The Ringer NFL Show - 3. Blinn | The Cam Chronicles

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

On the dusty fields of a small Texas town, Cam revives his career and forges a path back to big-time college football. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're listening to this episode and don't want to wait till next week to hear where the story goes, head over to Spotify. All episodes of the Cam Chronicles are available for you to binge for free right now in the Ringer NFL show feed. I think he was trying to map out how to bounce back from, you know, a mistake. You don't leave the University of Florida to come to blend without having made a pretty decent-sized mistake. Brad Franchone is the head football coach at Blinn College, a tiny junior college in Brenham, Texas. One day, in 2008, he got a call from a pastor named Cecil Newton, who asked Coach Fran, as he known around Blin,

to add his son Cam to the team. Coach Fran had never heard of Cam Newton, so he fired up his computer to find some highlights of his quarterback recruit. The first moment I remember seeing Cam was kind of a wow. like I hadn't seen any quarterbacks like him in our level at junior college. Fran met Cam and Cecil in nearby Houston in January 2009. Cecil did the talking. Cam barely spoke, but Fran was impressed.

I told Cecil Newton in our one face-to-face opportunity to talk that with his son I felt like we could win a national championship. A week later, Cam and Cecil returned to Houston and made the 75-mile drive down I-290 West of Brenham. On the way, Cam Google the names of his future teammates. Instead of finding football players, his search turned up a doctor from Austin, massage therapist from Montana. He thought to himself,

what the hell am I walking into? There's very little in Brenham except Bluebell Ice Cream factories, barbecue and Blinn College. Halfway between Houston and Austin, Brenham is a speck in the heart of Bluebonnet country, home to around 15,000 folk who operate mainly on farmland and football. Cecil and Cam pulled into France driveway for dinner. His house sits right next to Blin's Creeky Stadium,

which is right across the street from Old Main. An administrative building almost looks regal on Blin's simple campus. Just around the corner is a brick building called the classroom building? Yeah, that's where Cam was studied. Cicel understood that his son, already shaken from his experience at Florida, was in for a culture shop. I didn't want the burden of this transition to get the best of him psychologically into where he was really beating himself up.

I said, bro, this is a business trip. This is a 12-month business trip. Buy in. Do your job. Go to class. Pass in your work. Stay out of trouble and keep your hope, faith, and trust in God. Cecil wanted Cam to stay focused. You imagine psychologically what goes through your head?

He was broken. Leaving Florida, he's broken. This is the Cam Chronicles. I'm Tyler R. Times. Before Cecil left Brennan return to Atlanta, he had a message for Fran. I'll trust you with my son. I'm leaving him in your custody. My son needs this to heal and redirect himself.

And y'all should know by now. Caesar doesn't just leave his child with anybody. But he knew if Cam ever wanted to get back to Masey. of college football, they had to take a chance. After Cesar left, Fran turned to Cam. Here was this hugely talented but vulnerable 19-year-old boy who was uncertain of his future, totally alone in Brennan. Fran felt for him.

He wanted to help Cam settle into his strange new life as best he could. So he took Cam over to the dorms himself. We went to the dorm, the dorm resident manager said it's two too late, it's past check-in time, we can't get him in. Cam's dad's on a flight back to Atlanta. Cam doesn't have any money. I can't pay for him to stay in a hotel. He spent the night at my house.

I remember giving him a pillow on the blanket. Being a little bit embarrassed because here he's this huge guy and he's going to sleep on our couch. I'm not even sure our couch is big enough. Cam's dorm wasn't that much bigger than fraying couch. 100 square feet. He didn't have a TV. He didn't have a car. He was giving a team t-shirt, one pair of cleats, and one pair of socks. If he wanted gloves or the armbands he covered it, he had to buy them himself. Same for the shoes. He had to wash his own practice jersey, too.

And he had trouble sleeping. Cam woke up several times almost every night to the pastoral sounds in his new environment. There's cow patties within 100 feet where he was sleeping. Well, there's a certain solitude to being in that situation. Blin was Cam's chance of salvation to redeem his reputation in his football career. The Buccaneers at Blin were a solid team. Jucco champions three years prior to Cam's arrival. Cecil said Cam had offers to go other places, but Blin offers something unique. Anonymity, yeah, humility, of course.

