The Ringer NFL Show - 4. Auburn | The Cam Chronicles

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Cam redeems himself and builds a lasting legacy amid scandal and controversy. 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 Rigger NFL show feed. You know, we're the Auburn Tigers, and we say War Eagle, and it comes from the Civil War. A Civil War veteran captured a Golden Eagle, wounded one of the battles, brought it back to school, finished school, and was a professor, took it to the Auburn, Georgia Game in 1892, the South's oldest rivalry. As Auburn was driving for the winning touchdown, the eagle broke from its leash and started circling the field. Everybody pointed to the sky because they called it the War Eagle. War Eagle, there's the War Eagle. As Auburn scored the winning touchdown to win the first ever football game,

the Eagle crashed in the field and died. Hence, War Eagle was born. That's Trey Johnston. He owns a bookstore on Auburn University's campus that's been in his family for generations. It's located on Tumor's Corner, which has been the anchor of campus life for over 150 years. One of Auburn's most famous traditions is when Tiger fans throw toilet paper over the large oak trees that line Tumor's Corner after the Tigers win. The tradition dates back to 1896, when Tumor's drugs was the only store in town with a telegraph machine. The store's employees would unfurled a ticker tape and toss it over nearby power lines after a big win.

Roll in Tumor's Corner, asks Snow. Trey's probably seen it a few times. In my 67 years, this is the only place I've known. My mother was Miss Auburn in 1949. My brother played football here, and I've run this store. This store goes back to 1878 as a college bookstore. Were you here when Ken Newton was here? I was here.

I was the bag man. Do you believe that? I was the bag man, baby. I made my $185,000 back. You can't talk about Auburn football without talking about Cam Newton. And you can't talk about Cam Newton's time at Auburn without talking about bagman, cash payments, ANCAA investigations, but ultimately, success. This is the Cam Chronicles. I'm Tyler R. Times. I was offensive coordinator here in 2009, and there was a really good receiver at Flynn Junior College that I had one of our assistants go check out.

That's Gus Malzahn. You see, Malzahn heard a Cam from an assistant. and coach who went down to Blin to find a receiver. But when the coach came back, he told Malzahn they needed to see Blin's quarterback. Malzahn ain't want to hear it. A Jukko quarterback? No thanks. But the assistant was adamant.

Mao Zon had to see this guy. This guy, of course, was Cam Newton. Malzine invited Cam to Auburn for an official visit. He was impressed when Cam laid out his vision for his SEC return. He said, I want to be a top ten pick. I want to win the Heisman Trophy. We want to have a chance to win a national championship. And I looked at him in the eye.

I said, if you allow me to coach your heart, we'll have a chance to do all three. It sounded like a match made in football heaven. Malzine had a reputation as something of an offensive mastermind. He was entering his second season as Auburn's offensive coordinator and had a roster short on elite SEC talent. Cam could unlock a lot of possibilities. But, of course, getting Cam on campus wasn't going to be that easy. As always, Cecil had a plan.

We were being heavily recruited by Mississippi State, Oklahoma, two other SEC schools. We weren't really, really that heavily recruited by Auburn. And I really don't want to delve into what they say was financial misgivings. What Cecil calls financial misgivings is actually an NCAA investigation to a pay-for-play arrangement. According to the NCAA, Cecil sought between $120,000 and $180,000 from a Mississippi State booster in exchange for Cam's enrollment at Mississippi State. The booster later spoke about the incident to a radio station, sparking the NCAA investigation in a whole lot of controversy. It makes sense that Cecil would want a good price for his boy. The NCAA bars players from making any money, even as universities raking millions of dollars on the back of mostly black athletes.

why shouldn't players in their families get a little splash of the cash? And look, Cam is coming from a junior college. And Jucco football, it's a used car shop. Cam might be damaged goods, but even on his second go-round on the SEC recruiting will, he's still the best deal on the lot, as the SPN's what Monty Jones explains. I don't know if there's any player of that caliber

who goes to an SEC school and who is from the South where the assumption is not made that there has been a financial transfer to get whoever that player may be to said plays simply because the demand for those players is too high. Somebody's offering some money. And in this case, somebody was going to be offering a lot of money. So it's hard to believe that he went anywhere for free.

I pressed Cecil about this, but he didn't want to get into the details. That stuff has been buried. It was a hoax. I went through a literal financial colonoscopy. They didn't find nothing. And besides, Cecil said he wasn't a sink can in Mississippi State anyway. I didn't like Starkfield. That's why I didn't choose Starkfield.

