The College Football Hall of Fame will announce its Class of 2025 next month, and, in his first year on the ballot, 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram could be among the inductees.
The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame has gotten the jump on the College Football Hall of Fame in this case. The state sports shrine announced its Class of 2025 on Thursday, and the eight new members include the former Alabama running back.
Joining Ingram in the Class of 2025 are Roberta Alison Baumgardner, Keith Butler, Otis Davis, Jason Dufner, Mike Mitchell, Charlie “Butch” Moore and Frank Warren. Three of the new Hall of Famers were involved in football, but tennis, track and field, golf, basketball and baseball also are represented in the Class of 2025.
The Class of 2025 will join the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame during the 57th annual induction banquet and ceremony on May 3 at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel.
A closer look at the Class of 2025:
Roberta Alison Baumgardner
Baumgardner was the first woman in Southeastern Conference history to play a varsity sport when she joined the Alabama men’s tennis team in 1963, and her name on the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Tennis Facility at the University of Alabama remains a testimony to her talent and trail-blazing 13 years after her death. The daughter of a former Crimson Tide tennis player, Roberta Alison was an accomplished junior player from Alexander City when she joined coach Jason Morton’s Alabama men’s tennis team. Baumgardner had a record of 39-14 across three seasons with the Tide, although some opponents would not allow their players to compete against her.
A women’s national champion on the collegiate level, Baumgardner continued to play in national, regional and state tournaments after completing her career at Alabama, including winning the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic four times and the USTA’s Southern Championship three times.
Keith Butler
A high school football standout at Lee-Huntsville, Butler left Memphis State as the Tigers’ career leader in tackles. Selected in the second round of the 1978 NFL Draft by Seattle, the linebacker spent his 10-season pro career with the Seahawks and retired as the franchise’s career leader in tackles.
Butler returned to his alma mater to begin his career as a college coach. He spent eight seasons at Memphis and one season at Arkansas State before returning to the NFL as the linebackers coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1999. After four seasons with the Browns, Butler moved to the staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he spent 19 seasons before retiring after the 2021 campaign as a two-time Super Bowl champion. For his final seven seasons, he was Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator.
Under Butler, the Steelers defense finished first in the NFL in sacks for an unprecedented five seasons in a row and established a league record with 75 consecutive games with a sack.
Otis Davis
A Tuscaloosa native, Davis was the first person to run the 400-meter dash in faster than 45 seconds. But his track career began as a basketball player at the University of Oregon after four years in the U.S. Air Force. He joined the Ducks’ track-and-field team under coach Bill Bowerman with no experience in the sport.
But at age 28, Davis made the 1960 U.S. Olympic team. Davis had finished third at the U.S. Olympic Trials for the 400 meters. But at the Rome Games, he clocked a world-record time of 44.9 seconds to win the gold medal. Two days after that performance, Davis anchored the United States’ 4-by-400-meter relay team to another gold medal with another world-record time of 3:02.2
A member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, Davis died on Sept. 14 at age 92.
Jason Dufner
A walk-on for the Auburn University men’s golf team, Dufner has gone on to play in 443 PGA Tour events, including six in the 2024 season – 23 years after he made his first appearance on the tour. Dufner has five PGA Tour victories, including the PGA Championship in 2013.
Dufner reached his highest showing in the Official World Golf Ranking at sixth in 2012, when he was a two-time winner on the PGA Tour with the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and the Byron Nelson Championship.
Before establishing himself on the PGA Tour, the former honorable-mention All-American played in 123 Nationwide Tour events from 2001 through 2008. But he has gone on to win more than $28 million in prize money on the PGA Tour.
Mark Ingram
Ingram became Alabama’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 2009, when he ran for 1,658 yards and 17 touchdowns for the Crimson Tide’s undefeated BCS national championship team.
A first-round draft pick of the New Orleans Saints in 2011, Ingram played in 12 NFL seasons. He earned Pro Bowl recognition with the Saints in 2014 and 2017 and with the Baltimore Ravens in 2019.
A three-time 1,000-yard rusher in the NFL, Ingram completed his career with 8,111 rushing yards and 65 rushing touchdowns. He also had 10 TD receptions and was the 30th player in NFL history with at least 8,000 rushing yards and 300 receptions.
Mike Mitchell
A four-time All-SEC selection for the Auburn men’s basketball team, Mitchell averaged 20.4 points and 9.6 rebounds in 104 games with the Tigers. His 996 rebounds remain Auburn’s career record, and his 2,123 points are second on the Tigers’ all-time list even though he played his last game for the program in 1978. Auburn retired Mitchell’s No. 30 in 2013, two years after he died.
The 15th pick in the 1978 NBA Draft, Mitchell played 10 seasons in the NBA and another 11 years overseas. He was an NBA All-Star in 1981 for the Cleveland Cavaliers, when he averaged 24.5 points per game, the highest of his six seasons scoring at least 20 points per game. In 759 NBA regular-season games, Mitchell averaged 19.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game as a 6-foot-7 forward.
Charlie “Butch” Moore
The Milwaukee Brewers selected Moore from Minor High School in the fifth round of the 1971 MLB June draft. A prep quarterback, Moore was considering going to Auburn to play football, but he chose baseball instead and reached the big leagues as a September call-up in 1973 and never went back down on his way to the Brewers Wall of Honor.
Moore played in 15 Major League seasons. Of his 1,334 MLB games, all but 51 came with Milwaukee, where he played catcher primarily but also served as the Brewers’ regular right fielder in 1982 and 1983. Milwaukee reached the World Series in 1982, and even though Moore batted .346 against St. Louis, the Cardinals won the championship in seven games.
Moore completed his career with a .261 batting average in 4,483 big-league plate appearances. On Oct. 1, 1980, he hit for the cycle in Milwaukee’s 10-7 victory over the California Angels, and he added a unique feat to the achievement by also stealing two bases.
Frank Warren
The New Orleans Saints have not drafted a player from Auburn since taking Warren in the third round in 1981. But Warren certainly didn’t do anything to sour the Saints on Auburn players. He spent 13 seasons in New Orleans’ defensive line, recorded 56 sacks and scored a pair of touchdowns on fumble returns.
Before becoming a member of the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame, Warren was an All-State selection for Phillips High School in 1976, when the Birmingham-based Red Raiders suffered only one setback – a 7-3 loss to West End at Rickwood Field. At Auburn, Warren was a three-time All-SEC selection.
To purchase induction banquet tickets, contact the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Museum at (205) 323-6665.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.