In college Cam Newton had been dogged by allegations of academic cheating and stealing. Despite the controversy he won the Heisman Trophy and was the first player selected in the 2010 NFL draft (Carolina Panthers). In the spring of 2011 he visited the NFL Combine, the place where NFL draft picks perform athletic and mental skill tests for NFL coaches, general managers and scouts. Newton’s performance was horrible, convincing some experts that he was not worthy of winning the Heisman and others that he didn’t have the skill set to even play in the NFL. Newton was criticized after his first appearance in an NFL pre-season game by a sportswriter who wrote that he was too hesitant.
In the regular season as it turned out , Newton was anything but hesitant. He came out firing. In his first two NFL starts he passed for over 400 hundreds yards in each game, something that had never been done by a rookie. Three games into the 2011 season Newton had already passed for 1,000 yards, another NFL record. Cam Newton went on set the NFL passing yardage mark for rookies, passing for almost 4000 yards in a season. In the process Newton rushed for 14 touchdowns, the most in a season by any quarterback in NFL history. Whether or not he made mistakes in his collegiate career Cam Newton had been judged prematurely and condemned to fail. One mistake he didn't make, was allow what other people thought to become his reality. Instead he responded by having the best rookie season of any NFL quarterback in the history of the sport.
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