Auburn Tigers Football: What If Cam Newton Knew Nothing About NCAA Violations?

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer)-All this Cam Newton talk brings back memories of the Albert Means fiasco at Alabama that led to the harshest sanctions the school ever received.

At that time, a rogue booster gave a high school school coach money to use his influence to get Albert to sign with Alabama.

Alabama said it had done nothing wrong, and it hadn't.

Albert Means said he did nothing wrong, and he didn't.

But because the rogue booster was affiliated with Alabama as a prior donor and "booster," here came the sanctions.

Could the same thing happen again?

Could the Auburn staff's hands be clean? Could Cam sincerely know of no wrongdoing? Of course.

But if a rogue Auburn booster has given money to Cam's father's church in return for his dad sending his son to Auburn, or some other scenario, then another tragedy will strike the state of Alabama.

People will point and call Auburn cheaters even though neither the school nor the player has really done anything wrong.

If any Alabama fan wants to gloat over a scenario like that, then they don't deserve the warm embrace of the 'Bama Nation.

If his father was guilty of pimping out his son, that is a tragedy of even bigger proportions.

Time will tell what happened--or maybe it won't--but as a sports writer with a strong SEC slant and an ever-stronger University of Alabama slant, I hope that people give Cam the benefit of the doubt for now.

He's a great athlete who clearly enjoys doing what he does, and it's a joy to see someone with that level of talent for the most part keeping his head on straight.

I can forgive the laptop scandal--kids make mistakes in judgment. 

But he seemed to be making the most of his second chance, and most people were willing to give him that chance.

No one may know what really happened, and unfortunately Cameron Newton may not know either. But regardless, it puts a cloud over his achievements at Auburn and the school's reputation.