Seeking Inspiration and Advice: Jalen Newman '25

By Craig Sachson
PrincetonTigersFootball.com

Jalen Newman figured out early in life that inspiration and advice can come from anybody around you. You just need to seek it.

Newman is a standout defensive back for the Princeton football team, which opens its 2024 Ivy League football season Saturday at Columbia (12 pm, ESPN+). He has played in 22 consecutive games and has recorded 52 career tackles, seven breakups and an interception in the 2023 upset of nationally ranked Harvard. He built himself into a potential All-Ivy player by remaining both focused and curious.

Newman credits coaches, older defensive backs and offensive peers for helping him grow into the player he has become at Princeton. His initial inspiration, however, was the one that helped direct him to Princeton.

•••

Michael Newman played football at North Carolina A&T in the early 1990s, and he and wife Nakia went on to raise their family in the Tar Heel State. Jalen, the middle of three children, dreamed of a similar life pattern early in his days at Weddington High School.

"Football was important in our family as early as when I could walk," Jalen said. "We eat, sleep and breathe football. My dad playing Division I football was a big influence on me. I wanted to follow in his footsteps."

When you grow up in the heart of ACC country, it's easy to dream of playing for programs like North Carolina, Duke or Wake Forest. Since his father played at a smaller school, Jalen saw that you could play good football on a team that didn't appear on national television every Saturday. He was seriously focused on academics, so he wanted to play high-level football at one of the best schools in the nation.

Princeton entered the conversation at a time when that was all you could have with recruits — conversations. Newman first heard from the Tigers at the start of the COVID pandemic, so he connected with coaches via Zoom far before he ever stepped on the Princeton campus.

As for those first steps on campus, well, there was a lot of running involved.

"I visited campus on a Friday night in August of 2020, and I'll never forget it," Newman says with a smile he often carries around campus. "It was crazy thunderstorms, and we're just running all around campus trying to get to archways to be underneath something. It was love at first sight. Even throughout the downpour and all the lightning, I just thought it was a beautiful campus. I remember thinking that if it's like this in all this rain, I can't wait to see how beautiful it is when the sun comes out."

That type of thinking would serve Newman and his teammates well years later.

•••

Newman remembers the feeling inside the Princeton Stadium locker room before his first home game. He was dressing for a college football game, just as his father had done decades earlier. Princeton overwhelmed Stetson in a 63-0 win, and Newman was even able to get on the field for a few plays. He has fond recollections of the sight of his mother wiping away tears of happiness when they met after the game.

Newman also remembers thinking that the joy of a few plays might be OK as a freshman, but he wanted more — and Princeton would soon need more. That 2021 team was loaded with upperclassman defensive backs, and while they might have been blocking his path to immediate playing time, they set the path to much better play down the road.

"I knew the weight room would be crucial because I had to get bigger," Newman said about his earliest focuses towards improvement. "I knew I needed to study the playbook. But I really asked a lot of questions. That DB room had a lot of older guys we relied on, guys like Delon Stallworth, Trevor Forbes, CJ Wall, Matthew Winston, Christian Brown, Michael Ruttlen. I relied on guys like that to learn the defense, because once they graduated, there were a lot of young guys."

Newman grabbed a spot in the 2022 rotation, and he played every game in both his sophomore and junior seasons. Head coach Bob Surace thought he had a real All-Ivy League case last year after a season with 29 tackles and six breakups.

"Jalen has been a terrific corner the past three years," Surace said. "He's long, he has terrific ball skills and he's a very physical player. He's an excellent leader by example."

An invaluable member of the secondary, Newman took part in some of Surace's favorite preseason camp battles this fall. The only position that may be as senior-laden and deep as the defensive backs is the wide receiver group, and those two groups get after each other day after day. They help each other on the field, and then they help each other off it.

"We are really emphasizing communication, asking each other what they are seeing in practice," Newman said. "What did you see on this play that made you switch up on your route? I want to know what they are seeing from us, so I can understand what they see from the offensive perspective. We can incorporate that in our games."

"I feel like we're seeing the best guys in the Ivy League every day," Newman added. "I think those guys see the best defensive backs in the Ivy League every day too."

That chemistry is part of a strong bond throughout the team, and it showed up again over the last week.

• • •

Newman, once the guy who could stand in a thunderstorm and think about how everything will look in the sunshine, is now part of a team that has weathered plenty of its own storms over the last year. Crushing 2023 losses to both Brown and Yale, as well as this year's opener at Lehigh, were immediately followed by memorable wins over Harvard, Penn and Howard.

The Tigers came heartbreakingly close to an Ivy League title in 2022, and then fell far short of their own expectations last year. Regardless, the toughest moments have never pulled this team apart.

Rather, it has brought the Tigers closer together.

"There is no quit in us," Newman said. "We move on to the next week. With this group, we have a lot to prove this year. There is a chip on our shoulder. We felt like there were a lot of things we left on the table last year, and we've come out ready to prove ourselves this season."

An anthropology major, Newman is unsure of what the future holds for him. He did a summer internship with Patten and Patten, Inc., an investment firm in Tennessee led by former Surace teammate Raymond Ryan '89, so he could look at a career in finance. He is also considering graduate school. One thing you can be certain of. Newman will ask questions, find his path, and work his way to becoming an indispensable member of the team.

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