Sam Newman

John Noel William Newman[4] (born 22 December 1945), better known as Sam Newman, is an Australian media executive and radio and television personality. Originally known for his contribution to Australian rules football as a player for the Geelong Football Club, he has come to be better known as a media personality with controversial views on certain topics.

Not to be confused with Sam Newman (footballer, born 1901).

Sam Newman
Personal information
Full name John Noel William Newman
Nickname(s) Sam
Date of birth (1945-12-22) 22 December 1945
Place of birth Geelong, Victoria
Original team(s) Geelong Grammar School
Height 189 cm (6 ft 2 in)[1][2][3]
Weight 94 kg (207 lb)[1]
Position(s) Ruckman
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1964–1980 Geelong 300 (110)
Representative team honours
Years Team Games (Goals)
Victoria 8 (?)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1980.
Career highlights

Club

Representative

Overall

Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Early life

Newman attended Geelong Grammar School, where his father was a teacher.[5][6]

He made his debut for Geelong in 1964 when he was 18 years old.[7] Early in his time at Geelong he acquired the nickname "Sam", by which he is now usually known.[8]

Football career

During his playing career (1964–80) with Geelong he played 300 games and also captained the club and won two best and fairest awards (1968 and 1975). During the first semi-final against Collingwood in 1967, Newman suffered a serious injury which forced surgeons to remove part of his kidney. He was also selected as an All-Australian player in 1969. He played for the Victorian state team eight times. He retired in 1980, having polled 100 Brownlow Medal votes throughout his career. In 2002, he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.[9]

In December 2005, Newman was appointed as ruck coach for the Melbourne Football Club to mentor players such as Jeff White, Mark Jamar and Paul Johnson.

On 6 July 2010, Newman played in a charity match playing for Victoria in the annual EJ Whitten Legends Game. He kicked four goals from four kicks and three marks to be named best on ground, despite his team losing to the All Stars by seven points.

Media career

Newman joined radio station 3AW as a football commentator in 1981 and continued with the station until the end of the 1999 season. He also appeared on World of Sport on Channel 7 for seven years from 1981 to 1987. He was a panel member of The Sunday Footy Show from 1993 to 1998.

Newman was on The Footy Show (AFL) from when it first aired in 1994 until 2018 on the Nine Network.[10] During a show, dressed crudely in racist blackface, said ask me some questions about the Western Bulldogs? [11] To date, since 1999, according to Nine Network, the behaviour and actions of Sam Newman vilifying Nicky Winmar for defamation is pending response from the media organisation. The damages could be a six-figure sum damaging the reputation of Wimar, an Australian football legend who won multiple awards.

His other media appearances have included the Sunday sports show Any Given Sunday in 2005, World of Sport, The Sunday Footy Show and also co-hosting the short lived Sam and The Fatman with Paul Vautin. On radio station Triple M, Newman previews Friday night and Saturday afternoon matches. He formerly provided special comments during AFL games on Triple M, as well as 3AW previously.

From April 2010, he was a part of the Melbourne Talk Radio lineup, providing opinion and participating in talkback between 9.00 am and 9.30 am, during the Steve Price breakfast program. Newman quit the station in January 2012, after the breakfast producer censored Newman's profanity.[12]

In February 2018, he joined a podcast with former Herald Sun chief football writer Mike Sheahan and former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas entitled Sam, Mike and Thomo. The podcast aired once weekly and covered all trending topics, with a sprinkling of AFL commentary. In March 2019 it was announced by Newman on social media that the podcast would not proceed due to him being perceived to be making fun of transgender people on a prior episode of the podcast. However, in August he revived the podcast, starring Sheahan and former VFL footballer Don Scott, entitled Sam, Mike & Don, You Can Not Be Serious.[13] It was aired with this name until June 2020, when upon Sheahan quitting for a second time due to the fallout of comments made by Scott about former AFL footballer Nicky Winmar, it was renamed to You Can Not Be Serious. [14]

In December 2018, Eddie McGuire announced that Newman has signed a new multi-year deal with Nine, however The Footy Show, of which Newman has been a part of with McGuire since the show started in March 1994, has been all but axed to be replaced by a completely new formatted football show in 2019, of which Newman may or may not be a part of. Newman and McGuire were meant to host four Footy Show "specials" in 2019, but upon it being announced in May 2019 that The Footy Show would no longer be aired this will not be the case.

