Cam Newton dons a shirt with the name of his son on it. (Twitter/DNewtonESPN)
Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has never been one to do anything ordinarily.
Whether it’s the way he celebrates on the field or the way he truthfully answers questions off it, Newton has always been markedly unique. That goes for his personal life, too.
On Christmas Eve of 2015, Newton and long-time girlfriend Kia Proctor gave birth to their first son. They named him Chosen Sebastian.
Unsurprisingly, the name raised a few eyebrows. Newton explained the thought process:
Every person that I’ve had this conversation with I say, ‘I didn’t want him to have the pressure of being the Junior.’ Then they replied with, ‘What the hell do you think Chosen is going to bring?’
It’s something that I think he grows up and appreciates rather than . . . have a couple of names in his class of the same name as him when they’re doing morning roll call and they say his name.
Doing something against the grain, that’s just Newton being Newton.
“That’s different and unique, just like him,” said cornerback Josh Norman. “Everybody has their way of doing things. He has his.”
Although his son is barely a month old, Newton has already made plenty of tributes to Chosen on the field. He did the rock-the-baby celebration just three days after Chosen’s birth, and prior to the Panthers’ divisional-round contest against the Seattle Seahawks, he wore a custom shirt of he and his son “dabbing”:
Cam Newton wore an adorable shirt of his son and him dabbing t.co/MMzzU6Oz9A
Ultimately, though, there’s one thing matters above all the on-field tributes or his son’s name.
“I can attest to one thing, he’s happy to be a dad,” says teammate Jerricho Cotchery. “He’s a proud dad.”
