What were Cecil Newton’s options? Mississippi State offered no money. There was no discussion of money at Oklahoma or Tennessee, two other schools that had Cam Newton in for recruiting visits. It’s not like he turned down money from anywhere else to sign with Auburn.
The only verifiable discussion of money was between discredited sleaze agent Kenny Rogers and Cecil Newton in a Mississippi Hotel lobby. If one entertains the idea that Rogers, who was running from $11,000 worth of bad checks at the time, brought up the subject of money to Cecil Newton in hopes of skimming his percentage off the top, the whole thing comes clear. Occam’s razor and all that.
The SEC and Auburn University Compliance office investigated this for ten months. The NCAA had a team of investigators on it for five months.
The Newtons turned over all family and church financial records to the NCAA and met with the investigators several times. Do you think a family of modest means could hide that amount of money for nearly a year?
The NCAA did treat Cam Newton the same as other players. Name the last player that got punished for doing nothing wrong in a situation where nothing of value changed hands. (And yes, if three different investigative agencies spend a total of 25 months looking at a case and find no evidence of money changing hands, or even being offered, it’s a safe bet that no money changed hands)
Wouldn’t it be great if Pryor and his buddies at OSU implemented a self-imposed suspension for the Sugar Bowl since they feel so bad for breaking the rules? That would be a great big middle finger to the NCAA, too.
Money does not need to change hands to break a rule. Just asking for money is not allowed. The stupid thing is the loophole that says if the player did not know, he is OK.
I agree that college sports is basically a joke now, it’s like the Olympics were when they only allowed “amateurs”. The Olympics eventually figured out that was a joke and now they allow everyone in (for most sports.)
BTW, how can the NCAA know they have seen all financial records of the Newtons? If the NCAA comes to me , do I have to tell them all the banks I do business with? They are not the cops, they cannot force me to turn anything over.
I notice from your location you live in Alabama. Auburn fan or alum perhaps?
Airman Doors has it right. The SMU death penalty will never happen again. That documentary he’s referring to opened my eyes to something I completely forgot about. The Death Penalty killed the SWC.
I don’t see the NCAA ever doing that again for fear of what the ripple effects could be. So, they will go through the motions, wait until kids graduate, or nail either marginal players or stars with the ability to bolt to the major leagues without really doing anything substantial to clean up the mess. OSU’s penalty is a joke, or haven’t you noticed? The bowl will be played, the NCAA and the alumni will all be happy, a boatload of money rolls in, and that’s that. The suspensions will be reduced, and someone like Pryor will probably enter the draft, escaping penalty all together… shocker.
The corruption is absolute. I have no doubt that Cam Newton took money and that it will probably never be proven. Reggie Bush denied taking money until what, a few months ago? Does anyone really care?
There is just too much money out there to ignore. Why do you think every big football program has boosters? And these boosters aren’t making streamers and banners for the big game… they are all money men who like to see their favorite college team do well. University presidents like money, so they play dumb, hoping to get a nice fat check written for the endowment. The coaches are getting a better team, which means more money for their next contract, more money in a shoe contract, and keeping their job.
I can’t believe there are people out there that actually believe that most programs are on the up-and-up.
Here’s an example of what happens when a program tries to do it right. Pitt, my alma mater, won the national championship in 76. As late as 83, they finished second in the country with Dan Marino as QB. They were in the hunt for every major high school football talent in the region, not to mention nationally.
New AD and President come in, and decide to try to make Pitt an ivy league school outside the ivy league. They increased their admissions criteria; They looked for student athletes; they started recruiting “the right way”. What has happened over the last 30 years of Pitt football? Jackie Sherrill left (great coach, kinda cheated), many recruits took their talent elsewhere, and in the almost 30 years since, they haven’t sniffed a top 5. I don’t even think they sniffed a top 10, but I don’t know that for sure.
A once mighty eastern college program has become a mediocre program that can lose to such national powers as UConn. Villanova. Ohio. :rolleyes:
Pete Carroll and USC cheated. And they were the best college program in the country for a decade.
Lou Holtz cheated everywhere he went, which is why he bolted everywhere he went. But since Lou baby, ND hasn’t sniffed a national championship, have they?
If you want to have a consistently good college football program, I don’t see how you can’t “cheat” to compete year to year. (I personally think the players should be paid, so I have a hard time getting upset if a kid makes money while in college).
Both. As such, Ive followed the Cam Newton saga very carefully from start to finish.
Never have I seen so many people hoping the worst for somebody that has done…nothing…wrong.
Skilled investigators from three different agencies have worked for months and come up with nothing. Yet there are people out there that insist “where there’s smoke there’s fire”. In this case where there’s smoke there’s about two unethical writers blowing smoke and a bunch more sheep quoting them.
I had expected that on The 'Dope, of all places, posters would be saying “prove it”. Instead I see the same old “there’s no proof but my gut tells me…”
Anyway, the NCAA was under no time constraints. They could have waited months, even years before they declared Newton eligible without condition. When they came out with that, you can bet the case is closed and the investigators are heading in other directions. No outfit likes to eat crow. The NCAA was certain of what they had, and didn’t have, when they came out with that statement.
