He and his wife, Dorothy, have a son, Nate III, and his personal life, after having had three children with three different women, has settled. I look back and see that I was nothing but a fool, a clown. "I'm as happy these past few years as I've ever been. He would have moved for the right money, but he wanted to stay. Newton will be the foundation of a line that has to be rebuilt. Two other veteran free-agent guards, Kevin Gogan and John Gesek, were allowed to, move along to other cities.
The Cowboys showed how much they value him when he and fullback Daryl Johnston became the first free agents retained after the departure of Johnson and the arrival of Barry Switzer in this tumultuous off-season. It could be the coldest day of the year, and he'd be wearing shorts and these businessman's hard-soled shoes and these long black businessman's socks. "Second, this was before guys shaved their heads. "He was the biggest guy on campus, first of all," says Hayes, now a Dallas policeman. He was Jaws, the oversized James Bond villain. Newton's attitude came from action movies. This place was near the dining hall and en route to the women's dorms, and it drew its name from the fact that everyone approached it with a Hollywood attitude. Every campus has a similar place, where everyone hangs around to see and be seen. His base of operations on the Florida A&M campus in Tallahassee was a street called the Set. "Nate Newton," Oliver says, "was a monster." I said, 'Pam, wait, I'm not like that anymore. I hadn't seen her since college, and there she was. Two years ago we played a preseason game in Tokyo, and she showed up. She was the girlfriend of my best friend, Tony Hayes. She went to college with me at Florida A&M. "Her name is Pam Oliver, and she's a reporter on ESPN. "There's a woman who can tell you about me," he says. Nate Newton? A bully? The idea that he could be anything but this roly-poly, happy warrior is a surprise.
Newton is a big, strong man, as quotable and profane as an MTV comedian as he recounts his battles with a body that has weighed between 297 and 400-plus pounds during his 10-year professional career.
For five straight years-two at tackle, three at guard-he has been named to the All-Madden Team, an honor earned by get-dirty football traditionalists who seem to enjoy their work.
Two consecutive Super Bowls and two consecutive Pro Bowls and the unabashed "Whoaaaaaa!" and "Heyyyyyyyy!" of John Madden have lifted Newton above the anonymity of the offensive line. Across the country he is perceived as some kind of enormous, lovable Chia Pet, a big huggy-bear of a man in the NFL's cast of cartoon characters. He is 32 years old and recently signed a contract for $3.46 million that will keep him with the Cowboys for the next three seasons. Newton is the 6'3", 335-pound offensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys. I was very good at shutting a party down." Today, she works as a health-care administrator, recently earned her M.B.A, is a frequent co-host on Daystar Television Network and regularly speaks on the topic of abuse."If you were having a party and I wasn't invited?" he says. She had tried many times before, but finally Dorothy convinced Nate that it was time for a divorce.Īlthough it took time to break free of his influence, she managed, with God’s help, to turn her life around. “Then he would apologize and want to ‘make things right.’ I know it sounds crazy, but I honestly thought I deserved the abusive treatment as punishment for my sins.”Īfter a friend of hers told the Cowboys of Nate’s issues, he threatened to kill her, pointed a gun at her and put their unborn baby in danger. “Whenever he was upset, he abused me,” Dorothy writes. Another time, when they were arguing over a credit card bill, he hit her in the face over her left eye. One time, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her around the house. Eventually, he began beating her until she couldn’t move. When he was angry, he would shove her and grab her throat. I could leave if I wanted to.”Īfter they got married, he soon grew violent. “Our relationship wasn’t like that of my mother and stepfather. “Sometimes I looked in the mirror and saw my mother staring back at me, but I shrugged it off,” she writes. They began dating and had their first child before they married. Her stepfather drank and gambled and beat her mother.Īfter she became the first person in her family to graduate from college, Dorothy moved to Dallas, where she met Nathaniel “Nate” Newton, an offensive lineman for the Cowboys. One of six children, she grew up in poverty in Louisiana. Although many abused women remain silent because of shame, Dorothy shares unflinchingly about her past and credits “a sovereign God who sees, knows and understands the depths of despair” for making her whole again.ĭomestic violence became a part of her life when she was a child.