Cam Newton often talks about his experiences as a young, Black athlete growing up in Atlanta and then spending a brief stint as a Florida Gator in college before transferring to a junior college in Texas and eventually settling in, making history and ascending to No. 1 overall pick and National Champion at Auburn.
Cam Newton Says Attending PWI Florida Was Weird For 17-Year-Old From Atlanta
Cam’s first taste of college ball came as a backup to Tim Tebow at Florida. Newton, now 36, recalled his introduction to the college experience on an episode of T.I. ‘s “expediTIously with Tip T.I. Harris” podcast. Cam reveals an interesting look into the mind of a 17-year-old Black athlete attending a PWI with people that didn’t look like him for the first time. Interestingly, he says it was the first time he felt “equal” to white people.
“That was the first time I was around Caucasians on a regular basis that we were in some way, shape, or form equal,” Newton explained. “Being in Atlanta, on the south side of Atlanta, the only time you experience or come into contact with a Caucasian is because that Caucasian is in a senior position, a teacher, a coach, an officer.”
Cam Newton Says Playing For Florida Gators Was First Time He Felt Equal To Whites
Cam says the comradery of being a teammate with a white person who wasn’t in a position of power was a unique cultural dynamic for him. It was also awkward for him because he had never had personal interaction with an unmelannated person and his mind was filled with all of the biases and fears that everyone has when they don’t personally interact to find that everyone is human. He also said the experience was overwhelming for him as a 17-year-old who graduated high school a semester early.
“So now I’m walking around white people as teammates. Like I don’t know how to interact with [them],” Newton continued, detailing the experience as “weird.”
Cam Newton Says Being Around Caucasians For First Time Changed His Way Of Thinking
Newton also said the experience at Florida expanded his mind and taught him that many of the preconceived notions that are forms about people come from a lack of interaction and simple understanding.
“So, it is crazy to me when people be saying ‘This this person is racist’ or this that and the third,” Newton added. “I’m saying that person just don’t know because when you really talk to people and you start to say, ‘When was the first time you came into contact on a regular basis with a person that didn’t match your gender, your race, your ethnicity, your religion, all in the melting pot,’ you will be shocked at what you find.”
Newton was learning all of these things while trying to shed his own negative perceptions of how his skin color limited his life’s ambitions and ways of interacting with others.
His time in Gainesville didn’t last long. He transferred from Florida in 2008 following a theft charge and his career was in limbo. His reputation is a bit battered. Newton was at ground zero and forced to mature and take control of his destiny. Everything came together for him at Auburn.
Cam Newton Says Hitting Rock Bottom After Leaving Florida Following Theft Charge Was Best Thing For Him
In his conversation with T.I., Newton explained why hitting rock bottom helped reshape his outlook on his future.
Newton has been open and honest about his church upbringing and how incidents and experiences in his adolescent years have affected his approach to various things, such as relationships with women and marriage.
Last month, the 2011 NFL MVP sat down with T.D. Jakes’for the longtime pastor’s iHeartPodcast “NXT Chapter,” and tried to clarify some of his views on marriage that have been attacked on social media.
Cam Newton Has Nine Kids, Never Been Married
Cam has never been married but has nine children. He’s also expressed his disappointment in the past for creating what others call broken homes. Cam Newton has nine children in total. He has four children with his ex-girlfriend Kia Proctor: Chosen, Camidas, Cashmere, and Sovereign-Dior, as well as two children with his current girlfriend Jasmin Brown: a daughter born in March 2024 and a son born in October 2025.
“It’s always misunderstood about my thought process of marriage,” Newton says. “I think for me growing up in church, my expectations of what marriage looked like were pristine.” As he got older it didn’t help that he was experiencing life as a celebrity. He was meeting plenty of people, especially women, who were as prolific at the game of high value macking as he was at football. All of the things that go with being a superstar athlete definitely tainted his views on marriage and his hope that he would find a woman who valued him and not his persona. Someone similar to the women who raised him and with their values.
“You start to realize, ‘Y’all values of marriage ain’t the same that I was used to,” he concluded.
Cam Newton Doesn’t Shy From Self-Growth Journey
Newton is one of the more open analysts on television, He’s opinionated, but he also shows vulnerabilities that others don’t. Some talking heads stand on a pedestal and when they are challenged the gloves, knives and teeth come out and it transforms into an attack on the credibility of the person who offered their opinion. Newton doesn’t lack confidence, but he also doesn’t have a problem taking a beating, reflecting and even apologizing. It’s called growth.
