Cam Newton has been one of the defining sports figures of the past decade. He won the 2010 Heisman Trophy while leading Auburn to the national title. He won the NFL Most Valuable Player award in 2015 while driving the Carolina Panthers to a Super Bowl spot. He has been honored, criticized, interrogated, and released. In June, he signed with the New England Patriots.
During the past year, The ringerTyler R. Tynes has spoken to coaches, teammates, friends, family, reporters, and even Newton himself about the life and career of the QB. The Cam Chronicles, a narrative podcast series, premieres on July 13.
“I try to teach children this: you know, soccer is like life and they take you down. You have to get up no matter how many times you get knocked down. You will have to get up.
I met Dallas Allen, Cam Newton’s high school coach, in downtown Atlanta in January. For nearly an hour, Allen ran through his memories of the skinny boy from Westlake High School who became an NFL superstar. Many of the people I have spoken to who knew Cam have suggested, in one way or another, that he was destined for the level of prestige he gained in professional soccer over the past decade.
Cam’s charm, and propensity for mischief, were showcased as a student in Westlake, when he bounced in the hallways between classes, sometimes skipping periods for Waffle House trips, and jumping on tables during lunch periods to give away an entire high school student room. . Her talent was evident at Westlake’s practice field, when she performed gravity-defying stunts or unleashed her cannon arm that made coaches gasp from the sidelines. But it’s the mistakes Cam has made in her life that Allen and I are discussing on this cold night, and the lessons she learned as a teenager so far, as a 31-year-old father.
When Cam played for Westlake, Allen told him what he said to all his players when they felt they could no longer go, when they were ready to surrender: After the fall it is the hardest. “You can’t think why they took you down,” she said. “You can only think about what you have to do to be better.” Cam has risen and fallen throughout her career. Exemplify Allen’s parable. Cam “made a lot of bumps and bruises,” Allen said.
“But hey, he will still be Cam Newton.”
That same week, I attended a church service in Newnan, Georgia, a small town nearly 40 miles southwest of Atlanta. Allen’s gospel on Cam lives on in this church. Cam’s father and church pastor Cecil Newton told me that their son is not an “ordinary guy.” Cam took some of her first steps into church, under the watchful eye of her charismatic and colorful father. The hints of Cam’s personality become clear when you speak to the head of the Newton family. He had spent the past few days with the Newtons, watching Cam train a 7-on-7 soccer clinic at Lakewood Stadium in Atlanta. Later I attended a fiery Sunday service at Cecil Church and had a brunch with the congregation curated by Cecil’s personal chef. Cecil told me that this was Cam’s real life away from football, away from the cameras. This was the Cam Newton that people don’t see.
“He is a private person,” Cecil told me. “He is not so hypersensitive about whether you like him or not. You feel comfortable in your own skin. I’m glad it’s like that, because if it wasn’t, you know, it probably would have faded away much earlier. “
Part of the intrigue of a figure like Cam is his refusal to bow, his resistance to settling for a widely accepted ideal of who he is supposed to be. As she gets older, she talks to the press less often: Her public statements are often presented in the form of broken phrases or quotes, in passages and metaphors posted on social media. It is not easy to understand. When I briefly spoke to her in Atlanta, I didn’t want to get into the controversies, misunderstandings, and transgressions in her career.
“I’m in a position now, man, where I’m comfortable with my skin,” he told me. “I am not trying to be anything that I am not. And I’m fine with that. And many times it annoys people the wrong way. ” She said she wanted to embrace the things that have made her a brand of fire in professional soccer. “I always try to push the pendulum no matter what it is. And the fact that, you know, I’m in this place out of influence. I want to make sure that, you know, I plan to be unique, to be yourself and to be, you know, true to who you are and where you come from as well. “
He emphasized that his reflections on his life and career are part of his growth as a father.
“I make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I’m going to keep making mistakes. But at the same time, I don’t want those mistakes to be a constant. You know, I want to live and have children. I want to be able to teach them the right thing from the wrong thing and know what to expect. And You know, I do not claim to be something that I am not. And I know who I am and I know what I try to be. “
I asked him if he regretted something.
