Should Newton have been allowed to win Heisman? Should his dad have been there?

To no one’s surprise, Cam Newton is the 76^th winner of the Heisman Trophy. No reason to have a discussion about whether or not he deserved to win. Since I’m just a hack sitting in my living room, I don’t have access to inside information. I believe that part of the criteria for voting for the Heisman involves character and integrity. I’m not sure of that. Even so, if voters want to award the trophy to Newton that’s fine.

Let’s address the huge elephant in the room. Should Newton have been declared ineligible? This bizarre story took yet another twist about a week and a half ago when Auburn declared Newton ineligible and then appealed to the NCAA to get a ruling on his eligibility. While it appears that there is no debate about the fact that Cecil Newton did ask Mississippi State for money to sign his son, apparently the NCAA declared Cam Newton eligible since there was no evidence that he knew what his dad had done.

Wow. Let’s start with whether or not we think Cam knew that his dad was pimping him out. This isn’t  a court of law, so don’t worry about innocent until proven guilty. This is the court of public opinion. Ours. While it seems unlikely that a son wouldn’t know that his dad was asking schools for money, I do think it’s possible. However, I find it hard to believe that the NCAA says that the player’s eligibility relies on whether or not he knew what a family member or street agent was doing. They nail someone for giving a kid $20 for a hamburger but it’s okay for a dad to ask for $200K for his son’s signature?

How are we really to know if the kid knew? How is the NCAA really to know? It’s crazy. Not to mention that a Mississippi State assistant coach says that Newton called to apologize for backing out of his verbal commitment to MSU and said that his dad chose Auburn cause the money was too good.

Too much smoke for there not to be fire.  And a bad precedent for the NCAA to set. All that said, as a dad I found it sad that Cecil Newton was not at the Heisman Award ceremony. I hated missing any of my kids’ games, I can’t imagine missing that. Even with everything,  he should have been there to celebrate with Cam.