Hattie Lou, 74 years young, got up on a chair, pointed to the sky in thanks, and then started to pump her hands up and down. She was raising the roof.
Her grandson, Cam Newton, had just been selected as the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft by the Carolina Panthers.
She’s Hattie Lou to Cam, grandma to the rest of her family, and she was one of dozens of family members, friends, former coaches and civic officials who filled up Michon’s restaurant in Newton’s hometown of College Park on Thursday night to watch their favorite son fulfill a dream, one that only one other person from metro Atlanta, Duluth’s George Rogers in 1981, has reached.
However, of all the people there, Hattie Lou was the only one to go old school, much to the surprise of many. Hands reached out to steady her, but she refused to come down for a few minutes, basking in the moment and perhaps remembering the little boy who used to run through her yard and tear up her flowers.
“It just means happiness,” she said, summarizing the emotions of everyone in the room, many of whom held up cellphones to take pictures of the big-screen television that featured Newton’s chiseled face and LED-bright smile as he stood at the podium and put on the silver, white and blue hat of the Panthers.
Then Hattie Lou, wearing a beautiful blue blouse, got off her perch, but she didn’t stop dancing as Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” rang out through the restaurant. The song fit the mood and the moment.
Though many suspected he would play college football, and play well, not even his head coach or quarterback coach at Westlake High thought he would one day be the most coveted college football player.
“I knew he had potential,” said Resty Beadles, who coached Newton from the time he was in seventh grade until he left for the Florida Gators. “I always talked to him about humility before honor. He’s such a charismatic guy. I wanted him to realize the seriousness of his future.”
Newton learned some of those lessons the hard way. He was arrested while at Florida after allegedly throwing a stolen laptop out of a window. The charges were dropped. But he left school after his sophomore season.
That summer, after he left Gainesville for Blinn College in Texas, he and cousin Diano Anderson were driving home from Holy Zion Center of Deliverance, a church were Cam’s father, Cecil, preaches.
Anderson said Newton turned to him and said if he didn’t make it to the NFL, he would feel like he failed himself.
He led the Buccaneers to a national championship, and then transferred to Auburn, where rumors of a pay-for-play plan involving his father dogged him. He kept his focus and led the Tigers to a national championship while taking home the Heisman Trophy.
Perhaps the second-best part of Thursday’s news was that most of his family can now make the four-hour drive to see him play. Plus, the Panthers will play the Falcons in the Georgia Dome on Oct. 16.
“The bar is raised exponentially,” Cecil said. “He has to be accountable. I told him if you put your best effort forward and live life with integrity everything will work out.”
