to be or not to be
(cam newton)


cameron newton.

cam newton.

scam newton.

cash newton.

i stand with cam.

if you are a fan of college football, the story is inescapable. annoyingly so. fascinatingly so. hilariously so. the emotion attached to your level of interest solely rests on if you are an auburn fanatic, an auburn fan, an alabama fan, an alabama fanatic, a college football fan with another rooting interest or a casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter. let's break the groups down.

auburn fanatic - cam newton is your child. just like any of your children, you absolutely will not allow yourself to believe or see that your quarterback is guilty of anything. ever. neither are his parents. or anyone that may have represented him. none of the scandal would have happened if not for a massive conspiracy perpetuated by a scorned school(s) and ambulance chasing media and people that wanted auburn to fail because everybody hates auburn except auburn fanatics. if you have judged cam newton guilty of anything other than being awesome, you have jumped to conclusions, you have not reserved judgement and you should be shot. you are not worth the human blood that streams through your veins. people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, GODDAMMIT, nevermind the fact that cam newton is charged with no criminal wrongdoing. to the auburn fanatic, this scandal proves to you what you've known all along. everybody is wrong. and you are right. about everything. to this group, cam newton is jesus christ. if i were cam newton, i would avoid this group at all costs.

auburn fan - this group has been the most compelling to follow over the last three weeks. the story broke. unbelief was shouted from the mountaintops and in chorus with the athletic director and head football coach at auburn university. the story was "garbage", "unfortunate" and "sad", up until the point there proved to be legs to the story. all of a sudden, it made less sense to argue that the new york times and espn and foxsports and every other media outlet that ran with this story were the journalistic equivalent of the national enquirer. (a good example of this shortsightedness happened last weekend before the auburn/georgia game. a story started to make waves that cecil newton had admitted soliciting mississippi st. for cash, but his son, family nor auburn ever knew of it. lesser outlets with lower standards, like tidesports.com ran the story. interestingly enough, espn and fox and the new york times did not. why? because the story only could credit one source. so think about that for a second. to break these kinds of stories, the larger outlets and their editors are rarely, if ever, going to throw caution and their reputations to the wind just to break a story about auburn university. not based on one source. they just aren't. and they didn't. so, now, what does that say about everything else they've reported thus far? i digress.) all of a sudden, the athletic director and the coach were told by someone to shut the fuck up and, for the last week or so, they have. auburn fan sees this as foreshadowing. they are processing the information, hoping that nothing is acted on before auburn can play their last three games, and they'll deal with any future consequences in the future, ever being able to play the "well, no one could stop us on the field. so, there!" card. their alma mater or rooting interest of choice may be punished, but this season will live with them forever, whether it is erased from technical history or not. cam newton should probably fear these people, too, because if, IF he turns out to be just as much a part of this story as his father, auburn fan will defend their school/rooting interest and they will turn on him faster than he threw that laptop out of his gainesville dorm room. burn.

alabama fan (the group i claim) - this group loves their school/rooting interest of choice passionately, just like any fan of any school/rooting interest does. they also know that a strong sec makes their team look even better, so they cheer for the other schools, even auburn. earlier in the season, when cam newton was an unknown quantity, alabama fan was every bit as mesmerized as the rest of the college football country. who was this guy? the more cam newton led auburn back from deficits to victory, the scarier the prospect of his ruining alabama's season became. then lsu ruined alabama's season. then the story became the scandal that wouldn't stop growing. then it became much more interesting to follow the scandal than it was to spend time worrying about alabama games that held no more national or conference significance. this group has been through this before. they know that the murkier the waters get, the clearer the picture becomes. this group knows what is going to end up happening, and they are starting to feel bad that the auburn equivalent of alabama's dream season of 2009/10 will be tainted forever. cam newton should only care enough about this group to want to further drive a nail into the coffin this season has become for alabama fan. one year removed from the bcs national championship, debate concerning cotton bowl vs. capital one bowl sounds as exciting as that one time i tried to watch dancing with the stars.

alabama fanatic - this group stirs birmingham talk radio's drink. they are every bit the conspiracy theorists that auburn fanatics are, only more practiced. to this group, the ncaa is always looking for a reason to come down on alabama. this group fears that the fbi's investigation into cam newton will only serve to uncover that one time that one booster paid julio's mom to take that one vacation to cabo. to this group, cam newton (or his father or an agent or a runner for an agent or it-doesn't-matter-else. it all breaks the same rule.) is not only guilty of soliciting money, but he used what money he eventually got from auburn to pay for prostitutes and throw them out of his dorm window, too. burn. auburn boosters totally paid for cam newton. they paid for cecil newton's church to be renovated. they've been paying players for years. and after they come off probation for the cam newton thing, they'll pay players again. alabama fanatics give human beings a bad name, but they do make auburn fanatics want to kill themselves. i know two wrongs do not make a right, but if we could let these two groups battle it out at legion field with spears, the world would be a better place. cam newton should pay minimal attention to this group unless a member of this group embedded themself into the auburn fanatic group and actually paid cam newton. to that person, he should probably say thanks.

