Should The Coaches Who Fought Cam Newton In His Camp Be Removed From Future Events?
Former Carolina Panthers 2015 MVP quarterback Cam Newton was involved in a bit of a fracas at his own 7-on-7 youth football camp over the weekend, when he was jumped by several young men attending the event. Two coaches, TJ and Steph Brown, was apparently involved in the fight.
During a new episode of Bleav's The Coach JB Show, co-host Darnell Smith of Fox Sports weighed in on whether the coaches involved deserve to face consequences for their actions, and speculated as to what exactly led those coaches to think that kind of misbehavior was okay in the first place.
"It would never come to my mind to even ever lay a finger hand on a big-time player, a coach or anybody there at that camp, for that matter, because I'm representing more than myself. [I] represent my last name, represent my high school, my coaching staff, and especially in today's world, we've got all these cameras everywhere like, you know, sometimes going to be recording it," Smith said. "Like what message are you putting out there? And the fact that what I'm seeing in the video, it was like actual coaches of seven on seven teams who were like the guys who were leading the fight, like, what are you doing? This is a Heisman Trophy winner [at Auburn], a national champion, an MVP, and a guy who led his team to a Super Bowl [in] Cam Newton."
"And listen, we don't know the exact reason why the coaches decided to jump in," Smith allowed. "But what sort of example are you trying to show to these young Black men out there on that field? Because you as a grown ass man, as a leader, as a coach, if you're swinging and not [just] swinging, but swinging on a guy like Cam Newton at his camp, what made you think that your young player would do the same thing when they saw him on Friday night? And a call doesn't go their way with the referee and now they go swinging on the referee. How can you, as a coach or as a leader, be like, 'Nah, I don't do that. You can't do that?' Well, Coach, you did it to Cam Newton and the whole world saw it. So how do you tell me not to do something when you've shown me horrible and poor leadership on your end as a grown ass man... I hope their faces are out there. It's a damn shame."
