One of the biggest storylines this past summer about the upcoming high school football season centered around Hawthorne quarterback C.J. Ingram.

The dual sport athlete elevated his college hoops choices this summer by moving up the rankings, and fast.

Offers to play basketball have been pouring in, including an offer to play for the University of Florida where his dad, Cornelius Ingram, played both football and basketball.

He’s also received offers to play college football, including the University of Florida.

Some wondered if he might try to do what his dad did and play two sports in college. His dad played football and basketball at UF in the mid-2000s.

The 6’6 rising senior has led the Hawthorne football team to back-to-back state titles and a 25-game winning streak heading into the 2024 season, which begins on Aug. 23.

As a junior, the first team All Area selection threw for 2,618 yards with 38 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. He also carried the ball 62 times for 333 yards, an average of 5.4 yards per carry, with six scores.

He is the reigning Class 1R Florida Dairy Famers Player of the Year.

So, the question that everyone wants to know is, ‘Has C.J. decided to forego playing high school football to focus on basketball?’

“Yes,” said his dad, who enters his 10th season as the head football coach of the Hornets. “He had an amazing spring and summer on the AAU circuit, and he’s skyrocketed into a great basketball player, from the rankings and then just improvement. And the crazy thing, with so many college basketball coaches calling me about CJ, probably the most important thing I’m able to mention to them is he’s only been focused on basketball for the last three and a half months.”

To put things in perspective, On3 noted that up until May, Ingram only had two basketball scholarship offers from Samford and FAMU, and now he’s narrowed a top 10 list down from 22.

Once the Gators offered C.J. an opportunity to play basketball at the next level, things started to open up.

“He continued to climb and excel even on the AAU circuit, and now you’re holding the UF offer, which they’re coming off a great year last year under a great young coach,” Ingram said. “Other schools had to take notes about ‘who’s this kid? They said he was a football guy.’ But once he started to continue to flourish after the Florida offer, and then you have some of those powerhouses come in and recruit him and offer him, and then we received a lot of great feedback just from what he’s been able to do in these last three or four months, we felt like he’s not even close to what he’ll become as a basketball player.”

Kansas, Michigan, Georgia, and UF are among his finalists, all major D-I schools.

“He’s always run track, of course he’s always been my quarterback, either here or rec ball when I was coaching him, so he never ever had the opportunity to peak, or reach his full potential,” Ingram said. “I know it was always a dream of his to play basketball, and I wanted to give him that. So, this past spring, he really locked in with his trainer and just focused on basketball. I can’t even imagine what he’ll become in the near future, because he’s still only 16.”

Ingram, who has moved into the national top 100 (No. 71 overall by 247Sports), has been competing on the Nike circuit, one of the toughest circuits from top to bottom, and he performed well in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball (EYBL) games.

Those were the most important because they were during the live period in front of college coaches.

“I’m excited for him,” Ingram said. “But the funny thing is, he’s been here (Hawthorne’s football practices). He’s doing some basketball weights and training early in the morning. Then he comes out and watches football practice.”

Although he won’t play football at Hawthorne, he will play basketball for the Hornets and continue to work on his game.

“It was his decision, and I think for me doing both at the University of Florida, I wanted to stress how important it was for him to make his own decision and I wanted to make myself clear, I didn’t want him following in my footsteps because he is his own person,” Ingram said. “And he’s a phenomenal kid. Of course, he has a great relationship with everyone in the locker room, with all of the coaches here. He’ll be playing basketball here, but not football.”

Ingram will definitely be missed on the gridiron, but it’s the perfect time to end his prep football career, on top.

“He meant everything,” Ingram said. “Just from when he comes out to practice, he’s still interacting with the guys in between water breaks and you can see how the guys just love and respect him. And he was that coach on the field for us. Unbelievable leader.”

But just because he’s not playing on Friday nights doesn’t mean he won’t be under the lights.

“I’m pretty sure he’ll attend the games and be on the sidelines,” Ingram said. “I’ll have to keep his equipment away. He’s been joking like, ‘hey, keep my number ready,’ and all that kind of stuff…but I’m pretty sure he’ll be at every game, or maybe even almost all the practices as well. But he meant so much to our program. What he’s been able to do as a starter is unheard of in our area, the numbers he’s been able to put up, and we don’t base everything off stats because it depends on how you look at the stats, but just being an unbelievable leader, a great friend to a lot of these guys, they’ll still be close. But we’ll miss him.”

Eastside transfer quarterback Adrian Curtis will take over the reins for Ingram this fall.

For C.J. Ingram, basketball is his future.

His dad has always been transparent with C.J. and he wanted him to know that he was comfortable with his decision even if it meant he didn’t have a quarterback.

“It was as simple as that, we’re going to compete,” Ingram said. “I’ve got some dogs out there so we were going to compete regardless, and I could tell our last couple of conversations he really took it in stride…he’s just a competitor. He wants to be out there with the guys, but we also know he has to be doing certain things while we’re in football. We already have his days kind of mapped out. We have a schedule for him. He’ll hit that schedule and he’ll be ready for basketball.”

At the moment, C.J. Ingram is taking it all in stride and enjoying the process.

“He’s still remaining hungry throughout the process, like you wouldn’t even think this kid has these type of offers from these particular schools,” Ingram said. “He still loves hanging out, teammates coming over to play video games and stay the night. Like he is a normal 16-year-old kid and I enjoy watching him go through the process and grow up at the same time and developing into an outstanding young man.”