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The ICON Life: Cam Newtons Younger years.

In Fulton County, Georgia has a popular city named College Park. Home to names we know as Ludacris-Rap Artist, Creflo Dollar-Preacher, Josh Smith of the Altanta Hawks, Monica- Beautiful R&B singer who I would marry and have a Baseball team of children with, and a few lesser know names. One in particular would be are very own Cam Newton.

Life starts out slow than speeds up, some of us gradually come along not Mr. Newton. Seaborn Lee [Elementary] was where our QB started his education. Little is known other than reports of him always being full of energy. Like all normal kids do Cam grew up a little, bumped up a knoch in schooling and started attending Camp Creek Middle School. This would be where his promenence to glory would be set in motion. When Newton arrived as a sixth-grader at Camp Creek Middle School, the bookish-looking child with glasses and an afro had become more than a handful for teachers.

Caldwell taught Newton math at Camp Creek Middle School in Atlanta, where she continues to teach.

"He was probably a B student. Learning came naturally to him. It was difficult to get him to focus and settle down because he had a lot of energy. The same level of energy you see on the football field today is the same level we saw in the Camp Creek hallways. He was a child who liked to have a good time and laugh."

"He was a bright person, a joyful spirit and a really happy child. He was very friendly, had lots of friends and he had wonderful parents who were extremely supportive of him and his education. You just knew with the level of support he had at home that he was going to do big things. I'm incredibly proud of him. He comes here every school year to visit, just to say hello says Marie Caldwell, a teacher at Camp Creek.

Twayne Eddie, Newton's 7th grade basketball coach at Camp Creek Middle School, remembered him as a student “full of energy, always smiling, and [someone who] just liked to have fun.”While at Camp Creek, Newton told his teachers he would someday be a professional football player. The school didn’t have a team, but students remember classmates buzzing even back then about his football ability in youth leagues.

“We had Cam,” she recalls students saying. “That’s why we won.”

Cam has the ability to lead, this is what I believe is his greatest characteristic. We see from the little I gather from his early years this guy was hyper. He explodes with charm, and has a smile worthwhile. So when you hear people state that Cam has a fake smile, just remember what Coach Eddie had to say about our Qb from his younger years. Westlake High was his next stop. Cam was so ready to get to a school with a active football roster. All he ever wanted to do was play.

A former student peer says, "The first time I met Cam Newton, I was an 8th grader at Camp Creek Middle School in College Park, Georgia. As cliché and predictable as it may seem, I was in gym class one day when we made our way outside to play some football. The class was full of kids from 6th, 7th and 8th grade and I remember this one scrawny kid with glasses being particularly good and seemed to be a tad bit more competitive than the rest of us. It was P.E, who cared? Cam Newton apparently did. At the time, it was admittedly difficult to foresee him being a future Heisman Trophy winning, National Championship QB, but the kid had skills". Cam Newton from his Freshman year to his sophomore year gained 3 inches and 15-20 pounds, making him more physical than other students.

That student would go on to 'say, Three years later, 2004, my junior year at Westlake High School in Atlanta, GA is when I would meet Cam Newton again. By this time, I had played baseball and taken a class or two with his older brother Cecil Jr. I had heard plenty of stories of how good the younger Newton was on the gridiron, which was fine, but nothing to go crazy over. You have to understand that Westlake High School and South Fulton County in general are places where plenty of gifted athletes come through and make their mark. From Westlake’s Class of 2002 Adam "Pacman" Jones (current Cincinnati Bengal) to Creekside’s Class of 2007 Eric Berry (current Kansas City Chief), there have always been hot shot freshmen coming into the school that people say has the potential to be great.

I still had no reason to believe that Cam Newton in particular would be one of the very few that actually lived up to some monstrous, unknown potential. He showed up to high school, noticeably taller but still somewhat scrawny. Cam’s freshman year at Westlake, he would dress out with the varsity football team and line up at wide receiver from time to time. That ’04 team was extremely talented and featured seniors that would go on to play college ball at Duke, University of Florida, Florida State, Tennessee State and Marshall among others. At Westlake, it was not common for a freshman to get much playing time at the varsity level, but Cam was good enough to play. His opportunities would only increase in his sophomore season when he hit a colossal growth spurt.

More from coaches he played under, well here is one I liked, Allen coached Newton at Westlake and is now coach at Douglass.

"He was a really good player. He looks the same now as he did at Westlake. They tackled him by jumping on his back or tripping him up. He was as big as most defensive linemen and bigger than most linebackers. We worked with him on focusing, finishing the play and staying in the pocket."

"I can't recall who we were playing, but Cameron didn't play the first two quarters of one game. He was maybe late for practice or something like that. We were trailing big-time and I think my words to the coaches were, ‘We'll be fine when Mr. Newton gets in the ballgame.' We had 51 points in the second half. He was doing the same things as he's doing now."

In 2005, as a junior, He ran for 638 yards with 9 touchdowns and threw for 2,500 yards, completing 118 out of 189 pass attempts for 23 touchdowns with 9 interceptions. As a senior at Westlake, he threw for 1,400 yards and ran for another 1,000 yards. Newton was considered one of the nation's top quarterback prospects but most teams that recruited Newton out of high school wanted him as a tight end. During the recruiting process, he had more than 40 scholarship offers. Then-Florida coach Urban Meyer recruited Newton and told him and his family he would get an opportunity to play quarterback, despite the Gators already having quarterback Tim Tebow.

As we see Cam Newton had a exciting child-hood much different then mine, I was always the kid bragging about our school having guys like this. Well not like Cam, but after what I have discover today I don't think anybody has ever been to a school with a guy like this. I am very excited to know that the Cam we see today is the Cam from back in the day. So lets allow Cam to be who he is, a smiling-upbeat guy with heart, determenation and great character. Go Carolina Panthers and like others have said before " We are going to win, because we got Cam!!!"

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