Jerjuan Newton never had to look very far to find someone to play football with when he was growing up. He had a ready-made team right in his own home.
Newton, a junior wide receiver for the Toledo Rockets, is one of five brothers, all relatively close in age and all with a passion for the gridiron. Three of his brothers have played college football, while the fourth is a star in high school. They talk or text almost every day, often reliving and debating the outcomes of backyard battles that took place in their hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.
Jerjuan Newton (far left), a junior wide receiver for the Toledo Rockets. who is studying mechanical engineering technology, is one of five football-playing brothers, along with (from left) Jerquan, Jershaun, Jervon and Jer’Zhan.
Newton is the middle of five brothers. Ahead of him are older twins, Jervon, Jr. and Jerquan, who graduated from Division II Mars Hill (N.C.) in 2022 following distinguished playing careers. Just a year younger than him is Jer’Zhan “Johnny” Newton, an All-America defensive lineman at Illinois. The youngest Newton, Jershaun, is a highly regarded quarterback who will be a junior at Clearwater (Fla.) Central Catholic High School next fall.
“My dad raised us all to be close,” said Newton, who earned second-team All-MAC honors as a sophomore for the Rockets last season after catching 52 passes and scoring nine touchdowns. “When we were younger, we would always fight, and he would be like, ‘No fighting.’ Whenever my brothers and I would fight, we would get in trouble and then he would make us hug it out. He always taught us that brothers don’t fight, and now I’m big on that. I’m close with all my brothers. We all have that same bond with each other. I know I can call any one of my brothers at any time and they will be there.”
Added Johnny: “We would play in the backyard, play tackle in the streets, play in the field by my dad’s mechanic shop. We always played to win. I think that’s where the competitive instinct was instilled in us. Iron sharpens iron, they say. We were really tough on each other. Emotions were high. There were fights. But in the end, we’re brothers, and 20 minutes later we would forget all about it.”
Jerjuan’s parents, Jervon Newton and Jovita Rich, have worked hard to nurture their sons into upstanding young men and outstanding football players. It wasn’t always easy to keep track of (and feed) five rambunctious boys, but they would not have had it any other way.
“To be honest, I always wanted five boys,” Jervon said. “It made it easier because they always had someone to play with.”
Jervon, a mechanic who owns his own shop, was always careful to treat his sons equally, whether it was finding a quarterback coach for them or teaching them the tools of his own trade. But it was Jerjuan who connected the most with the hands-on labor required of a mechanic.
“My dad started my brothers and me working on cars when we were in sixth or seventh grade,” Newton said. “Out of all my brothers, I am the one who caught onto it more. I feel like I was always wanting to go with my dad and always be with him, and my other brothers would be like, ‘No, I don’t want to go.’ When my dad would leave the house, I would make sure I’d be with him every time, so it just kind of caught on to me.”
Newton in 2019.
Added his father, “Jerjuan would always say, ‘Let me do it.’ He has the ability to see things and repeat it. That’s all mechanics is. You have to have a willingness to learn. Jerjuan was always more focused and had that willingness to learn. After a while, the other boys would be off throwing the football and Jerjuan would stay focused on working on the car.”
That singular focus and determination have served Jerjuan well, both in football and in the classroom. He chose a challenging major, mechanical engineering technology, that has allowed him to combine his proclivity for math with his desire for a hands-on working experience.
“I loved math. Math was always my favorite, even when I was in elementary school,” said Newton, who also is minoring in business administration and expects to receive his bachelor’s degree in December. “It just came easy to me. In high school, I passed my math classes easily. As I started getting more into the engineering route (in college), it’s a lot of math and science. The math definitely started to get hard, but I’ve been able to manage.”
Newton’s progress in the classroom at Toledo in many ways mirrors his experience on the football field. He joined the Rockets four years ago with all the tools to be a top-notch college wide receiver, but has had to battle a few challenges along the way.