I didn't like Mississippi. Black quarterback. It just, it didn't bode well with me. I just didn't like Mississippi. It had been etched in my mind, the Mississippi burning and all that other stuff, black guy, white girl stuff. I was afraid. And I didn't want to trust my son to the extent of something like that popping off.

because he already was coming away from a cloudy experience at Florida. So anything would have inflamed it and wrecked his career. I would not let that happen. But if Cesar was so frightened by the idea his son going to Mississippi, then why would he have exchanged 275-ish calls and texts with a Mississippi state booster between March 2009 when Cam came to Blint and January 2010 when Cam was leaving Blin to go to Auburn? The NCAA had the same question.

And that question loomed over Cam during his entire time at Auburn. Backdoor negotiations aside, Cam chooses Auburn, where he'll suit up for head coach Gene Chiswick and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. Once he gets to Auburn, there's nobody in his way. There's nobody standing in his way to become the starter. That's Joel Anderson. He's a senior writer for Slate magazine, who used to cover college football at ESPN in the Associated Press.

Cam is the perfect fit for the Gus Mileson offense, an offense that he perfected in high school, which depends on your quarterback to be the dual threat that Cam was, you know, that you can throw and you can run and do both at the same level. And like Cam Newton is the apex of that model, and he ran right into a guy that could use him in the best way possible. As fate would have it, Cam's first SEC game as a tiger was against Mississippi State.

The game was slow and sloppy. Cam's had most of the second half running away from future NFL. all-pro Fletcher Cox. But, Cam did throw a 39-yard touchdown and finished with 200 all-purpose yards. Alburn willed themselves to a win. Anyone on the road is a pretty one, and Cameron Newton comes into Starkville, the place where he almost called home and he's going to walk out with a victory. After a few weeks of dominance, Auburn rises to number five in the country, the week number six LSU is scheduled to come to town. The atmosphere has shifted. Even Paul Feinbaum, the provocateur of college football, now working at ESPN, knew something was different.

The game that I'll never forget, as long as I live, was the game against LSU. He had the ball, and I still remember him faking out like the entire LSU team. Newton, up the middle. Oh, I'm sorry. He goes right. And he got down toward the right hash mark at Jordan Hare Stadium, and Patrick Peterson, who was arguably the best secondary player in college football that year. made a move on him as he was heading toward the goal line, and Cam literally faked this guy into the upper deck. Still loose.

I'd never seen anything like it. To this day, it's possibly the greatest play I've ever seen in just in terms of pure athleticism. It's one thing to fake an average player, but to fake Patrick Peterson blew me away. And at that moment, and I realized I think we were still in October, but I'd pretty well decided I was voting for Cam for Heisman. And if you think Farnbaum was impressed, imagine Mao Zahn's reaction watching it down on the field.

You know, he tried to keep calm, adopted something silly coaching dog, went about staying composed in the heat about, you know something like that. But deep down, he knew what he just saw. I remember on the headsets just saying, hey, that guy just won the Heisman trophy. You say that, then you go on the next play. But it was just that moment that you just, you knew. As a matter of fact, everybody knew. Cam, I mean Auburn, improved the 8 and no, and might have been the best team in the country. A few weeks later, it's time for Auburn to play their hated rival, the University of Alabama,

on the Crimson Tides home turf in Tuscaloosa. Alabama Auburn isn't just a rivalry game. Football is on the state's coat of arms. This is the Iron Bowl, a game that started just as football was born in the South on the heels of American Reconstruction. The two opposing factions, each with its own unique reputation, meet each year to play for state bragging rights. Alabama is the traditional center of power. That's where the lawyers go. If you want to build something or if you want to learn how to grow something, you go down to Auburn. That was the traditional split between the kind of elites in Alabama. That if you were a farmer or an engineer, somebody who built something, you went to Auburn. You learned to do something. If you wanted to collect rent, and be like an organizational racist for a living you went to Alabama.

That's Spencer Hall, formerly a Banner Society. Alabama sees Auburn as their little brother. Auburn don't like that too much. It's the root of a relentless, non-stop rivalry, as Malzahn quickly learned. Yeah, it's 365 days a year. It's personal. You've got to experience it to understand it.

Nobody can tell you what it's like. You experience it one time and a light clicks on and you fully understand what you're dealing with. They don't like us. We don't like them. And usually that game has a good chance to determine who wins the conference. Now, the Alabama team that Malzahn was up against, it was coached by Nick Sabin, who was in his fourth season at Alabama. The Crimson Tide had just won the national championship the previous year while finishing 14 and 0. Sabin's Death Star, the unstoppable machine that ground.

