The Super Bowl is the only stage big enough for Cam Newton

Cornerback Josh Norman was in the Carolina Panthers’ locker room, besieged by reporters and cameras. This was back in December after Norman’s wicked, game-long tangle with receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. Quarterback Cam Newton was quietly rummaging through items in his locker, aware of Norman’s inferno. I asked Newton if Norman knew what he had gotten himself into. If Norman needed help. If he could handle it.

“He asked for it,” said Newton, frankly, “because he can handle it.”

This is where we are with Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50. A stage he has craved. A man convinced he can handle it. In fact, Cam Newton has long programmed himself to believe that this is the way it is supposed to be.

The Super Bowl and Cam Newton make a provocative mix. This extravaganza’s hype paired with this star’s showmanship.

Sports’ biggest spectacle harmonizing with dabbing, Superman celebrating, toss-a-ball-to-a-kid-after-a-touchdown-shtick, massive-wattage smile and persona of Cam Newton. He will roll into San Francisco and ignite the city with his arrogance, charisma, fashion-heavy swagger, intellect and huge heart. No player in Super Bowl 50 will leave his heart completely emptied on the Levi’s Stadium field more than Newton.

Be ready.

The NFL hierarchy is aglow. They wanted Newton in this game. They would have plodded through Tom Brady and another onslaught of the revenge theme and DeflateGate vexing. They would have managed a Carson Palmer presence while wishing for more bling. They will navigate the Peyton Manning last-hurrah theme and any nagging HGH-use inquisitions about him that bubble.

The power and magnetism of Cam Newton, however, is an NFL brand-building dream.

Several marketing surveys rank Manning No. 1 and Newton No. 2 in endorsement portfolios and earnings this season, but it is Newton who strikes a resounding chord with the next generation NFL. It is not just that he is 26, in his fifth pro season, won a Heisman Trophy and national championship at Auburn, was the league’s No. 1 pick and Rookie of the Year in 2011 and likely will be named the NFL most valuable player this year.

It is the style behind the substance. The utter showmanship.

Newton describes it as purely having fun. Others see it as selfish and conceited.

He has heard it before. Prior to his draft, among his critiques were that he was a fake, a fraud, a con-artist. Several scouts doubted he could develop as an effective pocket passer.

Newton’s Super Bowl experience will bring new scrutiny. His life will be scorched, all of it, going back to the University of Florida days and his stealing a computer and throwing it out of the window before getting caught and eventually transferring ... to the salacious college recruitment charges that his father, Cecil, was seeking money for his son’s commitment before he settled on Auburn ... to Panthers owner Jerry Richardson reportedly telling Newton before the draft to not get tattoos, keep his appearance and image clean and basically mandating a dress code before drafting Newton.

At the Super Bowl, it is the whole story. The whole life. The spotlight is intensely global.

But it is also reflective. It loves chic, it loves style and it loves a star. Cam Newton is that on the field in his elevated combination of running and passing and he is that off of it in his mass appeal. He believes in energy, is always sensitive to whether energy around him is positive or negative, and he realizes his story, his place, is remarkably rare. That is also why his young football career already seems “so long” because he has spent plenty of it “doing what a lot of people said I couldn’t do.”

At Super Bowl 50, Newton will be the favorite. At Super Bowl 50, Newton will be the star.

It will be the ultimate theatre of hype engaging showmanship.

What makes Carolina so dominant, so stirring with a 17-1 record is the fact that each Panther has a defined, specific role that enhances his talent. The sum creates a gripping effect. Cam Newton’s role is to light it up, be the star, ignite passion, run the offense, inspire the defense and special teams, to lead and to do it his way. Be himself. Be exactly what his teammates call him - a “beast.”

Newton was born in 1989 a few months after quarterback Joe Montana drove the San Francisco 49ers 92 yards for a winning touchdown pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds left to lift them to a 20-16 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl 23 in Miami. Newton arrives for Super Bowl 50 in a rich football city that Montana built in a soft-spoken, unassuming, meticulously-skilled way.

The Cam Newton way is far more flamboyant.

He is bent on showing you that hype and showmanship are one. And that he can handle it.

Can you?

SB Nation presents: How to get a Cam Newton touchdown ball