But it also gave Cam the chance to turn a team. into a champion. Still, the isolation wore on Cam. I was just lost. No family members close. And for so long, my first couple of months there, I was fighting depression. I was like, man, I don't know if this football thing is for me. If it was hard for Cam, it was also hard on his teammates. A player Cam's caliber doesn't just arrive at a small program like Blen without massively changing the dynamics of the team. someone had to make way for Cam that someone

with Sean Rutherford I got a call from a guy from Brennan Press asked me what I thought about the transfer that we had coming in when that reporter called me I guess he thought I had already had the information so I hit Coach Fran like man what's up

like you wouldn't give me that give me that inside Sean was Blin's backup quarterback the year before Cam arrived Sean was entering his sophomore year and was ready to be the starter Sean had paid his dues and it was kind of his turn

he was there to be a quarterback and so I told Sean that you know we'd still keep an open competition we'd make sure and find a way for him to add value to our program I wanted to make sure that I didn't lose Sean because I brought Cam to help ease any possible tension

the coaches called a meeting in the student center to introduce Cam and Sean to each other let me be honest for a second y'all I thought Sean would hate Cam I mean who would blame him if he did Sean had bought his time and earned his opportunity. Then, without telling him, this coach just brought in a form of five-star quarterback, a SEC castaway, to take his job. That should piss off anybody, right?

First thing he said to me, we actually shook hands, introduced ourselves, and he asked me if I wanted to get on the ping-pong table. We were both super competitive, so we sat there and we played ping-pong for probably two hours after meeting each other. And then after me and him played each other, we ended up calling out everybody. else on the team who wants to play into playing two on two. So, I mean, you put the two best together. Nobody was beating us. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Hell, Sean and Cam, apparently, they were cut from the same cloth. They were boys, but eventually they'd have to battle it out for the starting job. It started at practice. Blin's coaches wanted to challenge Cam to remind him that he needed them, not the other way around. Cicillet told offensive

coordinator Ronnie Feldman that he wanted Can to be humble. Ronnie readily heeded Cecil's message. Humble and young players was his favorite part of the job. He's always been a really, really good player. He's a tall, nice-looking guy, so things have always gone his way. He's an 18, 19-year-old kid that's testing the system. And the system is not going to let him get away with what he wants to do. It's going to make him do what we want him to do.

Cam's coach had a lot of work ahead of him. It started in a weight room. When it was time to squat, Cam turned to Fran and told him that squat wasn't part of his workout regimen. Fran was incredulous. Never once at the University of Florida that coaches make him squat?

Cam told Fran he wouldn't do it. Well, uh, look y'all, they ain't really gonna cut it down here. Florida and Texas are some different dogs entirely. Fran had to let Cam know that the players at Blinn's football team, They squatted. Deep.

I basically said, hey, look, you're not in Florida anymore. This is Brenham, Texas, awesome. And our player squat. And he fought me, and he fought me. Cam eventually relented, and while he was known to challenge his coaches at times, he followed Franz rules. And it ain't take too long for him to stand out in practice. One day, France put up the players into two teams for a tug-of-war challenge.

He selected captains to pick the teams. Cam naturally was a captain. The other one was the team giant, Andre McGasky. Andre Magaski is a 6'7, 6'8-400-pound offensive tackle who transferred in from Texas. He's a beast. It looks like a predator. And Kats guy has the hair like the predator. Cam's team faced off against Andre's squad.

Cam's team won the first round. Andre's squad took the second. It was a tie. I just tell him, hey, look, we got to have a pull-off. Winner take off. Sean knew the stakes were high for Cam in a moment. Cam was still kind of trying to earn his respect around the team. Nobody really liked to transfer it because they felt like they had it made

and they felt like they were better than everybody. So, Cam challenged Andre. Cam ended up calling the O-Lignment out. It wasn't they just ended up match enough. Cam called him out. I remember Andre grabbing the tire and standing up, And I remember looking over Cam's team, and Cam turned around and looked at his team and turned back around. And I remember thinking, there's no way I can let this kid pull against this offensive tackle.

God, if he gets hurt, I am in so much trouble. This is not a good idea. Cam and Andre take their places and look at each other in the eye. They start pulling. And it looks like Cam is winning. And I'll be named if he doesn't pull that offensive tackle five yards across the street. Are you kidding me? Did he just, like, I remember everybody on the team being like, whoa.

