Cam Newton Addresses the Viral Fight
Last week, former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton was involved in a fight at a 7-on-7 youth football camp in Georgia. Friday morning, Newton finally addressed the brawl and apologized to everyone involved during his show, 4th & 1, on YouTube.
The backstory
"They were former coaches up under my organization C1N, so we have tenure. There were a lot of clips (saying) kids were 'jumping' on Cam. These were coaches. These were grown men. And anybody that knows me, I use football as my way of giving back to the community from camps to tournaments to many other things. How they began their involvement to the program is just like anybody else, I just let them come. It's an open door policy. I will never tell you not to come. Over the years, their roles expanded because they kept showing up and they were impacting the kids, building great relationships. And how it morphed was this - When I was in the NFL, I never had time to actually show face to the kid events so I would assign that to my coaches or my staff members. This is why I say it takes a village. It's sad to say but if we're just being honest, a lot of our kids are being raised in single parent households. So our coaches serve as father figures to these kids. Our coaches serve as male positive role models for these kids. A lot of our coaches have been where these players are trying to go. So it's natural for them to build meaningful relationships with the players. So yes, they were a part of that program of C1N and that's where the familiarity came from."
What happened
"I think that's a part of sports. You play tennis, golf, basket weaving, cricket, you play whatever sport - obviously football is a very physical sport. Verbal communication is what people use to distract, to deter, to get in another person's head and there was a lot of talking on both sides. I don't want to point the finger and say well, this person said this or that person said that. Am I saying this is the first time it happened or last time it will happen? It's just something that... it starts with words and it should have ended with words. That's it. I'm disappointed in myself by letting it escalate to what it did and that's why I'm apologetic to it. The truth of the matter is, I should have never put myself in that position because that s*** could have got ugly. For real. It could have. This is a serious situation. I even seen a clip that said people are laughing, but they weren't laughing about Nipsey. What if serious injury would have happened on either side? Something happened to me, something happened to them... now my eight children are father-less because I'm being sued or I got something. They say don't make a rational judgement in the heat of the moment. Dare I say I'm not going to ever do it again, but I just let that situation escalate in a way it didn't need to happen."
Cam's message
"This is what I really want the narrative to be. To every single high school player, to every single person I've influenced, to every single athlete - use my situation as a way to understand that in one moment and in one decision, your life can change. Just like that. I let my emotions get the best of me and it should not have been called for. Simple. With that, I apologize to anybody affected - that's Steph, TJ, their organization. C1N, my organization, my players, parents, my staff members. And when you really debrief from days after, it really puts things into perspective."
