Glen Davis Mocks Cam Newton 'Probably Has Woman Problems' 
 
 Glen Davis Mocks Cam Newton: 'Probably Has Woman Problems' 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 Ex-NBA star Glen "Big Baby" Davis says he believes Cam Newton was sincere in his apology -- but that didn't stop him from clowning on the QB last night. 
 
 "I think he was sincere. I think he just made a mistake," Davis said on his way out of Poppy in L.A. ... "He's probably got woman problems or something." 
 
 Davis also said Cam shouldn't sweat losing his Greek yogurt sponsor because he thinks it tastes like "baby food" anyway. 
 
 So, what can Cam do now? 
 
 "I think his clothing should express how he feels. I think he should wear some women's clothing." 
 
 Yeah, hold your breath on that one. ||||| Cam Newton laughed at and belittled one of my sportswriting colleagues at The Observer Wednesday, and that is inexcusable. 
 
 Jourdan Rodrigue, for the past year one of two beat writers assigned by The Observer to cover the Carolina Panthers, asked Newton during his weekly press conference about wide receiver Devin Funchess’s routes. 
 
 “It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes,” Newton said, laughing to himself and then repeating, “It’s funny.” He punctuated the remark with a couple of exaggerated smiles. Only then did he answer the question. 
 
 I was in that room, which held about 30 media members, and there was dead silence when Newton proclaimed “It’s funny” – because actually it wasn’t funny at all. To state the obvious, this is 2017 and not 1967. All Rodrigue wanted to do on Wednesday was her job, and instead she found herself in the middle of a social media firestorm. 
 
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 I don't think it's "funny" to be a female and talk about routes. I think it's my job. — Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) October 4, 2017 
 
 After the news conference, Rodrigue wanted to find Newton and talk about what he said. She did catch up with him briefly. The conversation, according to Rodrigue, was not taped but went something like this: 
 
 She asked the quarterback if he really didn’t think a female could understand routes. 
 
 Newton said she wasn’t really seeing specific routes when watching the game, she was just seeing if somebody was open. She argued that he didn’t know what she saw nor how hard she had studied football, and that maybe the two of them needed to have a deeper conversation. 
 
 Newton said that maybe he should have said it was funny to hear “reporters” talk about routes and that, if she actually did know about them, then she knew more than most reporters. Then he gestured toward the locker room, still filled with her colleagues. 
 
 Rodrigue ended by asking Newton – whom she had introduced herself to on the first day of her employment with The Observer in October 2016 – if he knew her name after she had covered the team almost every day for the past year. 
 
 Newton said he did not. 
 
 “Jourdan Rodrigue, Charlotte Observer,” she said, and then walked away. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera responds to a question about quarterback Cam Newton on Thursday during a press conference at Bank of America Stadium. 
 
 Panthers spokesman Steven Drummond said later Wednesday afternoon via a statement: “I have spoken with Jourdan and Cam and I know they had a conversation where he expressed regret for using those words. We strive as a department to make the environment for media comfortable for everyone covering the team.” 
 
 What should have been forthcoming immediately from the quarterback, of course, was an apology. 
 
 But Rodrigue said Newton did not apologize. She said of Newton’s original comment to her question: “I was dismayed by his response, which not only belittled me but countless other women before me and beside me who work in similar jobs. I sought Mr. Newton out as he left the locker room a few minutes later. He did not apologize for his comments.” 
 
 ‘Just plain wrong’ 
 
 Women have regularly been covering pro sports for decades. Newton’s original comment was sexist and ill-informed, and the follow-up conversation was no better. The NFL understood all this a lot more quickly than the Panthers did and put out its own statement condemning Newton’s comments. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera says that he is working to keep the team focused following the rash of recent events nationally and internationally, including Cam Newton's sexist comments, a shooting in Las Vegas and National Anthem Protes 
 
 “The comments are just plain wrong and disrespectful to the exceptional female reporters and all journalists who cover our league,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Observer. “They do not reflect the thinking of the league.” 
 
 Let me just add this: I’ve been covering the Panthers for the past 23 seasons, and Rodrigue knows more about the subtle intricacies of football than I do. 
 
 For instance: I sort of know what a wide receiver’s “route tree” is. Rodrigue knows exactly what a route tree is and can diagram one for you. 
 
 I kind of understand what a “3” technique is for a defensive lineman. Rodrigue knows just what it means. 
 
 So yes, she’s a 25-year-old woman, and she knows a ton about football. 
 
 Single-minded determination 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Jourdan Rodrigue and Joe Person discuss possible outcomes in Sunday's matchup when the Carolina Panthers take on the New England Patriots. 
 
 Rodrigue isn’t interested in who is going to be singing at the Super Bowl halftime show. She’s interested in covering the actual Super Bowl. She got hooked on football 10 years ago watching Boise State upset Oklahoma 43-42 in one of the greatest college bowl games ever played. She wanted to know everything about the Statue of Liberty, the trick play that helped Boise State pull off the upset. 
 
 She was 15 years old at the time. 
 
 Rodrigue studied the game. She got a subscription to NFL Game Pass. She gravitated toward listening to former players who were announcers since they seemed to know more about what was happening on the field. 
 
