Posted on 12/02/2010 7:14:47 AM PST by Bulldawg Fan
Here’s hoping the slap on Cecil Newton’s wrist really stung. Then maybe he will remember it next time he tries to sell a son to the highest bidder in college football.
Most likely it didn’t. Because the only punishment Cam Newton’s father got for peddling his son like a piece of meat was a public scolding and perhaps the loss of some choice seats in Saturday’s SEC championship game.
Cam Newton made out even better. Thanks to the crackerjack sleuths at the NCAA, he will be behind center for Auburn in this weekend’s game. The masterminds behind the BCS cartel have to like that. With Newton playing, there’s one less chance that an interloper such as TCU can play its way into a title game.
And later this month Newton will be in New York City, where the guardians of the Heisman Trophy can give him his award with less fear that one day they will have to ask for it back.
It was all nicely tied up and packaged with a big bow Wednesday for Auburn, a day after the university had oh-so-quietly declared Newton ineligible and then asked for his reinstatement. The NCAA obliged, saying that while it discovered a pay-for-play scheme it did “not have sufficient evidence that Cam Newton or anyone from Auburn was aware of this activity.”
The timing was peculiar enough, coming days before Auburn’s biggest game of the year. Even more peculiar is while the NCAA cleared Cam Newton of wrongdoing, it did not declare the case closed.
That could prove awfully embarrassing should further evidence emerge down the road about Cecil Newton’s alleged scheme last year to get up to $180,000 for his son to play at Mississippi State. Cam Newton signed with Auburn a month after visiting Mississippi State, and it would be hard to find a fan in Starkville who does not believe Auburn simply upped the offer for the star quarterback.
But until a video of a booster handing Cecil Newton a suitcase filled with $100 bills surfaces, Auburn gets the benefit of the doubt, even if officials at the university have never directly addressed the payment issue.
Cam Newton has to be believed, too, even if it’s hard to fathom he never knew his father was shopping him around. He’s certainly played like a quarterback with a clean conscience, leading Auburn to 12 consecutive wins even as the allegations swirled around him.
Still, you have to wonder why this was all wrapped up behind closed doors and kept quiet before being released Wednesday as an early Christmas gift to Auburn fans everywhere. It didn’t take long for SEC Commissioner Mike Slive to puff out his chest and declare the actions of Auburn and Mississippi State “make it clear this behavior will not be tolerated in the SEC.”
Perhaps. But Reggie Bush giving up his Heisman for what happened while he was at Southern Cal should be warning enough that the cesspool of agents, would-be agents, hangers-on and slimy coaches who permeate big time college football will always be on the prowl for the stars who can make their careers or make them money.
For now, though, the Cam Newton story shifts to a different stage. With the allegations behind him, he becomes the feel-good story of the year, a player who transferred from Florida only to come out of junior college to lead his team to the brink of a national title.
He will almost surely win the Heisman Trophy now that voters will not have to debate his innocence or guilt while casting their ballots.
Unlike Bush, chances are increasingly good he will not have to give it back.
He gave up his Heisman, USC had to finally hang its head in shame after trying to obfuscate and ignore the truth, and it only took the NCAA four years after anyone with a brain knew USC was tainted.
Deja Vu all over again.
Bingo.
Watching the replay of the Iron Bowl, it is apparent that Auburn players are taught how to play dirty, such as the leg whip used to sideline Alabama’s star wide-receiver, which was ignored by the refs and excused by the tv ‘announcers’. When Shug was coach there, a certain honor was lent to the game Auburn played down on the Plains. Not so today.
Lets all wait for the first Sportscaster to ask Cam how he feels about his lowlife father trying to sell him behind his back and risk his career, and was his father ever planning to share the prize with the son. What is your relationship with your father after these revelations? If he accepting of what his father did, then he is part of it.
From now on, any prize athlete can simply put the decisions in the hands of a handler that will be able to broker the best deal possible. The athlete has a golden get out jail free card.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=5872192&sportCat=ncf
“NCAA spins fairy-tale fodder” - another article on this decision
The NCAA just declared that there are no rules. They somehow found a way to annihilate every last shred of credibility they had remaining after the last several scandals.