Rines away at opponents until ain't nothing left had claimed it's dominion over college football. Bama had nearly 25 future NFL players on the roster, including Julio Jones, Hise and winner Mark Angram, a top three NFL draft pick in Trent Richardson, a future Super Bowl winner and Dante Hightower, and plenty of multi-year all pro players left right and center. Cam and Auburn, well, they just had Cam. Welcome to Brian Denny. It's a simple ritual, really, in this state. At birth, you declare your allegiance.

It's either Auburn or it's Alabama. Shortly thereafter, you begin a lifetime of devotion to one of the other. If you're for Auburn, you call the other guys Bammers, and you yell War Eagle. If you're for Alabama, you call the other guys Barners, and you scream, roll time. And along the way, just a small degree of distaste is formed for the other fellas. In this moment, ain't just about Cam walking into Brian Denny for the biggest game of his life in front of 100,000 roaring fans in the midst of an ancient rivalry. Because it's around this time that Cecil's financial misgivings become public. The NCAA had just opened this investigation into the pay-for-play scheme between Cecil and the Mississippi State booster.

As far as Bama fans were concerned, Cam was tainted. He was judged to have committed the Cardinal Center college sports. and Cecil's alleged transgressions were the perfect steroid for Bama's hearty disposition. Bama fans printed T-shirts that read Scam Newton, replacing the S with a dollar sign. Students were on TV saying things like, hide your laptop, hide your checks, because Scam Newton is taking everything into Hizman's necks. Auburn fans got in on the action too. Cam's jersey was put on the statue of Bama's most famous coach, Bear Bryant.

As Cam ran onto the field for pregame warmups, He was met by a chorus of booze and a welcome song from the Crimson Tide Faithful. He played Steve Miller's take the money and run. All right, so this is the most Alabama shit ever. Steve Miller, take the money and run. 1970s era of disrespect from a white man strumming a guitar to scare your enemies. Not only does this song absolutely not slapping the slightest,

it's just a dumb choice. Cam probably doesn't even know what the intended antagonism was. Guys are warming up before the game and some Steve Miller pops on. All they do is nod their heads and act like nothing happened. Bama Stafford has also played son of a preacher man to antagonize Cam, which, all right, I'm going to give you that. It's a little funny. But if you really want to hit Cam, maybe I don't know, man.

Play Got Money by Lil Wayne and T. Payne. At least use your resources more effectively saving. Regardless of the poor song choices, Bama feels like they're getting their kicks in about the hot water he and his father are in. everything's fair in the Iron Pole. Everything. Because there is no such thing as fair. So if you want to play, take the money and run, you can do that. You know why?

Snow holds barred. It's cage match. I think that's a metaphor that everyone can understand in the Auburn, Alabama rivalry. It's hell in a cell. You want to throw the other guy off the top of the roof? You go right ahead. You want to throw him down on some tax? You want to go ahead and bring in the chairs and the tables?

Let's do it. You want to put on, take the money and run? When you're Alabama, who definitely has been a clean, non-paying program for the entirety of their football history, something I definitely mean when I say, yeah, go ahead, play it, yeah, that's fine. You just made him bad. But if Cam was mad, he didn't show it, at least not at first. Bama was up 210 at the end of the first quarter. Cam's receivers couldn't catch a cold. Before this moment, Auburn had been third. 3-0 that season, winning games they had been trailing behind by 10 points or more. They found a way to win each time, usually on the back of cam. But this was different.

This is Bama. And Bama was dismantling Auburn. Spencer remembered watching the game at home. I remember turning it off because I was disgusted. I wasn't going to watch Alabama win. How much I've watched Alabama win? Screw them. I don't want to watch that.

And then in the third quarter, somebody's like, yo, you need to turn this back on. You've made a mistake. Gus knew the tie was about the turn from his perch in the locker room. You know, at halftime, I mean, Cam was holding court. I mean, he was talking to the offense, defense, and he was our leader. And we gave him a little bit of extra time. And, you know, he was talking to his teammates one by one, challenging them.

Back on the field, Cam Don's his helmet. He finally unleashes his rage. We came out in the second half like our hair was on fire, and it was a completely different game. back to throw deep and he's got every Blake wide open. There was Barron and Barron falls down. It's Zachary instead of Blake. 81 instead of 80.

Zachary opens with a 70-yard touchdown catch. Auburn scores in the second play coming out of halftime. Then Cam walks over to the sidelines. Cam came up to me, so we're fixing to beat these boys.