Okay, we knew he was athletic, fun, joke. But he just pulled this guy across the strike. Now you get an idea of what kind of power he's got. After that, ain't nobody questioned Cam's willingness to fight hard for the team. The team of France's dreams was coming together under the blaze of the Texan heat. Football was in the air in Brenner. But the coaches still hadn't decided who was going to be the quarterback. Cam or Sean?

We pushed each other. We stayed after practice every day. Man, either the sun goes down and somebody cramping up, we couldn't do it no more. During spring practices, there were moments when Sean took the QB1 reps. Cam had to play backup, meaning sometimes Cam would be the holder for field goal attempts. He yelled across the field of friend. I ain't come to Brenham to hold no damn field goals. came to play quarterback.

It came down to a QB battle held in practice. Sean held his own, but Cam torched the field. When the competition was over, the coach is posted the results. Walked in, check the depth chart. I think he graded out like in 97, 98 that day. I think I was like 85, 87, but he had a hell of a day that day. Now with Cam as the starter, the team got to prepare him for the season. They just had to do it with some constraints.

Junior college is a different breed. When it rained, the buccaneers had to find a dry place to practice. The school's gym was occupied, so they packed up their cars, drove to a farm, and took shelter in the next available dwelling. We literally practiced in the barn with the cows, horse shit on the ground, pigs running around. Like I'm saying, like some ultimate Jucoop stuff. Imagine dozens of college kids in a lot. barn filled with livestock. Now imagine them lined up to do a drill called the pirate roll, which is when you roll on the ground to one length of the field,

sorry, barn, and crawling all fours like an animal back the other way. Fitting, right? We had teammates having to literally do their pirate roll next to cow shit, the pigs, and all that. This is junior college football. University of Florida and the glam of SEC was far away in the rear view mirror. The facilities, To put it bluntly, were a dumpster fire. The locker rooms were home to wasp nests in the corners of the ceilings. Players couldn't take showers because crickets blanketed the floors. But even if there wasn't that much money,

Fran wanted to keep their stadium, which was basically falling apart, up and running for as long as possible. And he thought, hey, why not build some characters in my players at the same time by making them sweat? Fran also made us paint the stadium. And it wasn't like no big roller brush. It was like the little two, three-inch brush, and it was 108 degrees outside. The players will alternate painting shifts between weightlifting sessions.

The offense would have a turn, then the defense. Players like Cam and Sean were skeptical of Franz reasoning. He just wanted us to do it. He was nuts like that. Most players didn't come to Juko for fun or by choice. It's a waste station. A stepping stone to a better place, a bigger program.

To get out of blend, they had to work. A brutal backbreaking hustle. It has to be tough love of the journey cars. Because again, you have so many egos, you have guys who really don't want to be there. You might have a few guys that were in jail

before. Some dudes, 100 up to 500 miles away from home, like you have to have some type of father figure around to keep you in line. Cam knows the thinking, too, about overbearing father figures. He also can't help himself when an opportunity for some good nature mischief presents itself.

Now, Fran wrote a golf cart to get around campus. One day, Cam and Sean saw the golf cart outside of Fran's office, but the key is still in the ignition. He look at me. I look at him. Like, yeah, let's do it. Hoping Fran's golf cart. Take off.

We're all around campus. That thing we know, see the cop car roll up behind us. Like, damn. So Fran knew it was pretty much us. He was pissed about that. The cam are old, the one who delighted in pranks and silly jokes, he was still there. That's just him. 24-7 he's a child.

He's just a big child. He's just a big kid. Like the dude loves life. He lives and no regrets. Cam would always make up for his shenanigans with humor. Like the time he freestyle rapper for a game on a local news channel KBTX, cussing and everything. Yeah, on top of the boys, talk to an ad chat, ya, here we go, I need a chill, after this game, I'm gonna throw a bill,

I'm gone on, on top of the dome, on my car, I got it, crone. Cam was fun, a prankster and a jokester. His teammates loved that. Cam was competitive. They could get behind that, too. But Cam came to blend to mature. Remember, Cecil and trusted Fran to transform Cam Newton. Some of the things I'd said to Cecil in recruiting was every day,

I'd spend some time with Cam teaching him how to be a leader. He has some innate qualities, you know, he's born with it, right? He's the biggest guy in the room. Sometimes what you could argue is the most athletic. But mentally, he was still relatively young and his maturity as a leader. Every morning after class, Cam went to Fran's office for leadership meetings. That was pretty grueling for me because I had to have some kind of leadership lesson ready for him every day. And if I didn't, he told me.

