Cam Newton Explains How He Handled That Teenager Who Chirped Him and the Kid Apologizes
The most surprising thing about this viral video that Coley posted about yesterday:
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... is that anyone would say "he didn't handle it well" or that he was "triggered" or that somehow he needed to be more adult than he was. How anyone who has ever come in contact with a disrespectful teenager in the last 20 years could somehow think there's a right and proper way to be the "adult" in that situation is absolutely beyond me.
It's the Kobyashi Maru of social situations, the Unwinnable Scenario. You either say nothing in which case you're simply helping to further empower the monster that someone else gave birth to. Or you put him in his place, in which case you get dragged by the very same grown ups who should be leading the cheers for you because we need to be in this together. Meanwhile, little Twirpy McDisrespect here has nothing to lose. He goes viral. Becomes a TikTok legend. He goes back to school as a conquering hero. And has a story he'll be telling at the bar when he's 50 about the time he pissed off a celebrity. It's a classic case of asymetric warfare. And I defy anyone to handle it as well as Newton did.
Naturally, no sooner did all of Newton's critics hop on him for not "being better," we got another video that explains a lot.
Sweet Jesus. Newton deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for this. That's not a guy that's triggered. He's not even angry. He's just talking to the kid like a guy who's had more life experiences than probably every camper on that field will have in their lifetimes. Combined. Not condescending. Not stooping to anyone's level. Simply being unfazed and establishing his upper hand.
And he further addressed it in his personal Newtonian Camguage:
To translate this into the Latin alphabet:
What you didn’t see.
I see there are alot of things festering out there that I see have took place over the weekend…To the natural eye you see me asking the young man “Where is your dad at?” but to me talking to a child with everyone looking does me no good, so instead of speaking or going back and forth with a child, I wanted to have a man to man conversation with his father.
People often forget as athletes that are often seen on TV, loved by most hated by some, people often forget we are real dads, real friends, real brothers, real sons, real human beings etc, with that being said, when I attend tournaments all across the country with my Allstar team, I have given my time, my energy and my expertise to these kids coming into our program over 11 years and that is not what people want to hear or even want to see. people want to see me arguing with another young man and to see me get in my feelings, but the truth is this, I impact kids lives in a positive way, make no mistake about it I allow kids to realize there “out” by using their football talents to get them to the next level and in most cases out of the hood, so with that being, have yourself an unbelievable rest of your day.
And that is how you win an argument over a nasty teenager with nothing to lose. You go over his head whenever possible. Have a talk with his father. Hope he's the kind of dad you can reason with who'll give his little ingrate a dope slap for embarrassing his parents with his rotten behavior. And if he's not, you tell the guy what a shitty job he's doing raising his kid. Either way, you come away with your dignity intact.
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And in this case, the way Newton handled it has gotten the desired result. The player in question has done the rarest thing among petulant, ill-mannered Generation Z types. He issued a groveling apology.
So this was a job well done by Cam. He stayed on the high road and taught the lad an important life lesson that had somehow escaped him before now. But in the future, Newton might consider just going full Prestige Worldwide on the next one.