And so you kind of knew then that, okay, we weathered the storm. and we're fixed to win the whole thing. You remember that he's not going to let us lose. He refused to let us lose. Alabama has this belief that it's not supposed to happen, that Cam Newton is not supposed to happen. Alabama believes that it is its prerogative

to dominate all of college football, and certainly its lesser rival. Cam walked into Brian Denny and came out of halftime down 24-7 and won the ballgame 28-27. It was another Cam Newton miracle in a season full of them. Cam tossed on the crimson cape, colored by the tide he parted in Tuscaloosa, wrapped it around

his neck and sore. If no one believed him, if they turned their faces up during his celebrations where he acts like Clark Kent revealing the S on his chest, ain't no denying it now. He was a superhero, a Superman, a Super Cam. His Iron Bowl victory remains one of the greatest in the sports story of history. Something Allburn fans remember fondly asked. the cam back. Tiger fans back home in Auburn

took to the town square to roll too much corner. Toll the paper hung from the oak trees on Magnolia Avenue. It was like looking into a snow globe the morning after when the team came back in the town. But for Bama fans, the lost stumb, badly. That was especially clear to Findbom,

who was doing his popular radio show at the time, known for raucous callers from all over the state. He got a call. He says he'll never forget. When I die, if any publication writes an obituary of me, it was a Paul Feinbaum, who took the most famous call in sports radio history when Harvey Updike called on January 26, 2011. This year, I was at the Iron Bowl. Okay. And I saw where they put a Scam Newton jersey on Bear Bryant.

See what I did. And I poisoned. Well, that's fair. I put Spike 80 D.L. Did they die? Do what? Did they die? They're not dead yet, but they definitely will die.

Is that against the law to poison a tree? Do you think I care? No. Okay, I really don't. Okay. Roll down tide. Now, Paul was used to getting strange calls, but this was bizarre even by Iron Bowl standards.

Still, he didn't think much of it. That was until... A couple of days later, I started hearing from various people, including an arborist. And then about two weeks later, a friend of mine called me who was an aide to Richard Shelby, the senior senator from Alabama. And he told me that they were investigating this call and this guy for terrorism. It was a sad day for Auburn fans. The oak trees at Tumers Corner had to be cut down.

They were poisoned back in 2010 and just couldn't be saved. That guy from the call, Harvey Updite, he poisoned Tumor's oaks. He poisoned them because some kids do toilet paper on some trees. He poisoned Auburn's most sacred tradition because some kids put the jersey of Cam Newton, a black quarterback on Bear Bryant. Updike poisoning those trees is symptomatic of a rivalry that's kind of out of control. It's actually sort of amazing that there's like not been more violence around those games.

It may be to their credit. The one notable thing that ever got killed in the middle of that rivalry is a tree. Cam and the Tigers made it to the national championship game after dismantling South Carolina for the SEC title. As they geared up to face Oregon, Malazahn's prediction came true. Cam is named the Heisman trophy winner at a ceremony held in New York City. Oh my God. First giving all the honor and glory to God, you know, who is the head of my life. And without him right now, you know, we all would not even be here right now.

Thank you for that. I also like to thank my beautiful mother, Jackie Newton, and my father. You know, this... Take your time. Take your time. While Cam pauses to gather himself, Jackie is beaming up at a boy. CJ and Kayling are in the back clapping for their brother. Bo Jackson, the most famous Auburn player before Cam, is embracing him on stage. But Cecil ain't nowhere to be seen.

Because of that miscue with the Mississippi State, they felt like I should serve some form of punishment. And I surrendered. Cecil isn't wanted to just back down in the face of a challenge. So why would he just lay down and miss out on his son receiving the biggest award of his career? Had I decided to go to court to contest the call, Ken would have been deemed ineligible in the middle of the season. Was it worth that? or would I accept whatever the plea was. Everybody who pleas is not guilty in the court of law.

Again, there's a long tradition of players receiving payment to attend major college football programs. So why is Cecil taking so much heat? Here's what Joel had to say about this. It's disgusting. Just think of the tens of millions of dollars that Auburn generated that year alone because Cam Newton was great

and led them to a national championship. And over $180,000, Cecil Newton had to become persona non grata at Auburn. It's ridiculous and it's absurd. Actually, people should be more offended by it in retrospect, the idea that this guy's father couldn't get a cut. Auburn has never had a better moment than it had with Cam Newton, and it was ruined because they're prying into the private lives of this guy's father. Not only is Cecil absent from the Heisman ceremony, he's also. also not at the National Championship game. Everybody else in my family had gone inside the game.

I was not welcomed in the game. Whatever you might think about what Cecil did or didn't do, I know this moment must be heart-breaking for him. Cecil watched Cam fall asleep in his pee-wee jersey in their home in Atlanta. Cecil pushed Cam to be his best at high school, supported him through his disgrace at Florida, waved a flag of redemption during his wins at Blynn, and helped ensure his anoint at Auburn.

