Dolphins FB Alec Ingold releases self-help book, talks first season in Miami
The black, soft cast still encases fullback Alec Ingold’s right hand but he jokes about it and is in good spirits as he sits in a secluded space at the Phoenix Convention Center.
“Gonna get this freaking cast off my hand and get into the weight room with the boys and start with [organized team activities],” he told the Miami Herald on Thursday. “So I’m excited to get back to South Florida and just be with the guys and kind of [regroup]. Everyone did their thing now and now we’re going to go on a run and see how great we can be this offseason.”
Ingold just finished his first season with the Dolphins, a year in which he set a career-high in catches, receiving yards and total touchdowns. On Tuesday, he released his first book, titled, “The Seven Crucibles: An Inspirational Game Plan for Overcoming Adversity in Your Life.”
It’s a self-help book he calls a “hands-on playbook for conquering every obstacle that stands between you and success, on the playing field and in life.”
Ingold, 26, said the book was born out of his rehabilitation process from a torn ACL that prematurely ended his final season with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020.
“When you tear your ACL, you know it’s going to be a long process. It’s no secret,” Ingold said. “And so I really leaned on a lot of other vets on how they got through it, what they would do, and a lot of guys told me to journal. I just started journaling so that I could keep my emotions on a piece of paper and then go into the facility and just rehab and just be a pro and keep those emotions and those uncertainties, those fears of everything on a piece of paper and out of the building.”
Releasing his thoughts was cathartic during the rigorous rehab and over time, Ingold realized “that there’s a lot of carryover between things I’ve already been through, what I was facing, the challenges I was going through mentally, emotionally. ... I wrote the answers to the test before I did it.”
The process of journaling continued past his rehab and into his first season with the Dolphins, which saw him become a key member of a Miami offense that broke out under coach Mike McDaniel and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
Ingold said “there was a lot of introspection” throughout the making of the book, in which “you start to figure out how you work, what habits worked the best, what routine there is.”
In his book, Ingold cites several key moments in his life, including returning from a torn knee ligament and pushing through as an undrafted free agent that has played four seasons in the NFL. But another defining moment for him was his senior of high school, in which he became a Wisconsin state champion in wrestling, a sport he called his “first love.”
“To go through those trials and tribulations,” he said, “and really test yourself and push yourself to the brink ... that was some of the most rewarding moments of life. If I can go through this, I can go through anything.”
The release of Ingold’s book comes months after he received the Adoption Excellence Award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. for his efforts toward foster care awareness. Ingold, who was adopted at birth, has taken on several initiatives, including his Alec Ingold Foundation, whose work is centered around outreach to kids who are in foster care or adopted.
Ingold’s first season in Miami came with its own share of adversity, from Tagovailoa’s spate of concussions to a five-game losing streak to a broken thumb that Ingold played through in the final three games. But the Dolphins reached the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and Ingold is excited about the team’s 2023 prospects after the strides in 2022.
“There’s going to be a high standard and I feel like that’s where we’re all gonna keep each other accountable to it,” he said. “And I think that’s going to be fun. It’s going to be cool to see the guys’ mindsets and growth coming back refreshed, having a month off of doing whatever they needed to do, the weeks off, whatever it is, and get back into that building and get back to work.”
