The House That Built Cam

[tiger7_88]

Excellent piece by Eric Nussbaum on the Holy Zion Center of Deliverance and why it is one of (if not the) primary building block that made Cameron Jerrell Newton 'Cam Newton'.  Included are many good quotes from his father, Cecil Newton.  (I looked through the first 4 pages and also did a search and didn't see this posted yet.  Apologies if it has been posted and I missed it.)

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/the-house-that-built-cam

 

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Dressed in a suit and tie, and conspicuously white, I parked my rental car in the lot out front, and walked through a vestibule and into a humble but nicely appointed sanctuary with gray carpet and lavender and purple walls. After calling and emailing the church repeatedly in the previous weeks, I had been acknowledged but not specifically invited. Still, I was greeted kindly by the handful of congregants sitting before the church's deacon, Derick Irving, for pre-worship Sunday school. One man lent me his textbook so I could follow along as the group read.

"It's all about doing unto others as they would do to you, it really comes down to that," said one woman with shiny auburn hair. Deacon Irving agreed. His own golden rule went one step further, he said: treat people the way you'd want them to treat your mother.

At precisely that moment, a tall and broad-shouldered man in a blue blazer and checkered pants emerged in the back of the sanctuary. He looked right at me, and I knew that this was Cecil Newton, Sr., Cam's father, the Bishop of Holy Zion. He waved me into a back room and he was not smiling. It felt, in fact, like I was getting summoned into the principal's office.

 

 

 

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Cam Newton dances after touchdowns. He hits the dab. He smiles. If Peyton Manning makes quarterbacking look like work, Cam Newton makes it look like play. In fact, that's what everybody, even his critics, seems to agree on when it comes to Cam Newton: he makes football look like fun. He plays the game with the same joyful spirit he did growing up.

Cecil told me a story about Cam as a boy. Cam sucked his thumb until he was seven years old. His parents tried everything to get him to stop. They tried dipping his thumb in hot sauce, and they tried wrapping it with tape. They tried all kinds of remedies but nothing seemed to work. It drove them crazy. It exasperated them. They feared he would develop an underbite. Then, one day when he happened to be especially frustrated by Cam's thumbsucking, Cecil went fishing with the oldest of his three sons, Cecil, Jr., and caught an eight-pound largemouth bass. When they got home, he was struck by sudden inspiration: he made Cam hold the largemouth bass with the thumb he had been sucking for ten minutes. After that, Cam never sucked his thumb again.

"He squirmed as if I was sawing his leg off," Cecil said. "And to this day, he doesn't like fishing. But now that he has his radiant smile, he should thank Dad for that tough lesson learned at age seven."

And that's what Cam's childhood was like: exceedingly normal, almost quaint. His father is a storyteller and a charismatic man, but when he talks about his family, even he sounds a little bit boring. "We're normal," he told me. "We eat out occasionally, we eat at home for the most part. Our values are directly in line with Christian principles and the American mainstream public."

 

 

 

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Slaton said Cam used to watch game tape and highlights from the NFL and then come to practice in character as old-time quarterbacks. One day, he'd run around behind the line of scrimmage like Fran Tarkenton. The next, he'd say, "I'm Steve DeBerg," and limp around the pocket like the hobbled journeyman backup once did.

When Cam played in college and then entered the NFL, nobody was telling these high school anecdotes. Or if they were, nobody was listening. Instead, supposed football experts openly wondered whether he had the intellect or leadership skills to play quarterback. There were message board rumors that Auburn dumbed down their playbook for him. He stumbled on the influential Jon Gruden's QB Camp show on ESPN.

"That's condescending, again" said Cecil Newton. "Does a black quarterback have the intelligence to play at the level of other quarterbacks? Let's dispel that myth. Let's put it to bed. If that were to be the case, then he would not be able to perform at the level he's performing at."

I heard pain in that answer, just as I could hear it when he sat me down in the office at Holy Zion trying to find out whether I was going to write the same tired story about his son. So I asked him the question that had been nagging at me ever since I began to think about Cam Newton and Cam Newton's family. Maybe it nagged because I am a son, one of three boys just like Cam, or because I had recently become a father myself.

What is it like to watch your son—the boy you raised right—have his intelligence mocked and his character questioned by haughty writers and analysts for silly reasons like dancing or wearing a towel on his head?

 

 

 

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This is where Cam Newton comes from: an institution where being African-American and excellent, African-American and respected, African-American and optimistic are normal conditions. A place where, unlike the NFL, and unlike our society at large, a black man is fully visible, and fully human.

