re: Is Cam Newton the most prominent college/professional player in Auburn history?

Bo
Chuck
Cam
Frank
Duffer

Cam and duff are moving up though.

Right now it is still Bo, and by a fairly large margin. Cam is big, but Bo was one of the two most popular prominent athletes in the world for several years (along with Michael Jordan).

Bo had a huge Nike campaign, was a star in video games, and had a Saturday morning cartoon show along with MJ and Gretzky. For those of you who are too young to have seen it, Bo was about as big then as Lebron is now. Cam is big, but not nearly at that level yet. Of course Cam is in the Super Bowl this week and hopefully has years left to play and can get bigger.

Also, this is not an argument about who had the better pro career, which will probably be Cam, but about who was more "prominent" and I take that to be who was the bigger media presence.

Bo's marketing campaign, video game, cartoon etc... was a product of the times when that kind of thing was just taking off. Him and Jordan were both the beneficiaries of that. No athletes will ever hit those larger than life levels again because it's a different era and they aren't larger than life anymore because every game is on television, everything they do is on social media etc... The mystique is gone.

Cam probably is arguably the second biggest star in American sports right now behind Lebron and if he finishes this season off with a Super Bowl I think he will def be there.

I wish Cam Newton would stop scoring TDs and just play football

quote:

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I grew up and was living in KC when he played there. I saw him play live a lot and he was incredible. I knew nothing about AU but I knew he was a good FB player and I remember being mad that he ruined his baseball career playing footbal

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The one and only MLB game I have ever been to was a Royals game in KC when Bo was playing in his prime. Saw him break a couple of bats and run up the wall. Was AUsome!!!

OK, so supposedly (and I didn't see it, I just heard it happened) after Manchester United scored their first goal against Chelsea today, the team did the "dab", followed by the English Premier League announcers talking about Cam Newton.

So international recognition? I guess he's getting there.

This is hard to answer now because Cam is EVERYWHERE due to his and the Panther's success this year.

I think you have to wait till the season is over and see if/when the current hype dies down. I don't think it will be but right now Cam's celebrity could be viewed as the "flavor of the week."

Also, Bo has been removed from the game and there are Bama fans I know who think Bo is amazing. We're not that far removed from Cam and our 2010 season and there are still a lot of butt hurt Bama and UGA fans who can't look past their bias and admit how great an athlete Cam is.