After a broken hand limited his playing time in his freshman year, Newton came back with a solid season in the COVID year of 2020, catching 15 passes in six games. He continued to play a big role in the offense in 2021 — until he broke his foot in practice right before the Bowling Green game, forcing him to miss the final three games of the regular season and the bowl game. All the while, though, he tried to focus on making himself better, no matter the circumstance.
“Mentally, the broken foot kind of drained me for the first few days, but I have a strong mind, so I easily bounce back,” Newton said. “Coming out of surgery, I had a big-old soft cast on my foot and I’m doing push-ups. I have my leg propped up, and I’m doing push-ups. I’m ready to get back. I can’t just sit around and just lay down all day. I have to be active. I have to be doing something. If not, I feel like somebody else is getting way better than me.”
The ability to persevere through hardships goes back to Newton’s upbringing. That never-give-up attitude was instilled in him at a very young age. His father recalled an incident when Newton broke his arm in a pee-wee football game when he was about 8 years old. “He said, ‘Daddy, can you fix it so I can go back in the game?’ ” recalled Jervon. “I had to make him go to the hospital.”
That kind of toughness is what has allowed Newton to work his way into becoming one of the top receivers in the Mid-American Conference. While he has two full seasons left with the Rockets, he acknowledges that he has his eye on Toledo’s next game. The Rockets open the 2023 season at Illinois, where Newton will get a chance to play head-to-head against brother Johnny.
“Everybody in my family will be at that game, for sure,” Newton said.
“We’ll probably have a little trash talk going on that week,” Johnny said. “I plan to talk to him every day that week, before the game, during the game and after the game. It’s really amazing that we get this chance to play against each other.”
While good-natured bragging rights may be on the line for that game, Newton said he and his brothers used to have heated debates on who was the best football player. Good arguments can be made for any of the five, but in the end, father knows best. “I like to tell them that daddy was rawer than all of them,” Jervon said with a laugh.
Jerjuan Newton, center top, is the middle brother of five.
While Newton’s closeness with his family has been a sustaining force throughout his life, he feels like he has also found another family at The University of Toledo. He has a deep admiration for Head Coach Jason Candle as well as his position coach, Kevin Beard. He has many good friends on the team and is particularly close to the man who throws him the football, quarterback Dequan Finn, and another teammate who sometimes covers him in practice, cornerback Chris McDonald.
“It’s a big brotherhood here,” Newton said. “I’m close with everybody. All the receivers, I’m close with. If we need to talk about something, we can all talk about something. I love all my teammates. I’m here for all my teammates. That’s the type of connection we’ve got.”
Newton’s positive attitude is what makes him such a perfect fit for the culture of Toledo Football, Candle said.
“Jerjuan is constantly aware of how he can impact this football team in a positive way, which I really appreciate,” Candle said. “He takes his sphere of influence and uses it in a positive manner as a leader. I have a ton of respect for him, and a ton of respect for how he approaches the game. He is a first-class young man who really has a great grasp of who he is, what he wants to get out of life, and what he wants to get out of football. He’s going to be very successful in life after football.”
Not surprisingly, Newton has ambitious plans for himself when his days wearing the Midnight Blue and Gold are over. He would like to try playing professional football for as long as he can, then embark on a career where he can put his engineering degree — as well as his business courses — to good use.
“I really want to turn into a businessman from an aspect of investing my money into owning places,” Newton said. “Like how my dad has his own mechanic shop, I really want to buy a big garage or a big building. I want to sell those buildings or rent them out to people.”
But true to his roots, he wouldn’t mind working in a job where you get your hands dirty, either.
“I’m into the technology part of it, so if I find a good-paying job where I’m building parts and designing things, that would be great,” Newton said. “But honestly, I want to have my own mechanic shop. I don’t mind working on cars, either. I always love doing it. It’s always fun for me. To me, fixing cars is like a puzzle that you break apart and then build it back up again. Building and designing cars is the same. You’re going take the part off, and then you’re going to put it back on the same way you took it off.
“That’s how I see it. That’s what I love to do.”