I wanted not very good today, Coach. It's got to be better than this. They go out for practice on the field. And Cam would ask, why are we doing this, coach? And Brad would grumble some authoritarian answer. I remember thinking to myself, it's kind of a bullshit answer you're giving this kid. And it got to the point where as I started figuring out what we were going to do on a weekly basis, whether it was practice or off-season.

At the bottom of my schedule, I would write my answer for Cam because I knew he was going to ask me, why are we doing this coach? And if I gave him a good answer, no questions. Good to go, ready to go. If I gave him a bad answer, I could tell he was puzzled. So then now it's like, I can't bullshit my players and expect him to go out there and play hard. Cam made Fran work harder than he ever had before.

Fran would bring additional books home and leave him on his nightstand to study. It's what Cam demanded. Cam was working his ass off too. He watched film extensively. After every throw in practice, he asked his receivers how catchable the ball was. If he wasn't satisfied, Cam made him stay after practice and worked until they got it to his liking. Coach Ronnie remembers how Cam would direct the entire practice on offense and defense.

He would challenge the other group on the other side in practice. Hey, I'm throwing the ball to the receiver. You're covering it. I'm going to beat him. I promise you we're going to throw five touchdowns. We're going to get you, and I'm going to throw it right over you. This play. Ain't nothing you do about it.

We're going to get after your butt. What would you do as a defensive back? I'm going to play hard. I'm going to get after that guy. Rodney realized it was a sign of Cairns potential. He's got it. Because there's a lot of people that got it. But a lot of people don't know how to transfer to other people.

That's the key he could do. He could talk to me and you and get you convinced we can get this done. In the fall of 2009, Blaine kicked off the season against Butler Community College, number one ranked Juko team in the nation. Cecil traveled to Brennan for it. His first time back on campus is the day he dropped Cam off. Cam didn't play well in front of Cecil that first game. The Buccaneers were off to a rough start.

We were losing 17 to 7. And I was in shock. I thought we were a lot better than that. team and Cam had played really poorly. I remember talking to the team in the half time and I remember looking over at Cam and say, man, are you having fun? Because he didn't look like he's having fun. And I said, look, man, if you're going to play this game, you got to have fun with it. So I'm always going to work out the way you want it to. Just go out there and have fun. Cam gets back out on the field and looks like he's finally enjoying himself. He plays an unbelievable

second half. That was kind of one of those moments where I knew his demeanor at practice, everything we did as a team. I needed him all in. Blin beat Butler 2417. After that, the massacres began. Without so at the games, Cam turned it all the way on. The competition was no match for Blin with Cam under center. And Cam had a way of getting under his opponent's skin. He would showboat something crazy. He would aim an imaginary bazook at his teammates in the end zone. He ran behind referees and pulled penalty flags from their back pockets. He lined up his guys and used a fake bowling ball to moan down like pins. He doled like Superman across the goal line.

Against Tyler Juko, Cam wasn't giving any footballs to warm up with. So he walked over to the sideline and let them know how he felt about it. He told the other team, coaches and everybody, that he was there to kick their butt, and the women of Tyler would be rolling with him. after he did. Fran, Southern gentleman that he is, is paraphrasing.

What he said to the coaches was more colorful. Blin won the game 60 to 31. It was emblematic of how a lot of Cam's Jucco season went. Flamboyance mixed with fire.

Pugnacity fused with power. He wanted you to know that you couldn't beat him. There was only one time during the season things didn't go his way. In the game against Navarro, Cam busted his ankle.

Sean, who'd been the backup quarterback and also a starting receiver, had to take over the game instead. Blin lost by three points. And Cam, well, Cam wasn't really the same after that. Man, Cam, he was our spark plug. Cam talked the most shit out of anybody that I know.

He was a loud mouth. He never shut up. But that week after we lost to Navarro, like we would go to the weight room to lift weights. He was sitting on the curb and he just wasn't talking to nobody. Cam was their leader, and he was starting to bring the rest of the team down with him. Sean tried to get Cam to snap out of his funk. People thrived off Cam's energy once his energy kind of shot down everybody else on the team kind of saw it. But at one point, Cam remembered the words from his mother, Jackie.

