He answered the black quarterback question. He answered the, “Why does everybody hate you” question. He answered the question about dragging himself to an obscure community college four states away after the excommunication from Florida, and the unhappy soccer moms, and the touchdown celebrations, and any other subject that came up to this point of Super Bowl week.
There are two ways an athlete with celebrity status can go when they’re dodging fireballs. One is to be reduced to a pile of ashes. The other is what Cam Newton is doing.
Smile. Respond. Win. We are watching somebody special here.
If the Carolina Panthers lose Sunday’s Super Bowl against Denver, it won’t be because Newton was crushed from the attention given every narrative about his existence. Like it or not, he is the NFL’s best player today. Like it or not, he handles adversity as well or better than any athlete in history.
He proved that at Auburn amid an NCAA investigation and the worst fan and media hate imaginable — SEC hate. He has done it with the Panthers, leading them to a 17-1 record this season.
When I asked Newton on Tuesday about his ability to perform amid the scrutiny, he didn’t hesitate before delivering a long-winded answer.
“I’ve said numerous times that I pray to have a stage that people will listen to, and I pray to God that I do right by my influence,” Newton said Tuesday. “So when you ask me a question about being African-American, or being black and mobile, it’s bigger than that. When I talk to kids and parents, and they look at my story and they see a person, African-American or not, they see someone they can relate to. They see a guy who went a different route than just going to a major Division I school and flourishing there.
“Yeah, I made mistakes. If you guys had a resume of mistakes you made since you were 13 to the average age right here now, is what .. 46? Just teasing. But I just wanted to become relatable. It’s bigger than race. It’s opening the door for guys that don’t want to be labeled, that have bigger views than say, ‘Well, I’m in this situation. I’m limited in this environment right now, but I also want to be an artist, I want to be a poet, but I don’t have the means to necessarily do the right things now.”
Is this all genuine? We judge people by their actions. But we’ve heard and read all of the stories about the footballs he hands to children after each touchdown, and the autographs he signs and the kids he mentors, including another young African-American quarterback that came out of Georgia, Deshaun Watson, who nearly led Clemson to the national title this season.
Newton doesn’t need to look for the spotlight. He is the spotlight. He walked off Carolina’s team flight wearing $900 black-and-gold Versace pants. He playfully ran toward a bank of cameras waving his arms like a child. He conquered Media Day on Monday night, responding to every lame question while wearing a towel around his head.
Some have pressed him to elaborate on his comments from last week, “I’m an African-American quarterback. That may scare a lot of people because they haven’t seen nothing that they can compare me to.”
But he has declined. “I don’t even want to touch on the topic of black quarterback because I think this game is bigger than black, white or even green,” he said Tuesday.
About his antics irritating some people: “I’m not hurtin’ feelings. I’m not breaking bones. I’m just doing something that I love to do. I’m happy.”
That’s undeniable.
Denver’s DeMarcus Ware said of Newton, “It’s just Cam being Cam. You either accept it or you don’t. He doesn’t upset me. I think it’s cool that he’s being what he’s always been. Why shouldn’t he be?”
Newton was wounded when he left Florida after the laptop incident for Blinn College in Texas.
“I was mentally hurt,” he said.
In his one year there in 2009, he led Blinn to a national championship. Then he went to Auburn. In one year there in 2010, he led the Tigers to the BCS championship.
Then he went first to Carolina in the NFL draft. Some questioned the wisdom of the team’s pick. But in Season 5, the Panthers are one win from a championship.
Denver quarterback Peyton Manning, who is expected to retire after Sunday’s game, called Newton “the face of the league for the next eight to 10 years.”
Newton smiled when told that.
“Anything that the sheriff has to say, you can probably ink it in gold,” he said.
He doesn’t run from expectations either.
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