a college football fan of another school - to a person, EVERY SINGLE football fan of another school is loving this. why? because every school is guilty of some ncaa violation. they just haven't been caught yet. for football fans of other schools, 2010 will go down as that year you didn't have to worry about anything other than football. boise fan can be obnoxious. tcu fan can be self-righteous. oregon fan can celebrate the idea of a national championship. and lsu fan can be satisfied that a team with the worst quarterback situation in the history of top ten college football teams will finish the season 12-1 and ranked in the top five. a quick aside...my favorite recruiting story is the one about eric dickerson from way back in 1979. he was a senior in high school and started driving a brand new trans-am that he told people his grandmother bought for him. later, it came out the trans-am was purchased by texas a&m.  eric dickerson ended up going to play football for smu. just brilliant. cecil or cam or albert means or reggie bush or name-that-athlete-that's-been-caught-scamming isn't the first to try and outfox the broken system that is the ncaa and they won't be the last. every single college football fan of another school should know this and be thankful the hammer is pointed elsewhere this year. cam newton should love this group, because they unconditionally love him.

casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter - cam newton should be terrified of this group, because they all want him to die. instead of talking about sports, espn has flooded their lives with this story of yet another entitled college athlete that broke some rule (or someone broke it on his behalf) and now they have to sit through two segments of joe fucking schad before the monday night crew starts to break down the chargers/broncos game. this group doesn't even like college football. they have no idea where auburn is and they have no idea what any of this has to do with them. if cam newton comes to their professional city, though, they will love him and throw their underwear at him because they've heard on espn that he is "just that good". casual sports fans are the best. especially of pro sports teams. they care nothing about the process that led this person to be on that team. they just care about winning. of course, they are part of the problem, too.

i've gone on record with no one and everyone in particular to say that i believe cam newton will eventually be ruled ineligible. i said that way before EXTREME DENIAL gave way to reasonable analysis. i said that because i live in the world of sports. and in the world of sports, this kind of time and attention is not paid to something that will lead to the cam newton allegations being proven entirely false. it just doesn't happen. you can hold that opinion against me i suppose or believe with your whole heart that the cam newton thing will be the exception to the rule. you may like to read or listen to npr or knit or stay up too fucking late so you can complain about being tired the next day or play videogames or spend too much time at church or whatever your vice is. mine is sports. it doesn't make me an expert. it just means that i am right this time. i'll probably be wrong the next time.

as far as cam newton goes, though, none of this matters. he is a gun for hire. he will leave auburn after one year like he left florida like he left blinn community college because auburn is a means to a professional end in professional football. he said as much back in gainesville. although illegal information has been leaked that suggests otherwise, his story is that he left florida because he didn't want to sit behind tebow. he wanted to play football. he served his "time" in community college last year so that he would be ready to take his talents to a school that wanted a physical freak of an athlete to play quarterback for their school for one year, two if he got hurt or accidentally chose a school that sucked at playing football and didn't do anything for his draft stock.

another tangent. that's the part of this "i stand with cam" thing that i will never understand. i get that auburn fan and especially auburn fanatic loves their school. i get that newton is primarily responsible for the success of this season and, because of that, you feel some indebtedness to his causes or concerns, but you don't. you were going to cheer for auburn every bit as madly and every bit as passionately if barrett trotter was leading your team of choice to a 8-4 season. success breeds contempt, though. contempt for common sense, common sense that has been traded for blind loyalty to a young man that has reportedly said both before his freshman year and before this year that he wanted to play football somewhere other than auburn. he loves auburn now, sure. he may come back and visit on the school's dime in the future to be celebrated and wave his hand to the crowd and laugh with bo jackson. he loves auburn now, because he ended up there. period. excellent. end tangent.

as far as cam newton goes, this story makes him instantly and infinitely more marketable. once he is drafted next spring, the theme of redemption and struggle will follow him for two to three years or until he has proven himself as a capable starting quarterback in the nfl, whichever happens first. his commercials, if he's lucky, will stress those themes and make him and his family even more money.

cam newton will be alright. currently, he is protected from the lion's share of this mess anyway. his school and his coaches encourage him and feed him enough of it like chum in the water to motivate his performance. his school and his coaches, his fans and fanatics will cheer wildly for him friday and then a week from saturday and then in some bowl game and then he'll move on to where he was going all along. to be a professional football player.

when i was a little younger, not a day passed that i didn't think about how i wished i was a professional athlete. when i was a little younger, like yesterday, i daydreamed about it. could you imagine, a year from now, being in cam newton's shoes? a millionaire professional quarterback in training. how great would that be? this season's scandal and the head end of his redemption story fully focused in the rearview mirror. he and his dad, sitting across from each other reminiscing about those tough times. "they tried to take you down, son. but they couldn't do it. not my boy." cam smiles back at him. "thanks, dad."

"when i was a little younger" wasn't that long ago.

to be or not to be cam newton.

i choose "to be".