See ya, Superman

SuperCam

Cam Newton says it is time for him to fly off to the NFL. And this is how I’ll remember the guy, a big joyous balloon-like creature — because balloons make you smile — flying out of the light holding something that I’ll choose to think of as a popsicle stick. Because if balloon creatures make you smile, then a balloon creature bringing popsicle sticks is all the better.

By happenstance I was taking that picture at about the same time Newton was announcing his goodbyes.

Yes, yes. Cam Newton was at the center of a controversy that was either manufactured or so shady as to be disbelieved, depending on whom you believe. I don’t know, and you still don’t either. What is definitive is that he was a nice part of a renaissance of fervor in the Auburn community and he did nice things while he was here, too. All of that won’t soon be forgotten, I’m sure.

We’d told ourselves the last several years that Tim Tebow was one of the greatest to ever play college football. And he was. So was Cam Newton. Consider: the guy played on three national championship programs in a row at Florida, Blinn and Auburn. Statistically you can’t get much more gaudy than his 1,473 yards rushing and 4,327 yards in total offense for the year. His 51 (!!!) scores — 20 rushing, 30 passing and one receiving — are more than 80something teams in big-time college football manufactured this season.

He wasn’t Auburn’s entire team, but he alone was statistically better than most of what you could see on Saturdays. He broke records previously owned by men named Tebow and Bo Jackson and Jimmy Sidle.

(That last one stood for more than 40 years. Newton would pick up the AP Player of the Year, the Walter Camp, the Maxwell, the Davey O’Brien and the Heisman awards, all as a matter of course. Best ever? If he was not he was darn close.)

His teammate, Lombardi award-winning defensive bear-dragon Nick Fairley will declare for the draft tomorrow. I can’t show a representation of him. Balloons can’t be twisted into savage rage machines. (He’s apparently a very nice young man off the field, though.)

So good luck to them, and all of their departing teammates, two dozen seniors in all. It has been a pleasure cheering you on and it’ll be nice seeing you when you return to the plain for a visit. War Eagle.

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