Mark Ingram and the UAB Komodo Dragon

Ingram is the UAB AD. This story came out of a Q & A with Ingram by Al.com UAB beat writer Evan Dudley. It has since drawn coverage from ESPN, SI, and CBS Sports that I know of.

Ingram isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. This dates to shortly after his hire in the wake of the shutdown of UAB football.

I have two issues with the story. One is that while a Komodo Dragon has been mentioned by some UAB fans, more would like to see a dragon on the scoreboard that breathes fire or something similar, but the primary offender is this line:

"Imagine how amazing College GameDay would be with Lee Corso walking around with an entire Komodo dragon after picking UAB to get an upset win."

UAB is 14-0 at home since #TheReturn. A home win wouldn't be an upset.

Anyhow, this is a funny story.

UAB AD wanted a Komodo dragon for football stadium

 

I mean, if LSU can have a tiger on campus, why can't UAB have a Komodo dragon?

 

The stuff about spitting a paralytic is a load of hooey. Zoos do treat Komodos as though they had a poison bite though, using same sort of precautions as for a venomous animal. Their mouths are full of all sorts of horrible bacteria.

 

Every time someone mentions a komodo dragon I think of Bert Parks' scene in "The Freshman." And that's all I got.

 

My favorite komodo dragon story was the one where former SF Examiner and Chronicle editor-in-chief Phil Bronstein (Sharon Stone's ex) was bitten on the foot by a KD during a private tour at the LA Zoo. I read later one of Bronstein's former staffers was told about the incident and was quoted as saying "Oh my god, I hope the dragon's OK!"

 

That exchange with the zoo is one of the funniest things I've ever read. "I thought it seemed like a great idea, but apparently it's not as good of an idea as I once thought."

I have to admit I didn't know anything about that, either. But I'm not drawing a D1 AD salary.

 

Colorado with the buffalo, Texas with the longhorn steer and Georgia with Uga. Besides LSU, are there other live mascots?

 

Well, Temple has an owl...

 

He probably shouldn't be either. Ingram is dumb as a stump. He was (and to some degree remains) highly suspect to the UAB fan base as he was UAB President Ray Watts' pick for the job in the aftermath of the football shutdown, and many of his early moves before we fought the administration to a standstill over it were highly suspect. UAB fans and boosters have raised some $60m toward the rebirth of football and building facilities, and at least $22.5m of that was in hand before his hire. He has since taken a good deal of credit for the rebuilding, including a helluva lot of work by others. I was in close correspondence at the time with someone I knew on the search committee and he was their third pick of the three candidates they put forward.

To be fair to the guy, he has presided over the improvement of facilities for virtually all other sports, although he did so riding the wave of giving to the athletic department in the wake of the loss of football. Some of those facilities were unbelievable bad previously - softball now has a nice on campus facility instead of playing at a local municipal park, track and field has actual facilities instead of using borrowed space at local high schools and colleges. That said, many of us are hoping that some P5 power will look at the (ahem) outstanding job he did in bringing back football at UAB and hire him away in accordance with the Peter Principle. The general rule is to praise him publicly and say loudly that we hope that no one steals him from us.

 

Mississippi State has a bulldog (Bully). Tennessee has Smokey the dog.
Auburn has an eagle that they let fly around during the pregame, but I'm not sure if that's theirs or somebody they hire.

 

Navy has a goat that the guys from West Point try to kidnap.

Florida State has a Seminole on horseback. USC has Traveler the horse bearing a Trojan warrior. I don't know if those exactly count, although I think having a name known to the fans would argue for it.

 

Wyoming has a miniature horse.