 Rodrigue has pursued being a sportswriter with single-minded determination for the past 10 years. She graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State. She interned with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Arizona State athletic department as a sportswriter. She moved to Pennsylvania and wrote about Penn State football, and we were impressed enough to pluck her from there and put her on the NFL beat alongside Joseph Person. 
 
 While at The Observer, she has continued to study. I have watched her time and again have conversations with thoughtful Panthers players such as safety Kurt Coleman and tight end Ed Dickson and ask them increasingly detailed questions about football so she can understand more about it. 
 
 In short, Jourdan Rodrigue knew exactly what she was talking about Wednesday. 
 
 Cam Newton, on the other hand, had no idea. ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE SportsPulse: Trysta Krick provides insight into Cam Newton's sexist comments. USA TODAY Sports 
 
 Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton lost a sponsor in Dannon on Thursday as a result of his comments to a female reporter. (Photo: Jasen Vinlove, USA TODAY Sports) 
 
 Cam Newton is only 28, but he appears to be beholden to another time, an era when he wasn’t alive but must wish he had been, a time when if you were a man who told a joke to demean a woman in a nontraditional role, the world laughed with you. 
 
 How shocked Newton must have been then by the overwhelming silence that greeted his little joke about The Charlotte Observer’s Carolina Panthers beat writer Jourdan Rodrigue Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Newton looked so pleased with himself as he dropped his punchline on what was an entirely appropriate question about one of his receivers: 
 
 "It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes,’” Newton smirked dismissively. 
 
 More: Panthers coach Ron Rivera: Newton's comments were 'mistake' 
 
 More: Contrary to what Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton says, sexism isn't funny 
 
 The Panthers interview room was filled with about 30 sports media members, most of them male. Not a one of them laughed. “Dead silence” is the way veteran Observer columnist Scott Fowler described it. 
 
 The noise, it turns out, was on its way. It came a couple of hours later on social media, and it was deafening. It appeared in the form of tweets — from women and, more important, from men, especially men in the sports media — defending Rodrigue specifically and women in sports media in general while lambasting Newton. 
 
 For those of us who often had to go it alone in the midst of this kind of sexist nonsense 25-30 years ago, the reaction was as heartening as it was eye-opening. A thought crossed my mind: While Newton’s comment came from somewhere deep in the middle of the 20th century, this national response I was witnessing definitely belonged in the here and now. 
 
 I thought back to 1990, to what happened to the Boston Herald’s Lisa Olson, who left the country — yes, the country — after being horribly mistreated by several New England Patriots, then by some Boston media members and fans. 
 
 And now this. The sports world was calling out sexism and pointing its finger at the perpetrator while defending a professional woman in a way I had never seen. 
 
 The NFL in particular came down forcefully on Newton, calling his words “just plain wrong and disrespectful to the exceptional female reporters and all journalists who cover our league.” 
 
 Then, Thursday around noon, Dannon announced it was dumping Newton as a spokesperson for its Oikos brand. 
 
 “We are shocked and disheartened at the behavior and comments … which we perceive as sexist and disparaging to all women.” 
 
 I’m not saying that's a first, but I’m having trouble remembering a company in the past reacting that quickly to sexism. Racism, yes. But sexism? 
 
 Then came Gatorade. It didn’t cut ties to Newton, but it did severely lecture him, saying his comments were “objectionable and disrespectful to all women.” 
 
 Why Newton and the Panthers didn’t issue blanket apologies Wednesday night in the midst of the onslaught against Newton will remain an unsolved mystery. 
 
 Perhaps, boys being boys, they didn’t think it was that big of a deal. 
 
 Isn’t it wonderful to see how wrong they were? ||||| Cam Newton should have known better. When he smirked and laughed at a woman trying to do her job Wednesday afternoon and said it’s “funny to hear a female talk about routes,” he should have known better. Newton should have know that he was fueling the same stupid bias and prejudice that blacks in the NFL have had to fight against to become quarterbacks. 
 
 He should have known better Wednesday afternoon, but the 28-year-old put his foot in his mouth and belittled and degraded Charlotte Observer reporter Jourdan Rodrigue and a lot of other women whose only offense was to dare to cover sports. 
 
 Thursday, however, Newton taught us an equally important lesson. We can learn to be better. We can listen to someone else’s point of view, admit when we are wrong, apologize and move on. We could all use to do that a little more often. 
 
 After taking a pile of criticism for his stupid comments, after losing a very lucrative sponsor in Dannon Yogurt and perhaps others, and hearing from the NFL that it wasn’t smart to insult nearly 67.5 million of the league’s’ fans, Newton apologized. 
 
 Cam Newton issues apology after sexist comment 
 
 “After careful thought, I understand my word choice was extremely degrading and disrespectful to women and to be honest that was not my intention,” Newton said in a video released via Twitter. “If you are a person who took offense to what I said, I sincerely apologize to you. 
 
 “I’m a man who tries be a positive role model in my community and tries to use my platform to inspire others,” he continued. “I take ownership of everything that comes with that. What I did was extremely unacceptable.” 
 
 Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton acts like just another sexist bully with his press conference behavior. (Stephen Brashear/AP) 
 
 It was, of course, totally unacceptable to respond to this question: 
 
 “Cam, I know you take a lot of pride in seeing your receivers play well. Devin Funchess has seemed to really embrace the physicality of his routes and getting those extra yards. Does that give you a little bit of enjoyment to see him kind of truck-sticking people out there?” 
 
 Cam Newton makes sexist remark at female reporter’s question 
 
 With this sexist, bullying comment: 
 
 “It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes. It’s funny,” Newton said. 
 
 Newton’s words Wednesday were simply infuriating not just for the reporter, whose past racist tweets should make her grateful that he is talking about forgiveness, but to a lot of us who have been there over the years. 
 
 Cam Newton has a habit of getting grumpy when meeting the press, but this crossed the line. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) 
 
 My first week on the Mets beat, I was trying to find my way around the complex at Port St. Lucie and put some names to the many new faces. One of my Daily News colleagues was trying to help, introducing me around to coaches and team personnel as best he could. One executive was nice enough when we met; we chatted backgrounds for about three minutes and he never asked me about the game or my background. 
 
 Reporter Jourdan Rodrigue apologizes for past offensive tweets 
 
 Instead, as I walked away, he turned to my male colleague, who never played baseball professionally either, and asked “But what’s she going to know about baseball?” 
 
 Ask any woman who has covered sports and she has a similar story — or 10 — about dealing with the moment when someone challenges your abilities simply based on your gender. 
 
 It’s dumb, unfounded and prejudiced. 
 
 And it’s something Newton is going to have to fight against for the rest of his life. As much pressure as he took from sponsors, the league, social media and the media, he had a much bigger audience to face at home. 
 
 Cam Newton is a dynamic player on the field but a new headache for the NFL when he steps off the field. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) 
 
 As he explained in his video, he simply has to be invested in a future where women are treated fairly in the workplace. 
 
 “I am a father to two beautiful daughters,” Newton said in the video. “And at their age I try to instill in them they can do and be anything they want to be. The fact through this process I have already lost sponsors and countless fans, I realize the joke is really on me. 
 
 “I learned a valuable lesson through this. And to the young people who see this, I hope you learned something as well. Don’t be like me, be better than me,” Newton said. “To the reporters, to the journalists, to the moms, supermoms, to the daughters the sisters and the women all around the world, I sincerely apologize and hope you can find the kindness in your heart to forgive me.” 
 
 I accept his apology and hope the reporter does, too. And I hope Newton’s daughters and their generation never know this kind of sexism in their workplace.
– Cam Newton has apologized for his sexist remarks to female reporter Jourdan Rodrigue, and to women in general, but the hype hasn't yet died down. "I'm a man who tries to be a positive role model in my community and tries to use my platform to inspire others," Newton said in a video posted on Twitter Thursday. He added that he's been thinking of his two young daughters and how he's trying to raise them knowing "they can do and be anything that they want to be," and that he "takes ownership" for his "extremely unacceptable" remarks. "Don't be like me," he tells young people listening. "Be better than me." Meanwhile, ex-LA Clipper Glen Davis tells TMZ he thinks Newton's apology was "sincere" and that he "just made a mistake," adding, "He's probably got woman problems or something." More takes making the rounds: One of the first people to stick up for Rodrigue: Scott Fowler, a fellow sportswriter at the Charlotte Observer. Fowler calls Newton's remarks "inexcusable" and "ill-informed," documenting Rodrigue's sports journalism background—including a degree from Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism—and instincts on the sidelines. "I've been covering the Panthers for the past 23 seasons, and Rodrigue knows more about the subtle intricacies of football than I do," he writes. "In short, Jourdan Rodrigue knew exactly what she was talking about Wednesday. Cam Newton, on the other hand, had no idea." Sally Jenkins picks up on that theme for a sarcasm-infused Washington Post op-ed in which she suggests a "gender-culture exchange" with the quarterback. "In the name of gender diplomacy, I will help Cam Newton with certain feminine concepts if he will help me understand how to use the twist-top on a bottle of beer, and why some men act like football strategy is more complicated than a space flight guidance system," she writes. She doesn't try so hard to mask her anger in the next barb: "We women who cover the NFL have spent years hiding our impatience dealing with average quarterbacks with below-average verbal skills." Over at the New York Daily News, Kristie Ackert says Newton "should have known better" than to make his "infuriating" comment, but adding it can be a valuablelesson for everyone. She accepts his apology and says we can all "learn to be better. We can listen to someone else's point of view, admit when we are wrong, apologize, and move on. We could all use to do that a little more often." Christine Brennan hopes "there's good to come out" of all of this. Writing in USA Today, Brennan notes the "dead silence" in the Panthers' interview room (mostly filled with male reporters) after Newton's comment to Rodrigue, followed by all of the "noise" on social media later. "The reaction was as heartening as it was eye-opening," she writes, also giving props to the NFL and two of the companies Newton represents (including Dannon, which dumped him) for their quick response in dressing him down. (Meanwhile, Rodrigue had some apologizing of her own to do.)