Heisman Hopeless

OK, it's now official. QB Cam Newton of the Auburn Tigers has won the Heisman Trophy in a landslide victory, defeating runner-up Andrew Luck of Stanford by over 1,000 points. Whoop dee do...congratulations, Cam. I hope the Heisman voters are happy, and that they're proud of themselves for having elected a cheater, a criminal, and a liar for the nation's greatest honor in college football. Way to go, boys.

Let's face some facts about Mr. Newton, shall we? First, the guy is a beast who had a phenomenal season at Auburn, playing in what is traditionally considered to be the toughest conference in all of college football. At 6'6" and 250 pounds, Newton was a man among boys, becoming the first player in SEC history to pass for 2,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in the same season. His final stat lines were ridiculous. 242 carries for 1,409 yards and 20 rushing touchdowns. 2,589 yards passing and 28 touchdown passes versus only 6 interceptions. He even caught 2 passes for 42 yards and a touchdown, leaving him just one short of 50 total touchdowns for the entire 2010 season.

Second, the man some have referred to as "Scam" Newton has been implicated in an academic cheating scandal at the University of Florida. According to an anonymous source there, Mr. Newton had three different instances where he was caught cheating and thus faced expulsion from the university. He put his name on another student's research paper, but got caught after the professor asked the paper's real author why he hadn't turned in his work. When he was forced by the professor to hand in another paper, he went out and purchased one off the internet. Now there's an honorable guy for you. That's just the type of guy I'd want representing college football as the Heisman Trophy winner. Of course, even though he may not have been smart enough to write his own research paper, he did have enough sense to transfer out of Florida when it became evident that his hearing before the Student Conduct Committee was not going to turn out well for him.

Oh, and did I mention that he stole another student's laptop computer while he was enrolled at the University of Florida? Gee, that must have slipped my mind. Well anyway, in 2008 Cam Newton was arrested for possession of stolen property. The crimes that he was charged with were felony counts of burglary, larceny, and obstruction of justice. The allegations were that Newton stole a laptop from another student (worth $1,700) and threw it out of his dorm window. There were accusations that he tried to hide the stolen laptop after he had been caught, which led to the further charge of Newton trying to obstruct justice by impeding the original investigation. Newton was then suspended from the team. Nice going. Again, there's a model citizen for you.

Finally, during the 2010 football season, word leaked out that a man supposedly representing Newton had asked for $180,000 from Mississippi State University to secure his commitment to the Bulldogs last year. No money changed hands, and Newton eventually took a recruiting trip to Auburn and signed with the Tigers on New Year's Eve. After Newton committed to Auburn, Mississippi State turned over its information on this pay-for-play scheme to the Southeastern Conference in January 2010. But the SEC did not notify Auburn of these allegations until July, two months after Newton had been named Auburn's starting quarterback.

The first stories of these events started breaking in November of 2010, forcing the NCAA to conduct an investigation. On November 29th, the NCAA officially concluded that a "violation of amateurism rules" occurred during Newton's recruitment by Mississippi State. The following day, given the outcome of the investigation, Auburn felt compelled to suspend Newton from the team indefinitely. But on the very next day, December 1st, the NCAA ruled Newton eligible to play. They concluded that Newton's father was the guilty party in the pay-for-play scheme, and that his son had no knowledge of it whatsoever.

OK, so now you have the facts surrounding college football's latest addition to the exclusive club of Heisman Trophy winners. Allow me to say that I would really like to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. Really I would. But come on...this is a guy who cheated three different times while he was at Florida. Even when he got caught, he only went out and cheated again. He stole from a fellow student and got arrested for it. He did his best to hide the stolen property, thus obstructing justice in the process. I'm sorry to say it, people, but Cam Newton is not exactly a model citizen. Far from it, in fact.

This makes it very hard for me to believe that he was completely innocent in the pay-for-play scandal. Are you telling me that if MSU came up with the $180,000, that the elder Newton was going to keep that from his son? That he was going to sit back and let Cam go somewhere else if he felt inclined to do so? Please. I suppose you could make the argument that he only would have told his son if the money had been offered, but I still think that Cam was in on it from the start. No, I can't prove it. No, I don't know for sure. That's just my opinion based on what I do know about the character of one Cameron Newton.

Look, here's the bottom line. We had three other viable candidates for the Heisman who were never caught up in an academic cheating scandal, never got arrested for burglary, larceny, or obstruction of justice, and did not get implicated in a pay-for-play scheme. All three had great seasons on the football field. All three seemed to have the integrity we would expect of someone eligible to receive this award. All three would have been good choices based on the stats they put up and the success of their respective teams.

But instead, the Heisman voters went with the guy who has the shadiest past. He may have had the best numbers, but he certainly doesn't have the best character out of this group. You'd think the voters would have learned from the Reggie Bush fiasco, but it looks as if they're willing to make the same mistake again. What a shame it would be if Newton's Heisman had to be retracted one year, two years, or three years down the line after further investigation. It will tarnish the award even further, and will have deprived one of the other fine young men of an opportunity to represent the trophy, and all of college football, the way it deserves to be represented. I truly hope that doesn't happen, but if it does, then the Heisman voters have no one to blame but themselves.