remembered the man who was both his surrogate dad and his football coach.

"He had a motto," Aaron Ingram told Patch. "No preferences. I treat them all like dogs."

Today Aaron Ingram, 40, is running back coach and recruiting coordinator for California State University Sacramento, following in Coach I's footsteps.

"His style was constant repetition," Aaron Ingram recalled. "There was no room for deviation."

Aaron Ingram, who played football at Washington High and later at Cal State Hayward (now East Bay), remembers 5:30 am practices before classes started.

While Coach I drove his team on the field, he also encouraged them in their studies, holding regular study halls for players who needed academic help.

"He was involved in every aspect of your life," Aaron Ingram recalled. "If you had problem at home or with your girlfriend, he knew."

Fremont Mayor Bill Harrison played offensive tackle for Washington High in the late 1980s.

"I was not a starting lineman, but the Coach spent as much time with me, instilling the values of sportsmanship, as he did with the quarterback," Harrison said. "To many people he was the equivalent of a second father."

Harrison and fellow Washinbgton High football alumnus Mike Jacinto have spearheaded efforts to commission and place a statute honoring Coach Ingram at Tak Fudenna Stadium.

The coach was tough, but Aaron Ingram said his grandfather also had his sentimental side.

On Aaron's 18th birthday, for instance, Coach I took off his old-fashioned brass whistle with the cork inside and gave it to his grandson -- who still uses it to run his own practices at Sacramento State.

"They don't make them that way anymore," Aaron Ingram said, in a reference to the whistle that might just as well describe his grandad.