When all of this Cam Newton scandal broke, an important and very relevant NCAA rule popped up: Rule 13.2.2 which says that the moment an athlete’s family, or anybody else connected to the athlete asks for money, with the athlete’s knowledge or nor, the athlete is ineligible. It’s very simple. Cam Newton, by the NCAA’s own rules, was ineligible the moment Cecil Newton stuck out his hand in that Starkville hotel room. The rule was written to stop Schools and Boosters from paying families or relations of athletes indirectly. It has stood for a long time.
Now, the NCAA says it doesn’t matter. Cam didn’t know, so he’s absolved.
I imagine that every kid who is asked such a question “doesn’t know.” Especially so, from now on. Because every unscrupulous parent/agent out there will be asking now that there is precedent.
Every school, athlete and parent who has played by the rules is now a loser. “Sucker! Rules are for Fools!” Auburn, and all of the other crooked institutions to whom winning is everything and the lives and careers of the kids that play for them is a far distant 9th or so, comes out a winner.
Here’s the lesson: Cheating and lying are the way to win. Just look at Auburn and Cam!
ping
Nice.
If your team didn’t just suck this year, I have to think you wouldn’t even bother to waste the keystrokes making this sort of post happen.
But the Bulldogs got whipped by Auburn this year. It’s just college football. Let it go.
By the way, what did you post after the Florida game?
Show some class.
While there was never any allegation of wrongdoing on Auburn's part I do understand Mark Richt is going to add a bail bondsman to the UGA staff next year to facilitate getting his players to the games on time.
I saw this on the ESPN ticker last night. My first (and continuing) thought was “how conveeeeeeenient” for this, timing-wise.
If NCAA rules are to mean anything, saying “I didn’t know my dad was pimping me out to the highest bidder” wouldn’t be a valid defense. Otherwise, as noted above, everyone gets around the rules by going through family members instead of getting their own hands dirty.
Happy for Auburn. Of course their win over Georgia this year was the first win ANY of them ever had.
I’m an Alabama fan...so I’m certainly not trying to go too easy on the QB from Auburn...but I’d like to know more about his reltionship with his father.
Did dad live with Cam? Was he really a part of his life, or just somebody who was trying to cash in at the last minute?
I can see the rule as being unfair to Cam, if slimey dad is giving the same 180k offer to every SEC school...and cashes in no matter which one Cam goes to.
We’ll never know the whole truth...or how much Cam knew...but I could rationalize that its unfair to punish him for dad’s actions.
I have a solution, though. If your program is caught paying for players, the head coach is banned from NCAA football immediately. No coaching, no time in the broadcast booth - nothing. The NFL could join in with the same ban. I bet we’d have alot less coaches looking the other way.
While flipping through channels last night I caught a minute of Dick Vitale on ESPN. He was talking about a kid from Kentucky who might be declared ineligible because his father prevented him from going pro in Turkey. Anyone know the status of that? Isn’t that potentially a double standard?
Here’s what’s missing, and, IMHO, very curiously so, in this whole story. Obvious, Cam’s father tried to sell his son. When the story first broke, some months ago, references were made to the condition of the father’s church..which was apparently in deep financial doo-doo, and was about to be shut by the local authorities because of safety concerns, and multiple code violations. Apparaently, the church has “miraculously” been repaired, all the violations removed, and the congregation is in good financial shape. This took a considerable amount of cash. It had to come from somewheres. I understand that there are issues of freedom of religion and separation of church and state, but there has to be some way to dig up the source of the money. And, here’s the real kicker...let’s assume, hypothetically, that someone game the father the cash in consideration for Cam going to a certain school. Does anyone think that those individuals would be stupid enough to take a tax deduction ( to the church) for what was essentially a bribe? We shall see..
On the bright side, even if the NFL does end up having a lock out, we can always watch Professional Football at Auburn.
Cam Newton’s older brother is a center for the Jacksonville Jaguars and has taken responsibility for the church upgrades.
Ah, thanks..has he provided cancelled checks?
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