To answer another post above: No, the NCAA does not have subpoena powers. They do have experienced investigators that can tell quickly if a family of historically limited means came into hundreds of thousands of dollars 11 months ago. It didn’t happen.
For the record, I know next to nothing about Cam Newton, and wish him no harm. At all. This isn’t about getting Cam Newton. Not at all. I can’t speak for anyone else here, though.
And as for this being the dope, I think that we all know that “prove it” doesn’t mean a hill of beans when something doesn’t pass the smell test.
With your logic, OJ was innocent because the LA DA didn’t prove it.
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t care if he or his father took money. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if his father did take money and Cam didn’t know about it. But to think there is nothing going on is, IMHO, burying one’s head in the sand.
Something like this won’t be proven until someone in the know becomes pissed off and decides to spill it. The only way Reggie Bush was nailed was that the guy that gave him and his family all of the money up front wanted it back after Bush went with a different agent. If Bush pays that bill, I doubt the truth ever comes out.
The skilled investigators, as I recall, have come up with nothing more than “we can’t prove anything at this time” so we will allow Cam to play in the National Championship. Simply stated, the NCAA has not finished their investigation.
I believe that Cam will be returning his Heisman sometime in the next 2-5 years, after he has a rather lucrative pro contract, and the whole thing will be meaningless except the game will go on and the NCAA will continue to protect the $$$.
Except in this case, it appears that 99% of the populace is not examining the case sufficiently to learn what the real smell is. They are whiffing scents tossed out by a couple of irresponsible bloggers whose goal is nothing more than increasing hits on their websites.
Every bit of verifiable evidence points to former Mississippi State player and banned NFLPA agent Kenny Rogers trying to use a contact with Cecil Newton to extort money from some wealthy MSU boosters.
Cecil Newton admits talking to Rogers in a Mississippi hotel lobby on November 27, 2009. Rogers promised big money if Cam would sign with Mississippi State and Cecil made the mistake of listening and (however briefly) entertaining the idea. Beyond that, months of investigation reveal nothing. Yet masses of people want to condemn Cam Newton who was not present in the hotel lobby.
Wouldn’t it be great if Pryor and his buddies at OSU thought the they broke the rules but that the imposed suspensions were too harsh and wished to take advantage of the appeals process that the NCAA provides?
Don’t mistake what I said for “wishing Cam Newton the worst”. Hey, I hope he has a massively successful career and a good future. What he (or his father) was alleged to have done (phrasing out of deference to you) harms me not one bit.
I actually hope that more of this stuff happens. I want to see the NCAA either clamp it down so tight that it once more becomes strictly amateur or I want to see the NCAA shatter and have to admit that they can’t stop it, opening the door for the professionalism of college football. This sham amateurism is nauseating and ensures that the programs willing to pay or look the other way while a booster does will continue to win national championships while claiming that they’re completely innocent, a wholly implausible claim under the best of circumstances.
We’ll see. I don’t envy you (or your psyche) if you’re later proven wrong after all you’ve invested in this.
Airman, all I’ve invested in this is following the story with a skeptical mind. Knowing a few of the people involved on the Auburn end of it, from the beginning I doubted they’d go along with anything like this. I don’t know anyone on the Mississippi State staff so I can’t comment about that.
It’s to be remembered that no person involved, at any time, has ever claimed that Auburn or Cam Newton was even aware of the discussions.
The only mention of Auburn has been by talking heads saying: “Well clearly, if money was discussed with Mississippi State booster Kenny Rogers then Auburn must have paid.” That’s where “prove it” comes into play.
People scoff at the idea that Cam Newton didn’t know what his father was doing. When I was 20, had my father and one of his friends discussed robbing a bank I wouldn’t have known about it, would you?
I don’t think boosters paying kids is as prevalent as you think it is. If persons from a family of modest means suddenly start spending a bunch, that’s fairly easy to determine. The university has to be complicit in the deal, as was USC in the Reggie Bush case. I believe that’s a rarity.
I don’t think boosters are giving big payments to players. I think it’s more likely they get smaller payments over time but I don’t know how widespread it is.
The agent payments are probably more of an issue now, the agents did not really care about being caught because the NCAA can do nothing to them. The player unions can suspend agents and they have started to do that.
Aside from the allegations concerning potential payments for signing on at Auburn how about Newton’s incidents concerning cheating while at Florida and his sudden departure from Florida to avoid expulsion. It would appear that Cam’s credibility and character were already questionable before his arrival at Auburn.
Irrelevant, IMO, as it relates to Auburn University.
As an aside, How many people would have guessed that the University of Florida would let a player of Cam Newtons ability slip out of their system? And go to a rival SEC school?
I think that the OSU players should also be suspended for the Sugar Bowl. If a player commits a suspendable offense, it should include bowl games. The NCAA does a heckuva job of being about the money and bending the rules yet inconsistently spanking players over the same crap.
Don’t forget possession and destruction of stolen property. IMHO, these circumstances might be irrelevant to Auburn WRT the Mississippi State situation but they do show severe character flaws of Newton. I would be extremely hesitant to insist that he “has done…nothing…wrong.”
Interesting. I’m almost certain that I didn’t say that. I do however call his character into question. As such, I would be hesitant to insist that he has done nothing wrong. That is not the same as proclaiming guilt.