Tennessee mother can’t explain Cam Newton’s dancing, so it’s his fault

A Tennessee mother of a 9-year old girl did this week what lazy sportswriters have been doing for pay for decades: She wrote Cam Newton an open letter, also conveniently sending a copy to the Charlotte Observer so that the Carolina Panthers nation that supports Newton can see why she’s so darned upset.

Newton, you see, celebrated his and his team’s success on Sunday against the Tennessee Titans. He displayed, per Rosemary Plorin’s letter, “chest puffs,” “pelvic thrusts,” “arrogant struts” and “in your face taunting” of Titans players and fans alike. (And here I thought Chest Puffs was a breakfast cereal, and Arrogant Struts a promising power-punk band.)

[Yahoo Daily Fantasy Football: First place wins $100K in our $500K contest for Week 10]

It’s a wonder Plorin is alive and well enough to tell the tale this week.

Her issue is that she didn’t know what to tell her daughter, who had questions about Newton’s behavior on the field. So it’s Newton’s fault; he’ll have to answer to the little girl who may or may not have been left scarred by this prurient and obstreperous behavior.

Feel the Plorin family struggle:

And because you are a role model, your behavior brought out like behavior in the stands. Some of the Panthers fans in our section began taunting the hometown fans. Many Titans fans booed you, a few offering instructive, but not necessarily family friendly, suggestions as to how you might change your behavior.

My daughter sensed the change immediately — and started asking questions. Won’t he get in trouble for doing that? Is he trying to make people mad? Do you think he knows he looks like a spoiled brat?

Here’s the deal, ma’am: This one is on you. You don’t have to accept Newton as a role model. If you truly find his behavior unacceptable, then tell your daughter that’s how you feel. At some point, she’ll have to make her own mind up about such things, and based on your documentation of her high-powered perception, congrats on having the most self-aware 9-year-old on the planet. We’re confident she’ll mentally unpack this riddle and avoid years of trauma quite nicely.

But the fact that Rosemary Plorin couldn’t deal with a celebratory athlete, well, sorry about that one. The NFL might not be for the Plorin family. (An aside: Thank goodness Greg Hardy and the Dallas Cowboys are not scheduled to come to Nashville in the next several seasons!)

Do we have video of Newton grabbing his crotch? Is there footage of a throat slash in the archives? Documented sound of him berating anyone in the stands? If we do, I’ll reconsider what is said here. So far we have this as evidence of his wrongdoing — judge for yourself:

Newton is a fascinating study. Some say he’s arrogant (which may be true; I’m not sure). Some say he’s still a prisoner of his own emotions, which play out on the field. But after a troubled college career at Florida, here’s one thing you can’t really say: that Newton is a bad guy. He’s quite the giving athlete in the role-model sense. Newton seems to love kids and give them his time, that famous smile and plenty of footballs after he scores touchdowns. In this regard, he’s not unlike LeBron James, fully finding himself in the can’t-win category of public image.

Like it or not, Newton is a star, and if we’re placing him on the good-guy NFL scale, he’s got to be somewhere close to the top. Teammates who have been with him since the start of his career (or close) — I’ve talked to them — have remarked how much he’s matured, how far he’s come as a leader and how thoughtful he is to fans. If there’s recent dirt on him, it certainly hasn’t seen the light of day.

So Rosemary, we suggest looking at other players in the NFL for a barometer. There are far worse human beings than Newton in this league; there are weekly celebrations that are very much in line, and perhaps beyond, with what Newton did. There are specific NFL guidelines for what players can do after touchdowns, and the referees let Newton’s actions go.

Has anyone seen Aaron Rodgers’ fake-belt celebration? Or Tom Brady’s profanity-laced sideline antics — after a score or a turnover? Or, worse yet, Doug Baldwin’s Super Bowl TD or anything Michael Bennett does after a sack? And one more: Arizona Cardinals backup QB Drew Stanton dances from the sideline, and the internet celebrates with glee. But Newton? He gets a stern letter from a peeved woman, and she’s likely not alone in her thinking. Hmm.

If Plorin is going to call out Newton, we certainly can look at her and speculate on her motivation and credentials. She’s a “public relations specialist and crisis communication expert” and “president of Lovell Communications in 2014.” 

Does this not sniff of a bit of opportunity? As a writer, I appreciate Plorin’s verbal control; she writes very well. But her message seems fairly trash. Certainly a “crisis communications expert” will have a better solution to explaining Newton to her daughter than to point her toward scantily clad cheerleaders who are, um, dancing.

I didn’t have great answers for her, and honestly, in an effort to minimize your [Newton’s] negative impact and what was otherwise a really fun day, I redirected her attention to the cheerleaders and mascot. 

We’re certainly glad she didn’t have her daughter look at the mocking response to Newton of angelic Titans linebacker Avery Williamson after he collected — heh — half a sack.

Plorin might have grown up in Nashville during the Elvis Presley era when it was a TV rule that he wasn’t to be filmed below the waist. No pelvic thrusts allowed! But in this chest-puff era, Newton’s actions are quite the norm. We suggest she use the next two weeks before the Titans’ next home game to re-evaluate her perspective a bit.

Grandstanding: A Yahoo Sports podcast
Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS feed

– – – – – – –

Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm