The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

HE had a promising career as a basketball player, but Torres Ingraham decided to skip shooting hoops to concentrate on running track and catching footballs.

Ingraham, who became a star as he helped the St Cecilia's Strikers to win their first title in the Catholic Diocesan Basketball League before he moved on to play for the Queen's College Comets, is now a rookie wide receiver for the Alma College Scots.

After he left Queen's College in 2014 as a 10th grader to finish high school in the United States with the Northview High School in Dothan, Alabama, Ingraham made the decision to switch sports.

"I always planned to play football, but it was just to get a better base with my body so that I could dominate on the basketball court," Ingraham told The Tribune. "But it turned in to me just falling in love with football. "I went to a few camps and I did very well and people started to notice and asked me how long I was playing football. I told them I was only playing for about two months, but I started to get recruited by a lot of schools."

One thing led to another and before he graduated from Northview in June, he got a scholarship to Alma College on March 6. By his 18th birthday on March 13, he had signed his letter of intent.

However, the 5-foot-11, 152 pounder studying communications, said he's gone through some technical aspects that has prevented him from playing on the varsity team, but he's still running track.

As a track athlete, Ingraham has run a personal best of 10.7 seconds in the century and he's soared 24-feet, 3-inches in the long jump.

"I want to continue with both sports," he insisted. "My goal is to get into the NFL (National Football League) and to run in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan for the Bahamas. "Those are my goals ahead of me right now and I'm hoping that I can achieve them."

In the fall of 2018, Ingraham said he would be transferring to Central Michigan University where he will get the opportunity to play football and run track in a division one programme.

"It's been good," said Ingraham about the transition. "I've been able to make the adjustment to playing football and running track and still doing my school work. "They're all coming along quite nicely.

"There's a lot of stuff to take in, but everything I do, I put my country first. As a matter of fact, my nickname in America is Bahamas. Everybody call me Bahamas. So that's my drive. Everything that I do, I always put the Bahamas first."

Ingraham, the son of Ivoine and Portia Ingraham, encourages his fellow Bahamians to never give up on their dreams because they do come through.

"Even though you may not have people around you who believe in you and support you, believe in yourself," he stated. "I was fortunate to have that support base around me with me parents. But even since I was eight or nine, I told them that I was going to live in America and go to high school.

"At the time, they were thinking that I would have been going there to play basketball. But I fell in love with football and I was still running track, so I just knew that I had the ability to play any of the sport and now here I am living out my dream."

Despite the fact that he haven't made a name for himself yet like his national idols Chavanno 'Buddy' Hield and Lourawls 'Tum Tum' Nairn, Ingraham said he hope become a star for the Bahamas.

"There's been days when I really wanted to go on the court and shoot some hoops," he said. "But I have to let it go because I know I have some bigger goals ahead of me. Basketball will also be my first love, but I would be telling a lie by saying I don't miss it.

"However, I felt in love with football and track and field and I want to be able to excel in those sports at the international level. I already played for the Bahamas on the boys 15-and-under national team that went to Panama in 2014, so I've made my presence felt in basketball."

Ingraham said he can't wait to come home in December. It will be his first trip back home since 2015. He intent to spend some time working out on the beach to get his body stronger and spending time with his family and friends, who graduated from Queen's College.

"I'm just going to be so happy," he said.