“For what?” Cam asked. She looked at her son, Chosen One, playing with a rainbow-colored soccer ball in the distance. This is the axis of Cam’s life: as a father, a part-time pastor in his father’s church, a humanitarian and a quarterback preparing for what could be his last act in football. He looked at me with a wry smile.
“I’m true to what I am, man,” Cam said before walking away. “And I don’t bite anyone’s tongue. Everyone knows how to rock and roll. And I’m more comfortable that way. “
The poet Claudia Rankine wrote in 2018 that Cam Newton was “bothering the United States” because he occupied a space that “white Americans see as the work of a white man.” She described him as “a young man who grew up in the American public while being extraordinary and ordinary and disappointing and magnificent and resilient at the same time.” She concluded that “Cam Newton is basically the same as us, the United States.”
The entirety of Cam’s soccer career has focused on the kinds of contradictions Rankine described. Cam Newton’s very idea inflames certain conservative segments of the soccer fan base, which have prevailed in the sport throughout its history. He is not a shrinking violet, but a reckless black quarterback who thrives when he delights in his difference. Its stature as an icon is unmatched and confusing at the same time. He is the vanguard of today’s young class of black quarterbacks, even though he has been considered irritating for much of his career.
For much of the past decade, Cam has been the black quarterback of the moment. He danced like we did, laughed like we did, participated in all avenues of a black culture so frequently denied in the dominant American culture unless he is pimp and parodied by someone else’s taste. We have made a lot of mistakes about Cam in his career, but one thing stands out to me: he is a self-proclaimed “Superman”, but his super power was never his muscles, his height, his ability or his speed. Cam’s beauty was his dissent as a generational quarterback talent. His status in the NFL and his defiance of the rules associated with his position made him a traveling protest every time he stepped on the field. That is more of a superpower than anything else it has wielded. Looking back, it seems very unfair that he had to fight that idea. If you need Cam to fit a certain profile, that doesn’t have to do with Cam, it has to do with us. Our sensitivities Our prejudice. The very idea of being a black quarterback remains provocative for white audiences and fan bases, something Cam has recognized in the past.
I don’t know how much credit Cam deserves for the offensive style that has become so prevalent in the NFL, but he is the vanguard of today’s young class of black quarterbacks. Would we still have seen the rise of Lamar Jackson, or the skill of Pat Mahomes, or the tactical mind of Deshaun Watson without the barbed wire Newton went through from the moment he entered the NFL?
It’s unclear what we can expect from Cam as he approaches the second act of his career, which, interestingly enough, will take place with the New England Patriots. The injuries have taken their toll. There were times this offseason when I wondered if I would be on an NFL roster this season. Cam has been clear about his priorities at this stage in his life and career: he wants to play soccer, be a good father and son, and remain a devoted server of his faith. He wants to be a culture pioneer in a profession and in a position that he has rarely asked for.
One of Cam’s former coaches told me that “Cam is like one of those bouncy balls you get from a machine room outside a grocery store.” When it falls, it recovers higher than the fall would suggest. All of this can be seen in what Cam has given us throughout his career. Turn the mundane into motivation: the gospel hymns that echo in your Hezekiah Walker basement; he transmits his infernal training on the internet; her fiery demeanor, style and fashion that serves as a high definition wiggle for anyone who dares to challenge the way they run their business. In many ways, it serves as an endless delight. Soccer is better with Cam Newton in it.
“I’ve had so many people that I didn’t know I knew Cam. They were like, ‘Oh, he’s so fake. The smile is false. They think he is so arrogant. He’s doing this and doing that, ”Shaun Rutherford, a Cam teammate at Blinn Junior College, told me. “Just to meet him, the guy breaks his ass for everything he’s had.”
While at the church service in Newnan, Cecil called Cam to the altar to speak to the congregation. Cam walked to the altar in a tweed coat and matching vest as her children and mother, Jackie, watched from the front row.
“This whole year has been in my heart,” Cam told the congregation. “I want God to use me. That was my prayer for myself, “he explained. He seemed at peace and, at that moment, he was clearer than I think I have seen him. He ended his sermon with a proverb, a note for his life, and a message for those in front of him. He explained his dedication to his trade, his refusal to be humble and his tireless addiction to betting on himself.
“Faith,” says Cam, “without work, is dead.”
