Cam Newton’s journey from Atlanta to the heights of NFL stardom took him to a number of totally different pit stops alongside the way in which. Earlier than he starred at Auburn College, he performed at a junior faculty in Brenham, Texas. However earlier than these locations? A 17-year-old Cam Newton bought his first genuine style of the collegiate expertise on the College of Florida in Gainesville.
Newton, now 36, recalled his preliminary expertise in faculty on an episode of T.I.’s “expediTIously with Tip T.I. Harris” podcast and thought of the primary time he had teammates that didn’t appear to be him was the primary time he felt “equal” to them.
“That was the primary time I used to be round Caucasians regularly that we have been indirectly, form, or kind equal,” Newton defined. “Being in Atlanta, on the south aspect of Atlanta, the one time you expertise otherwise you come into contact with a Caucasian is as a result of that Caucasian is in a senior place, a instructor, a coach, a officer.”
“So now I’m strolling round white individuals as teammates. Like I don’t know the right way to work together with [them],” Newton continued, detailing the expertise as “bizarre.”
“So, or not it’s loopy to me when individuals be saying ‘This this particular person is racist’ or this that and the third,” Newton added. “I’m saying that particular person simply don’t know as a result of if you actually speak to individuals and also you begin to say, ‘When was the primary time you got here into contact regularly with an individual that didn’t match your gender, your race, your ethnicity, your faith, all within the melting pot,’ you may be shocked at what you discover.”
Newton’s time in Gainesville didn’t final lengthy. He transferred from Florida in 2008 following a theft cost and later rose to school soccer superstardom whereas at Auburn in 2010. In his dialog with T.I., Newton defined why hitting all-time low helped reshape his outlook on his future.
Newton’s openness about his upbringing and adolescence has come to gentle on a number of events lately. Final month, he sat down with T.D. Jakes’ for the longtime pastor’s iHeartPodcast “NXT Chapter,” and revealed his views on marriage generally get misconstrued.
“It’s at all times misunderstood about my thought means of marriage,” Newton says. “I believe for me rising up in church, my expectations of what marriage appeared like was pristine.” As he grew older, he discovered extra about grownup issues and the explanations behind individuals’s divorces. “You begin to notice, ‘Y’all values of marriage ain’t the identical that I used to be used to.’”