In June 2020, Newman announced that he will no longer appear on the Nine Network.[15]

Controversies

Newman has regularly been a controversial figure during his media career, with some of his most controversial incidents on The Footy Show including:

  • Wearing a blackface to impersonate legendary fourth time winning Indigenous AFL footballer Nicky Winmar in 1999 after Winmar did not attend a scheduled appearance on the program [16]
  • Having his trousers pulled down by Shane Crawford live on-air in 2001[17]
  • Hitting an unsuspecting David Schwarz with a pie in the face during an appearance on The Footy Show, with Schwarz responding by shoving Newman to the ground
  • Manhandling and groping a lingerie-clad mannequin with journalist Caroline Wilson's face attached in 2008 to it in response to the way Wilson was dressed on Footy Classified. Newman was suspended by the Nine Network after the incident
  • Describing five female directors of AFL clubs as "liars and hypocrites" after they complained about Newman's mannequin skit, leading one of those directors, Susan Alberti, to sue the Nine Network for $220,000
  • Smoking a bong on-air in 2012 after the AFL banned marijuana as a game-day substance - the substance in the bong was later revealed to be tea leaves
  • Describing NFL draftee Michael Sam as "annoyingly gratuitous" in 2014 after the openly homosexual player kissed his boyfriend on live television on being drafted to the NFL[18]
  • Referring to transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner as "he" and "it" in 2017
  • Staging a silent protest and refusing to speak throughout an episode in 2017 after producers refused to allow him to dress up as a woman in response to two senior AFL executives were exposed as having had affairs with junior staffers - the Nine Network responded by taking The Footy Show off air for four weeks, sacking Craig Hutchison as host and replacing him with Eddie McGuire[19]

In June 2020, Newman arrived at a mutual agreement with the Nine Network to resign from the network after he stated in a podcast that while George Floyd died as a consequence of police brutality, Floyd's extensive criminal record meant he was a "piece of shit".[20]

The following week, Newman engaged in a conversation with Don Scott and Mike Sheahan on the podcast in which they cast doubt that Nicky Winmar's famous jumper raise in 1993 was about Winmar responding to racism, with Scott and Sheahan instead suggesting that they believed it was to signify a "gutsy" effort. Winmar and photographer Wayne Ludbey took legal action against Newman, Scott and Sheahan, alleging defamation, with the parties reaching an agreement during mediation involving a formal apology and an undisclosed donation to an Indigenous charity.[21]

Motorsport

Newman had a brief career in motor racing. He began racing in 1998 in Class C of the Australian GT Production Car Championship where he finished in 10th place in a Ford EL Falcon XR8. In the 1999 Australian GT Production Car Championship he raced a Holden Vectra GL to third place in Class D driving for Gibson Motorsport. He then went on to finish in fourth place in Class D at the 1999 Poolrite GTP Bathurst Showroom Showdown driving with Melinda Price. He then drove the Vectra to fifth place in Class E in the 2000 Australian GT Production Car Championship. He also raced a V8 Supercar at the support races at the Australian Grand Prix in the same year. Running a Gibson Motorsport prepared VS Commodore, he finished 25th, 24th and 23rd in the three races across the weekend.

In 2001, Newman raced a Ferrari 360 Challenge for Prancing Horse Racing as a teammate to multiple Australian champions (in various categories) and Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe in the 2001 Australian Nations Cup Championship finishing in 14th place. In the 2002 Championship, Newman acquitted himself well and improved to finish 10th in the series

Newman's brightest moment in motor racing was when he put his Ferrari on pole position for the 2002 Sandown 500.[22] Newman benefited in the Top 10 shootout for pole as he was the first driver on the track. Before the next driver went out the rain came down and Newman ended up over 6 seconds faster than the 2nd placed Porsche 996 GT3 of racing legend Jim Richards. Newman and co-driver Scott Shearman went on to finish the race 6th outright.[23]

Newman defected to Team Lamborghini for the 2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship and driving the V12 Lamborghini Diablo SVR and GTR models improved to finish 7th outright in the championship. He finished the series in 9th place in Group 1 and 3rd place in Group 2.[24]

After leaving motor racing at the end of 2003, Newman would again race in the 2009 and 2010 Mini Challenge Australia championships, both times at the Albert Park round in the Uber Star Celebrity Car.

