Sam Newman

Sam Newman
Personal information
Full name	John Noel William Newman
Date of birth	22 December 1945 (1945-12-22)
Place of birth	Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Original team	Geelong Grammar School
Height/Weight	190 cm / 96 kg
Position(s)	Ruckman
Playing career1
Years	Club	Games (Goals)
1964–1980	Geelong	300 (110)
1 Playing statistics to end of 1980 season .
Career highlights
AFL All-Australian Team 1969 AFL Hall of Fame Geelong Club Champion 1968, 1975 Geelong Team of the Century (Ruckman) Representative honours Victorian Representative 8 times

John Noel William "Sam" Newman (born 22 December 1945) is a retired Australian rules football player and current television personality. He is a featured presenter on the AFL version of The Footy Show.

VFL career

Recruited straight from school, Newman made his debut for Geelong in 1964 and was fortunate to have Graham "Polly" Farmer in the side as a role model. During the first semi-final against Collingwood in 1967, Newman suffered a serious injury which forced surgeons to remove part of his kidney, but he bounced back to win his club's "best and fairest" award in 1968 and 1975. He was also selected as an All-Australian player in 1969 and played for the Victorian State team eight times. Newman retired in 1980, having polled 100 Brownlow Medal votes throughout his career. In 2002, he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

After retirement

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 made a comeback playing for Victoria in the annual EJ Whitten Legends Game. Newman 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 appeared on World of Sport on Channel 7 for seven years.

Newman has been a regular on the AFL version of The Footy Show since it first aired in 1994 on the Australian Nine Network. He acts as sidekick and resident clown. He regularly hosts "Street Talk", a vox populi segment in which he interviews people on the streets, usually in Melbourne, as well as Sam's Mailbag where he reads out random correspondence, shows funny footage and the occasional humorous lookalike of Garry Lyon (co-host).

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 "Fatty" 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 MTR (Melbourne Talk Radio) lineup, providing opinion and participating in talkback between 9.00am and 9.30am, during the Steve Price breakfast programme. Newman quit the station in January 2012, after the breakfast producer censored Newman's profanity.

Personal life

Newman attended Geelong Grammar. His father's aim for him was to become a barrister. His mother and two older sisters prefer to call him by his birth name of John.

Newman's former house built in St Kilda, featuring an image of Pamela Anderson's face

He has been married three times and has three sons, aged 11, 26 and 30.

Newman currently lives in an apartment in Melbourne's Docklands where he also berths a luxury yacht. He also owns four vintage cars and a warehouse.

Motor sport

Newman took up motor racing in the GT Production Car class in the late 1990s and subsequently competed in the Australian Nations Cup Championship in Lamborghinis and Ferraris. He also competed in the Mini Challenge series at the 2010 Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park. This was a one off drive in the series.

Controversy

Newman has been involved in several incidents of public controversy. Reports indicate that Newman is deliberately controversial, and that his on-air persona is nothing like his true self. Particular incidents include:

• 1997 – Newman's 25 year old girlfriend, Leonie Jones, drove his own car into him outside his house, breaking his leg and an ankle.
• 1999 – On The Footy Show Newman blacked up his face to impersonate indigenous footballer Nicky Winmar, at a time when racial vilification charges were being levelled at certain AFL players.
• 2005 – A female fan broke a window whilst trying to break in to his Brighton house.
• 2008 – Mocking television personality and The Age writer Caroline Wilson regarding how she was dressed on Footy Classified three days earlier by bringing a mannequin model onto stage and stapling a cardboard cut-out of Wilson on the face of the model and 'experimenting' with different outfits. Newman then recklessly moved the model about. Wilson brought the issue up on Footy Classified the following Monday, telling of her disappointment to Newman's co-star Garry Lyon.
• 2009 – The Nine Network and Newman were sued for defamation by a female board member of the Western Bulldogs football team after he said on air that she was a "liar" and "hypocrite". They settled for $220,000 plus costs.
• 2009 – 17 September. During the Footy Show broadcast Newman likened a Malaysian man to a monkey, being "not long out of the forest". The Australian Communications and Media Authority ruled Newman was likely to have "provoked severe ridicule on the basis of the man's colour and race". Newman's employer channel Nine has offered to donate $200,000 to charity in the event of any future code breach and had "agreed to a number of other provisions in the enforceable undertaking, including significant senior management overview of the materials to be used by Mr Newman and a broad-ranging reporting regime and training obligation".
• 2010 - 30 June. Newman was criticised for disrespect to Aboriginal beliefs when he revealed on a radio show that he had hit a golf ball off the summit of Uluru.

Cancer diagnosis

On 5 March 2008 it was revealed that Newman was in hospital, undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. On 6 March he underwent a procedure at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne to have the cancerous prostate removed. Newman asked that television cameras from Channel Nine's program 60 Minutes have full access to the procedure, as he believed it could help raise awareness of the issue amongst the greater public. Channel Nine personality and close friend Eddie McGuire covered the story for the program.

The program went to air on 9 March 2008. It contained footage filmed earlier that day in which Newman's urologist, Laurence Harewood, told him that the operation had been a success and that he had been cleared of the cancer. Newman had since made a full recovery.

External links

• Player profile on the official AFL website of the Geelong Football Club
• Player bio at Full Points Footy
• AFL statistics
• Sam Newman's statistics from AFL Tables
• Sam Newman at the Internet Movie Database
• The Footy Show AFL official website

Sporting positions
Preceded by Geoff Ainsworth	Geelong F.C. captain 1974–1975	Succeeded by Bruce Nankervis
Awards
Preceded by Bill Goggin Bruce Nankervis	Carji Greeves Medal 1968 1975	Succeeded by Doug Wade Ian Nankervis