You see all of it in those not so rare moments when he is scoring touchdowns:

As he improvises on the field, a step ahead mentally and a step faster physically, to find the open man or the unlikely path to the end zone, channeling what Ellison called "the creativity and improvisation that happens in the preaching moment." As he celebrates the achievement, embodying the expressive, creative spirit of his hometown not just by dabbing but by being, exuberantly, himself. And finally, as he jogs out of the end zone, smiling, to do a small act of kindness, and hand the football he just scored with to a kid sitting in the front row.

That is not to say Cam Newton is perfect. Not even Cam Newton thinks he is. "There was only one person that walked this green earth that was perfect and we know who that is," he said at a press conference last week. "But yet that's not Cam, that's not you, that's not nobody."

I asked Ellison about something else Cam said at that press conference.

"I'm an African-American quarterback," he declared. "That may scare a lot of people because they haven't seen nothing that they can compare me to."

Was Cam simply stating what was obvious to him having grown up in a place where black excellence was expected? Having both read the history books and then written himself into them? Or was he challenging the establishment—making a small activist gesture in the tradition of his faith and his city?

"Both."

 

 

Do yourself a favor and click through and read the whole thing.

[Cookie Lyon]

Thanks for finding this piece! 

I really enjoyed it.

[TheWiz]

There was a portion of this that spoke volumes to me. They're building a new sanctuary and community center for their church. 

They mention that they were 2 years away from everything being completed. Cecil said people have asked "why doesn't Cam just write a check and pay for everything. Why wait two years?" Cecil replied, because if it doesn't grow organically, it's not sustainable.

As a person involved in ministry and missionary work, I can't tell you how my respect for this man just went through the roof. Not only does this require wisdom to acknowledge but It takes patience and restraint to stay committed to that plan.

You may not think this means anything regarding the SuperBowl... But just try to remember that the next time The media starts giving Shula or Coach Rivera extra credit for "growing Cam Up," try to remember that he has a father. And a pretty good one. 

Excellent piece. Everyone on the huddle should read it. 

[Cookie Lyon]

4 minutes ago, TheWiz said:

There was a portion of this that spoke volumes to me. They're building a new sanctuary and community center for their church. 

They mention that they were 2 years away from everything being completed. Cecil said people have asked "why doesn't Cam just write a check and pay for everything. Why wait two years?" Cecil replied, because if it doesn't grow organically, it's not sustainable.

As a person involved in ministry and missionary work, I can't tell you how my respect for this man just went through the roof. Not only does this require wisdom to acknowledge but It takes patience and restraint to stay committed to that plan.

You may not think this means anything regarding the SuperBowl... But just try to remember that the next time The media starts giving Shula or Coach Rivera extra credit for "growing Cam Up," try to remember that he has a father. And a pretty good one. 

Excellent piece. Everyone on the huddle should read it. 

Agreed.

[PantherCam213]

Great read!  Thanks for posting it. 

[truthjuice]

really enjoyed this. if cam stays grounded, he's going far. it's one thing to be a great athlete, but be a great person as well. stay true to who you are. 

[Toker Smurf]

But but but Cam's pay for play money could pay for the new sanctuary. 

Jokes aside,  good article. Sounds like a pretty typical,  good family. 

[tiger7_88]

2 hours ago, TheWiz said:

There was a portion of this that spoke volumes to me. They're building a new sanctuary and community center for their church. 

They mention that they were 2 years away from everything being completed. Cecil said people have asked "why doesn't Cam just write a check and pay for everything. Why wait two years?" Cecil replied, because if it doesn't grow organically, it's not sustainable.

As a person involved in ministry and missionary work, I can't tell you how my respect for this man just went through the roof. Not only does this require wisdom to acknowledge but It takes patience and restraint to stay committed to that plan.

You may not think this means anything regarding the SuperBowl... But just try to remember that the next time The media starts giving Shula or Coach Rivera extra credit for "growing Cam Up," try to remember that he has a father. And a pretty good one. 

Excellent piece. Everyone on the huddle should read it. 

Not being in ministry or missionary work myself, its good to see a reply like this.

So not only did the writer do a good job digging deep for a valid point of view to get across to the reader, Cecil Newton's work is validated by the article as well.

[TheWiz]

1 hour ago, tiger7_88 said:

Not being in ministry or missionary work myself, its good to see a reply like this.

So not only did the writer do a good job digging deep for a valid point of view to get across to the reader, Cecil Newton's work is validated by the article as well.

I thought it was balanced... And he did a good job of highlighting differences from a perspective that is not always shared. There's a lot to be gained when you see something through someone else's eyes. 

We learned just as much about the writer as we did about Cecil Newton. 

[stirs]

"onnnnnnnnn the frontage road"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joking