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On Saturday night, the least suspenseful Heisman Trophy ceremony in recent memory will culminate with Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton hoisting the statue high up in the air. The junior from College Park, Ga., will be the 76th winner of the prestigious award, and few in attendance or watching at home could even attempt to argue that he wasn’t the most dominant player in college football this season, perhaps ever.
And yet, Newton won’t win the award unanimously this weekend. He might not even win by a landslide. In what has to be a Heisman first, America will be more interested in tracking the winner’s margin of victory than hearing the name of the award’s recipient. The former is a matter of intrigue, the latter a foregone conclusion.
As SportsbyBrooks reported earlier this week, at least eight sportswriters with Heisman votes didn’t include Newton on their ballots. Five of the voters left Newton off their ballots altogether, opting to go with other players, while three — Seth Emerson of the Macon Telegraph, Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union and Kyle Tucker of the Virginian-Pilot — chose to abstain from voting on the award this year. In the coming days, we’ll likely hear from countless other voters who opted to do the same.
Chris Huston, editor of HeismanPundit.com, estimates that 15 to 20 percent of the 925 Heisman voters will leave Newton off their ballots this year. Huston also adds: “This will have no effect on his win, though it won't be as epic a landslide as it would've been sans the scandal.”
Ah, the scandal.
If the 2010 college football season was defined more by what happened off the field than on it (see: UNC’s defense being sidelined for NCAA violations, USC’s postseason ban, A.J. Green’s jersey sales keeping him off the field for four games, Jeremiah Masoli’s controversial Oregon-to-Ole Miss transfer), Newton’s Heisman victory will serve as the perfect microcosm of the year that was. Newton’s Heisman campaign may have been flawless on the field, but off of it, reports of his father and various “runners” allegedly soliciting payment during the player’s 2009 recruitment process both muddied Newton’s name and dominated headlines.
But are the voters who leave Newton off their ballots doing anybody any good? Or is it just another example of a holier-than-thou mass of media members wielding their power when given the chance to do so?
The last suggestion, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly, has created quite a little brouhaha in the blogosphere this week. Too inside baseball for the average college football fan? Perhaps, but the Cam Newton Heisman debate has certainly raised pertinent issues about the trophy itself and the roles the men and women who vote for it are expected to play.
When the NCAA clears a player of accusations and rules him fit to play in its games, is it a media member’s job to suddenly don a robe and swing a gavel?
Jason McIntyre, the editor of the popular sports blog The Big Lead (TheBigLead.com) doesn’t think so.
“Cam Newton has a legitimate chance to have the largest margin of victory in Heisman Trophy history, and I think it's sad that a handful of voters seem to want to prevent that by playing judge and jury,” McIntyre told me this week. “The NCAA determined Cam Newton did nothing wrong. He's eligible to play in the BCS National Championship Game. Yet these writers want to convict Newton on circumstantial evidence — smoke, but no fire — while whining about the ‘integrity’ of the award? That's pathetic.”
“Integrity” is a word worth focusing on, though. Indeed, written on the Heisman’s website, the Heisman Trust’s mission statement includes an “Integrity Clause” that states the following: “The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance and hard work. The Heisman Trophy Trust ensures the continuation and integrity of this award.”
Mike Bianchi, a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, is one of the eight known Heisman voters who opted not to include Newton on his ballot. When I spoke with Bianchi this week, he said: “I take umbrage with people saying I have issued a protest vote of some sort by leaving Cam Newton off my Heisman ballot. It’s not a protest vote at all. I’m simply going by what the Heisman organizers say in the first sentence of the mission statement on the Heisman website.
“It’s right there in black and white for all to see. If the Heisman organizers didn’t want us to take integrity into account, they wouldn’t have included it in the very first sentence of their mission statement. Obviously, integrity is important to them, and I think it should be important to everyone who is voting for the most coveted individual award in all of sports.”
Bianchi notes that although Reggie Bush’s recently returned 2005 Heisman Trophy didn’t necessarily tarnish the award’s reputation, the way things awkwardly played out this year should not be so easily forgotten.
“Just as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa made baseball fans more cognizant of integrity issues in baseball,” Bianchi said, “I think Reggie Bush should make Heisman voters more cognizant of integrity issues in college football.”
In an e-mail exchange earlier this week, Deadspin.com writer Barry Petchesky told me: “The writers have the right to interpret the wording the way they want, but to insist that voting for Newton would somehow impugn the ‘integrity’ of the award is absurd. Billy Cannon took money from Pete Rozelle while in school, and the award's still taken seriously. They took it back from Reggie Bush, and that doesn't affect the integrity of the award itself, only Bush.
“It's just an award for best college football player. Like MVP or POY. That's all most of the country sees it as. It's insane to expect to stand for something more noble than ‘really good at sports.’ There's the ARA Sportsmanship Award for that.”
The grand irony, of course, is that if voters were to somehow come together, agree that what Cam Newton has been accused of is enough to cost him the award and subsequently leave him off all of their ballots, it’d be LaMichael James, a guy who’s actually been arrested this year, who’d likely win the award.
Yes, James, the star running back for Oregon and a fellow Heisman finalist, was arrested back in February on domestic-violence charges for reportedly roughing up his girlfriend in an argument. James was suspended for the first game of the season — a 72-0 blowout of New Mexico — but went on to help the Ducks to an undefeated campaign.
Petchesky said that when compared with the Newton accusations, James’ arrest is “something much worse than taking a little money for your services, at least in the eyes of right-thinking folks who understand that football's just a game.”
In truth, the 2010 college football season will long be remembered as the year the sport was exposed. From start to finish, there seemed to be an ugly marriage scandal, tragedy and a string of unfortunate off-the-field events. Through it all, though, Cameron Newton led Auburn to its first SEC title in seven years and shattered some long-standing records. Without question, he was the best player to step on a football field this season.
But does he represent what the Heisman Trophy stands for? Did Newton’s 2010 season best exhibit the pursuit of excellence with integrity?
“I don’t think I should have to explain myself for taking integrity into account,” Bianchi stressed to me.
“I think other voters should have to explain themselves for not taking integrity into account.”
Fortunately, there’s no award handed out for the player, coach, athletic director, father, booster, agent, runner or tutor who didn’t represent the Heisman Trophy “best” this season.
Sadly, that list of finalists would be far too long.
