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Cam Newton going pro

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by slappy4428, Jan 13, 2011.

  1. nmmetsfan

    nmmetsfan Active Member

    Albert Haynesworth is his role model
     
  2. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Then why would opinions matter? Shouldn't that be a matter of fact, whoever has broken the most rules?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  3. dog428

    dog428 Active Member

    I love that it's automatically assumed that the black QB is a terrible student.

    And I use the word "assumed" because as far as I know -- and I've followed it pretty closely -- no one has questioned Newton's classroom work, aside from a shady story about him cheating on a test four years ago at Florida. He apparently did well enough at Florida that he could be accepted at Blinn without any stipulations. He did well enough at Blinn that he could be accepted at Auburn without any problems.

    Hell, with Newton transferring twice, we have more info about his academic record than most, and the info we have says he was at least making satisfactory degree process for a junior in college when he entered Auburn.

    Say what you want about the money, but the grades stuff seems a bit racist.
     
  4. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    So if there is no new collective bargaining agreement in place by April, does the NFL still hold a draft?
     
  5. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    Actually, Dog, not only am I going on his alleged record at Florida, and the general reputation of JUCO players, but also from a student at AU who had a class "with" Cam... at least the couple he showed up for. I'd appreciate you excluding me from the racist charge. Thanks.

    edit:
    p.s. Forgive me if I don't invest too much stock in the notion that just because he's receiving passing grades on his transcript at 1) a school where he's alleged to have cheated, 2) a football mill JUCO, and 3) a school that gave out As in sociology like Sonic gives out peppermints, that he was a great student.

    p.s.s. Maybe you weren't referring to my post. Hope not. Clarification would be appreciated, though.
     
  6. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    I'm usually with you on this issue. But, sorry, this time I'm thinking a white player, a chinese player or ANY player would be getting the same cynical reactions on the academic issue if they had Newton's history.

    And your facts are off. First, it wasn't "four years ago" that the UF allegations occurred, it was the year before last, and it wasn't just a single allegation that he'd cheated on "a test", it was allegations that, at the time of his transfer announcement, he faced a hearing and probable expulsion for being caught cheating THREE times, including putting his name on another student's paper and turning in work that had been purchased off the internet (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5783051).

    And are you seriously citing acceptance at Blinn Junior College as proof of academic performance at UF? Umm, do you anything about the admissions standards at Blinn Junior College? Trust me, they'd have accepted an athlete with Newton's talent even if he'd flunked Intro to Name Writing at UF.

    And are you seriously citing acceptance at Auburn as proof of academic performance at Blinn? Again, do you know anything about the junior college system? Or Auburn? Trust me, it didn't take a whole lot of bookwork to meet that admission standard.

    Then we get the pay for play allegations found to be entirely WITH merit (yet inexplicably unpunished) by the NCAA, then he bolts for the NFL after the first semester and only one season of football. You really think this guy was ever a serious college student?
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    All of which says very little about how smart or dumb he is, only that he's thoroughly uninterested in being a student yet has to pretend to be one in order to play football. Yet on the first page of this thread, there's a post mockingly assuming he can't read or write.

    As I said then, I didn't see such talk about Mallett or Gabbert. Come to think of it, Brett Favre is no Rhodes Scholar either, but you don't hear much talk on that.
     
  8. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Point taken. After further review, I agree that Page 1 post by "flexmaster" is embarrassing crap with possibly-racist undertones. In no way am I endorsing that piece of dung.

    However, your flawed double standard argument with Gabbert and Mallett is way off base. Newton isn't getting the skeptical reactions to his academics because he left school a year early, it's because of all the other stuff. If he'd put in three years at one university without controversy, as did Gabbert, nobody would be questioning him on those grounds. And Gabbert WOULD be getting it if he'd faced the prior cheating allegations, the juco pit stop, the pay for play allegations, left after only one semester at his current U (and played for a notorious football factory/diploma mill like Auburn) like Newton did. Entirely different situations.

    As for Favre, the comparison doesn't apply because he's a pro so nobody cares about his academic issues. And when he was a collegian hardly anybody had ever heard of him. But if he'd been a high profile Heisman winner with Newton's sketchy history you'd have heard a similar tone of uneducated redneck jokes, much like I recall hearing them about Andy Katzenmoyer when SI released details of his sketchy academics as an OSU star in the late 90s.
     
  9. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    FWIW, Gabbert made an all-academic team or two
     
  10. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    Compound fractures of at least two limbs would be a good start.

    Not enough bad things can happen to that dirtbag.

    An Auburn man, indeed.

    Somebody ought to send ESPN a cheap-shot lowlight reel. Or better yet, post it on YouTube.
     
  11. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    racist
     
  12. dog428

    dog428 Active Member

    Sorry, I guess I managed to double click this and post it without entering anything. My bad.


    Let's take it from the top. OK, maybe I exaggerated a bit on how long ago the UF allegations of cheating were, but that's a far cry from exaggerating the seriousness of those allegations -- assuming the allegations were actually true, which is a rather large assumption given the source of the report on it. Even if Newton had done all the shit that was claimed in that story, a suspension was most likely the worst punishment he was going to face. Yes, expulsion was probably listed as the worst possible outcome, but there's likely no way he would've been expelled for that shit, and expulsion damn sure wasn't likely.

    As for the entrance standards of Blinn, I don't know what they are and I don't give a shit. I do know, however, the transfer/eligibility requirements of the NCAA -- even for a player taking the JUCO route -- and that player still has to maintain degree progress and a certain GPA level.

    As for Auburn and the sociology stuff, I looked into this when it happened and did a few stories on the popularity of directed reading courses at colleges all over the country. This wasn't an Auburn athletic dept. problem, it was a school problem -- an easy-way-for-us-to-pocket-cash problem at bunches of universities, which were saving the costs of employing numerous teachers by running students through these bullshit courses. The percentage of athletes in those classes at Auburn was no higher than the percentage of regular students.

    Were they handing out As, as someone else suggested? I guess, technically, that was somewhat accurate. But the story was shaped in a way that made it seem as though they were handing them out to athletes, and that was bullshit.

    As for Auburn's academic standards, I think if you looked you might be surprised, which is the case with most SEC schools. Regardless, though, I don't give a shit about Auburn's academic standards, because they're not important. The NCAA's are. And those required that Newton have a decent GPA and be on course to graduate in his declared major -- a standard even regular students are not held to. Not only that, because he was a JUCO transfer who transferred without a degree, he had to meet a higher GPA standard.

    Trust me, it took a lot of "bookwork" to meet that admission standard.

    As I said, if people want to call the guy a slimy shithead for the cheating stuff, OK. There's a bit of evidence that could be pointed to there. But this other bullshit, where people use any small error or slipup, no matter how irrelevant that slipup might be, in order to pass judgment on the mental competency of a black QB, it's not right.
     
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