<p>MSU fan/graduate here to defend our name:
To summarize a very, very long story: Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen was Newton’s mentor at Florida, and it was long believed that Newton would be attending MSU as late as November 27, 2009, when he was at our final game ringing a cowbell and telling other recruits/coaches he would be coming here. Enter Cecil Newton, Cam’s father, who solicited money from our coaches/1 particular booster. These facts are not in dispute, and Cecil Newton has admitted such. One month later, Auburn came out of nowhere to sign Newton. Cam was quoted in a recent SI articule as saying Cecil told him on Dec. 23, 2009 that he was going to Auburn.
MSU turned info in to the SEC office regarding Cecil’s solicitation. This was all common knowledge among the MSU fanbase from early December of 2009 on. It simply defies logic to believe that MSU (who had the inside track on Cam from day one) was stupid enough to turn ourselves in over something we didn’t do (offer money), and that Cam just suddenly chose to go to Auburn for free.<br>
I will say that I saw Cam play in person this season and I agree that he is the best college athlete I’ve personally ever seen (including Tim Tebow from last season).</p>
<p>Bay - I was stating what I read in Matt Hinton’s (Dr. Saturday) article on Rivals. Hinton does a great job outlining the differences between Bush’s and Newton’s cases. </p>
<p>[Cam</a> Newton will live in NCAA infamy, but he’s not Reggie Bush - Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports](<a href=“http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Cam-Newton-will-live-in-NCAA-infamy-but-he-s-no?urn=ncaaf-291314]Cam”>http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Cam-Newton-will-live-in-NCAA-infamy-but-he-s-no?urn=ncaaf-291314)</p>
<p>To punish a student for a parent’s mistake seems harsh to me. So, should a kid be punished because his/her parent embezzled money? Should a kid be punished because his/her parent robbed a bank? Shouldn’t that kid be kicked out of college because the parent’s antics bring shame on the name of a student at XYZ college? (Thus, the college is shamed, too.) Gee, why don’t we implement the policy of going after the kids of criminals? Maybe that will make Mr. Robber or Ms. Druguser do the right thing. Only in the college football system is a kid expected to pay for the sins of the parent.</p>
<p>^^^ Witness the Madoff case.</p>
<p>^^^Lots of things parents do can have repercussions on our children.</p>
<p>These rules will have ZERO teeth if parents are allowed to go around soliciting money from sports teams knowing that as long as little junior is kept in the dark it will all be okay and no penalties will really result. They will ALL say junior didn’t know.</p>
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<p>It certainly does.</p>
<p>But shouldn’t the parents, the agents, and schools pay instead of the students?</p>
<p>^^^^If parents know that asking for or accepting money will get their kids’ eligibility yanked, they’ll be far less likely to attempt it. Anything else will be a slap on the wrist and nothing will ever change. </p>
<p>And schools who are caught doing this ARE punished. SMU ring a bell? </p>
<p>If it can be proved that Auburn paid the Newtons, Auburn will be penalized.</p>
<p>Cecil Newton certainly must have known that Cam was going to get nailed for pay-for-play violations. Yet, he requested money anyway. Seems like the theory that parent’s will do the right thing if they know their kid is going to get in trouble just doesn’t hold water.</p>
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Why buy a cow when you’re getting milk for free?</p>
<p>The students have to suffer some kind of penalty, or they’ll just say, “Get me the best deal you can but don’t tell me the details.” A Heisman must be worth millions in NFL negotiations so the kid will get hurt in the pocketbook eventually.</p>
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<p>First, that’s an assumption, nothing more. Secondly, Cam hasn’t been nailed for diddly. As the NCAA stated, “he didn’t know about it,” so he’s eligible. And this kind of thing will happen over and over and over because the rules have NO teeth whatsoever with this kind of excuse being acceptable.</p>
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<p>Absolutely they will.</p>
<p>Any solution to all this would have to involve the NFL. It’s silly for the NCAA to penalize, for example, current USC athletes for something done back while they were in middle school. This does not stop the behavior. It’s like saying if a senior in hs gets caught drinking, the prom will be cancelled 6 years from now. </p>
<p>Perhaps infractions could be treated by benching the player in the NFL for one month, up to a year, depending on level of infraction. This wouldn’t really hurt the NFL, since if this rule were put in place, you can guarantee the problem would go away. And the agent should be put on some black list for the same amount of time. To the extent that a school and its students didn’t know or participate in the behavior, penalizing them while doing absolutely nothing to the actual malfeasors accomplishes zero.</p>
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<p>Nope, just the opposite. Cecil knew that there was absolutely zero violations as long as Cam played Sgt. Schultz. Heck, the NCAA already established precedence with a pay-for-play situation at Cal. The then b-ball coach (Todd Bozeman) payed a dad cash to get his kid to sign with Cal. After lengthy investigation, it was shown that the kid knew nothing, “nothing” about the cash that his dad received. The school was placed on probation and coach fired, which included a ncaa ban limiting future coaching. The kid got off penalty free – he transferred and continued to play D1.</p>
<p>Thus, Cecil only has to look at ncaa practice to know that his son would face no penalty.</p>
<p>[Todd</a> Bozeman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bozeman]Todd”>Todd Bozeman - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Great point in post #51 Nrdsb4. It seems that the rules are designed to have no teeth. And another thing, I haven’t had much regard for the executive administration of the NCAA since reading about the basketball scandals when I was in high school. NCAA terribly mistreated those kids from CCNY (no, I am not THAT OLD; I read about it. LOL).</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond. Some very interesting comments. </p>
<p>I think I am more perturbed over Cam putting his name on a fellow UF classmate’s test and stealing a laptop than I am on whether or not he knew that his dad was trying to extract money from MSU. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t. Maybe MSU blew the whistle on themselves because they felt “scorned”, just like Reggie Bush’s former agent felt scorned when he changed agents-- I’m not sure. What I AM sure about is that Cam Newton has a flawed character. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree… </p>
<p>The “integrity” of the Heisman award was violated, maybe not in him personally orchestrating pay for play but certainly in test and laptop stealing, and I’m having a hard time getting over this.</p>
<p>No matter what anyone does, when there is as much money involved as there is in big college sports, someone will always do their best to cheat the system. The only way to make it honest is to take the money out of it and just as surely as campaign finance taints politics, money taints college athletics.</p>
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<p>Did Newton’s parents actually receive anything?</p>
<p>^I’m not sure it makes a big difference, since there was “intent” on the part of Cam Newton’s father.</p>
<p>For what crime is there not a big difference between attempted X and actually doing X?</p>
<p>Cam Newton: Parent illegally acted as an agent on the player’s behalf. Player didn’t know. School didn’t know
Reggie Bush: Parents received substantial illegal benefits. Player received extra benefits. School official knew about extra benefits.</p>
<p>The idea that there isn’t a difference here is absurd.</p>