Auburn. He had been there every step of the way. And if anyone deserved to be there at the National Championship game, it was Cecil. But when Cam ran onto that field that day in January, Cecil wasn't there. I was torn. I felt betrayed. I felt like society had betrayed me. Because I built Kane. He'll tell you I built him. And everybody else who know me know I built him. I don't need to start them in the spotlight. I don't live for that. But when it came to the national championship, I wanted to share that.

I didn't. It ain't the end of the world. We were watching it on the TV in a sports bar. Cecil sits watching the entire game from a bar stool next to Cam's former high school guidance counselor and assistant coach Byron Kellam. Now, the championship game is in the final minutes. They watch Oregon score with two minutes left.

tying the ballgame in 1919, leaving one possession for Cam for all the marbles for the last miracle in a miraculous season. Auburn drives down the field with two seconds left. Cam sets up the go-ahead field goal. They did it. Auburn won its first national championship in more than a half a century. I guarantee you five or six months ago, nobody would have, you know, bet at their last daughter to say that Auburn University is winning the national championship. But now on January 10, 2011, you know, we're smiling right now saying, you know, we did it. Somehow, Cam winning the Natty isn't the only miracle of the night.

As Cecil tells it, he leaves the bar after the game with Kellyn to try to find the rest of his family so they could celebrate together. We walked after the game by the mile. The game was over such that the ushers were no longer monitoring doors. The door was just open. It was just only Auburn people and communities. Auburn people and confetti at that particular point. We walked in, looked from the breezeway, all of this going on in celebration,

and we just started walking down towards the field. And just out of magnificence, he saw me. Hold on, hold on. Who opened the door? Did Jesus open the door? Because I feel like he was saying that Jesus opened the door. That makes me feel a little worried about the security of such a venue. Hey, chill, Bomani, you're ruining this.

made-for-TV moment. Go on, He saw me. He jumped out of the stands, over the rail, and came to me. We take a picture, hug each other. Man, it was an unbelievable seat. It's a YouTube out there

with the song that was it all just a dream. I cry every time I see it. That's what it was. It was a dream. The legacy that Cam Newton left in Auburn isn't something that could be duplicated. It was a once-in-a-lifetime scorched earth campaign that could have worked anywhere in the country has someone given him a chance.

If Cam Newton goes and plays for that Mississippi State team, I think that Mississippi State team wins a national championship. I think every single team in the top 25 in 2010 would have won a national championship just by having Cam Newton because the team that won the 2010 national championship won it just by having Cam Newton. Cam Newton by himself as the SEC has become the absolute centerpiece of college football, walked that team to a national championship. They won eight games the year before he was there.

They won eight games the year after he left. They won 14 the year while he was there. But Cam Newton, in that one year, Heisman Trophy, national champion, surrounded by Bums. And yet, Cam isn't as revered as other college football players with similar achievements. One of the reasons for this, as Joel explains, is because of who he is.

how he carries himself, and, most importantly, what he looks like. You know, just his general personality, which he's not a, you know, shrinking violent. He's a dude that leads with his smile in his chest, you know what I mean? And that can rub a lot of people the wrong way, especially if you're a black man. Regardless, Cam did what he set out to do. He accomplished everything he told Mao Zahn he wanted from day one. He just got picked number one. in the NFL, and we talked on the phone.

He said, coach, we did it. We did all three. National Championship, Heisman Trophy winner, and number one overall pick in the NFL draft. Cam told y'all he was going to make Urban Meyer eat his words. Everyone who spurned Cam had to watch his dream season unfold. What Cam Newton did for Auburn may never be seen again in college football. But Auburn is praying that another one of him cruises down.

Magnolia Avenue, straps on the stripes and chucks the rock down field in a way that'll make them sing hallelujah, like they did for a perfect season when Cam Newton became the most valuable player in college football history. Next time on the Cam Chronicles. You very rarely get the arrogant, confident, leading man that's a black man like Cam Newton. We're asking because he is in this prominent position. He is visible. He is the black quarterback of the moment. The notion the black quarterback remains provocative. And so you have Cam again preaching this unity gospel as if the burden is on black people to unify, as if the burden is on the unarmed black man who's being shot by police.

He's the one that needs to unify. And so I understand from black people's perspective, all we got is us and we're the only ones that can get it done. And so we need somebody like Cam Newton in this position. The Cam Chronicles was written and reported by me. Tyler R. Times and edited by Conan Evans. The show was produced by Kara Cornyhaven, Isaac Lee, and Noah Malale. And sound designed by Isaac Lee. 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.