In the 2014 video series huddle up, she said she gave her son words of encouragement. Cam got discouraged, but his father and myself, me, I will always try to motivate him to just stay focused, stay in the race, don't give up. Cam told his teammates he would never lose a game again. And, well, he damn sure didn't. Blin rattled off wins against their rivals, beating Tyler Juko again, getting revenge against Navarro all the way toward a national championship game against Fort Scott. in the freezing cold of Kansas. Cecil wasn't going to miss it. He hadn't watched Cam play since the first game of the season

when his son was shook by his presence. Now, Pops is back, but Fran didn't want Cam to know that Cecil was there. The only other game that Cecil ever came to, Cam didn't know he was coming. He's setting a box where Cam couldn't see him at the national championship game. Because I was worried that Cam was trying to do things and played differently when Dad was watching.

With Cecil shepherded into the press box out of Cam's sight, Bleng got rolling, per usual. That is, until Cam's competitive nature got the squad in trouble. This fool hurt his shoulder diving into the end zone and landed on his throwing shoulder. Sean stands in again, only this time, the stakes couldn't be higher. That's my time to shine in the netty. Cam goes into the locker room to get a cortisone shot in his shoulder. Cam went in, got a shot, came right back out, kept it rolling. A receiver runs a kickback for a touchdown with less than 15 seconds in the game.

Blin wins. 3126. The players were ecstatic. Camp soaks it all in and lays in the end zone with his pads on. Everything they built had come to fruition. But hold on. Despite Cam's accomplishments, he didn't win MVP of the league. And he was only honorable mention on the All-America team.

Bible coaches were tired of the dancing. They're jarring. extra? Well, Cam was pretty flamboyant. And when he had success on the field, he wasn't always worried about whose feelings he was hurting or whether or not it was great sportsmanship. Some people couldn't interpret it the wrong way. And, you know, the people that voted for those awards, they got beat by him. And then all of a sudden you cast your ballots and you've got a guy who's not an MVP getting the award. side, Cam still got exactly what he wanted.

The business trip was a success. He was the number one player in the nation, in Juko or high school. In 12 games, he racked up more than 3,400 all-purpose yards, 22 touchdowns in the air and 16 touchdowns on the ground. He came in the blend with one goal on his mind, well, one big goal. He wanted to win the Natty, get out there, get his name back. To this day, he's still probably one of the hardest work as I know. Like, I've had so many people that didn't know that I knew Cam.

They was like, oh, he's so fake. Like, the smile is fake. Like, he's so cocky. Just from knowing him, dude bust his ass for everything that he's had. When Cam left Blinn, the program changed overnight. Trance from Boston College wanted to come down to Brenham. Joe Montana's son was even willing to leave California to play for Fran. He took a small country farm town with a junior college in it

and turned it into one of the, hottest places for junior college athletes to consider. Twelve months ago, Cam walked into Brenham, defeated. And now, he's the greatest player in a program's history and changed the landscape of junior college football overnight. Various sports pundas said, when Cam Newton left Florida, we wasn't going to hear from him again. Thank God they're not God.

Another glory story, another jersey retirement. Kids still come to blend these days and try to wear number two, just get turned away at the door. I mean, can you blame him? If you told me a washed-up Prepstar Flamed out of the SEC walking to an unknown outpost in Texas only to come out soaring, like a Phoenix, wiping the ashes from the fire off his shoulder as he flew into the sunset. Boy, I tell you to pitch that script to HBO. But it actually happened. Random Texas remains relatively anonymous to this day. But if you drive around Alamo Street or down Maine, past Prairie Lee Street by Nathan's Barbecue,

you'll find the same ground, Cam walked. The locals will tell you, sometimes even pointing to the flags on Blin's campus that still cast his visage. Brent of Texas is only known for a few things these days. Bluebell Ice Cream, Blinn College, and Cam Newton. Next time on the Cam Chronicles. And he said, I want to be a top-temper pick. I want to win the Heisman Trophy. We want to have a chance to win a national championship.

I looked at them in the eyes. If you allow me to coach your heart, we'll have a chance to do all three. The Camp Chronicles was written and reported by me, Tyler R. Times, and edited by Connor Nevins. The show was produced by Kara Kornhaver, Isaac Lee, and Noah Malale. And sound designed by Isaac Lee. If you're listening to this episode and don't want to wait until next week to hear where the story goes, head over to Spotify. All episodes of the Cam Chronicles are available for you to binge for free right now in the Ringer NFL show feed.