The cloud of controversy left Auburn, Ala. and officially traveled to the Downtown Athletic Club in the Big Apple. Cam Newton won his Heisman Trophy in a landslide. That landslide a simple microcosm for the direction the NCAA Infractions Committee went when they declared Newton to be eligible despite the pay-for-play scheme.
So while the United States found the constitutionality in legal segregation (the infamous “separate but equal”), the NCAA found that shopping a player to respective universities is constitutional under the NCAA’s flawed perception of the role of agents and boosters.
But Hey. Newton didn’t know about it, and so Newton created a new law, where the apple really does fall that far from the tree, or the landslide really does fall down in the face of controversy.
The Heisman Trophy Mission Statement’s first sentence states the following: “The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity.”
Newton may have created Newton’s laws to eligibility, but one thing he never exemplified was integrity.
How can you give an award that specifically says it recognizes an athlete who “best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity?”
So Auburn is going to the National Championship and coach Gene Chizik gets his incentives checks.
But the last person to win the Heisman so single-handedly and with the most first-place votes? Wouldn’t you know it, Reggie Bush.
Yes there is a pattern here and one that leads Newton down a similar path. Let the foreshadowing begin.
The investigation is still ongoing and pending. So my advise to the Heisman Trophy Committee: be prepared to play the role of an Indian giver, because in a few years that Heisman Trophy is coming back.
Just like Reggie Bush, when Newton is no longer playing at the college level, people will begin to realize how absurd it was to believe an athlete with a criminal background could be completely oblivious to their own father’s pay-for-play scheme.
And the best part was that the Heisman Committee invited Cecil Newton to the ceremony. So much for “limited” involvement with the university.
The legality for cheating officially has its foot in the door. The question is: how far will it venture into the dark room of the unknown.
The NCAA will find out soon enough that opening a door to the parallel universe isn’t what it is all cracked up to be.