Career results

Results sources from:[25]

Season Series Position Car Team
1998 Australian GT Production Car Championship Class C 10th Ford EL Falcon XR8 Ross Palmer Motorsport
1999 Australian GT Production Car Championship Class D 3rd Holden Vectra GL Gibson Motorsport
2000 Australian GT Production Car Championship Class E 4th Holden Vectra GL Gibson Motorsport
2001 Australian Nations Cup Championship 14th Ferrari 360 Challenge Prancing Horse Scuderia
2002 Australian Nations Cup Championship 10th Ferrari 360 Challenge Prancing Horse Scuderia
2002 Australian Nations Cup Championship Group 2 2nd Ferrari 360 Challenge Prancing Horse Scuderia
2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship 7th Lamborghini Diablo SVR
Lamborghini Diablo GTR		 Team Lamborghini Australia
2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship Group 1 9th Lamborghini Diablo GTR Team Lamborghini Australia
2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship Group 2 3rd Lamborghini Diablo SVR Team Lamborghini Australia
2010 Mini Challenge Australia 31st Mini Cooper S BMW Australia

Personal life

Newman lives in Docklands, Melbourne.[9] In 2002, he released a compilation album entitled I Do My Best Work After Midnight, consisting of 13 selections from other artists, as well as two songs sung by himself – "Witchcraft" and "I've Got You Under My Skin".[26] In 2008, he was treated for prostate cancer,[27][28] and allowed Channel Nine's program 60 Minutes to film the operation.[29] Following the operation, he was cleared of the cancer.[30]

gollark: Imagine having a project containing multiple compilation units.
gollark: What if you capture the NameErrors to make lazy evaluation lazier and more inevitable?
gollark: <@!402456897812168705> Allegedly if you do `import regex as re` in Python (and have that installed) it will work.
gollark: So it can't directly access the peripherals unless you pass them through, it has to go through the host.
gollark: The CPU has some sort of magicaceous™ features which limit the virtualized thing's access to... memory and IO, I think?

References
  1. Australian Football - Sam Newman
  2. AFL Tables - Sam Newman - Stats - Statistics
  3. Herald Sun - The modern ruckman must be over 200cm tall to compete in Land of the Giants
  4. Herald Sun - Sam Newman's year of living dangerously
  5. Geelong Grammar teacher reflects on career | ABC 7:30 Report Transcript
  6. "The Newman Club". Geelong Grammar School. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  7. AFL - It's 50 years of footy with Geelong great and TV personality John 'Sam' Newman
  8. "The Trouble With Sam". Australian Story. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  9. Wham, bam, thank you Sam!, The Advertiser, 20 March 2009
  10. Moran, A; Keating, C. The A to Z of Australian Radio and Television. Scarecrow Press. p. 168.
  11. {{cite documentary | last = Gordon | first = Daniel | date = 21 June 2020 | title = The Australian Dream | https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australian-dream
  12. Drill, Stephen (25 January 2012). "Sam Newman quits troubled station MTR overuse of F-word on air". Herald Sun. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
  13. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=HSWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heraldsun.com.au%2Fentertainment%2Fconfidential%2Fsam-newman-launches-new-podcast-with-mike-sheahan-don-scott%2Fnews-story%2F2dccab7677015d5ed4fcc5e13591f34b&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=10052d9e5b1e2ceee69eeb2a53fdf8f2-1591905464
  14. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-mike-sheahan-you-cannot-be-serious-podcast-sam-newman-nicky-winmar-racism-controversy-latest-news/news-story/5fb2eb83261faa5fbf0943d4a38bb6d0
  15. "Sam Newman and Channel 9 part ways following recent backlash". NewsComAu. 19 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  16. "Australian-dream". 21 September 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  17. "Shane Crawford feared losing captaincy after infamous Sam Newman dacking incident". Wide World of Sports. 29 April 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  18. "NFL draftee Michael Sam's kiss 'annoyingly gratuitous': Sam Newman". The Age. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  19. "Eddie McGuire opens upon his return to The Footy Show; Sam Newman addresses bizarre performance". news.com.au. 23 July 2017. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  20. "Sam Newman leaves Channel Nine after George Floyd comments". ABC. 20 June 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  21. "Apologetic Newman, co-hosts made to pay a six-figure settlement ends Winmar fight". Fox Sports. 3 July 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  22. "Sandown 500 Sandown International Motor Raceway Sandown 500 Top Gun Challenge". National Software. 7 September 2002. Archived from the original on 4 September 2004. Retrieved 2 August 2008.
  23. "Sandown 500 Sandown International Motor Raceway 2002 Sandown 500". National Software. 8 September 2002. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 2 August 2008.
  24. 2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship - Outright Points, www.procar.com.au via web.archive.org Retrieved on 19 September 2010
  25. https://www.driverdb.com/drivers/sam-newman/ Sam Newman Career Motor Racing Highlights
  26. http://www.discogs.com/Various-Sam-Newman-I-Do-My-Best-Work-After-Midnight/release/737018
  27. Collier, Karen (5 March 2008). "Sam Newman has prostate cancer". Herald Sun.
  28. Sam Newman diagnosed with cancer Archived 7 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  29. "Two of us". The Sydney Morning Herald. 19 April 2014.
  30. Evans, Chris (10 March 2008). "Newman clear but urges cancer tests". The Age. p. 6.
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