[1][2] As a junior, he was the leading tackler for the 1969 Michigan Wolverines football team with a total of 70 tackles.
During the fall of 1969, he was faced with a choice between traveling with the Michigan football team to Iowa for a football game scheduled for November 15, 1969, or traveling to Washington, D.C., to be part of the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, an antiwar protest that attracted over 500,000 demonstrators on the same day.
"[4] As a senior, Newell started at right defensive tackle in nine of the ten games played by the 1970 Michigan Wolverines football team.
[5] At the end of the 1970 season, Newell was selected as a first-team All-Big Ten Conference player by both the AP and UPI.
[9] In September 1971, the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League announced that they were giving Newell a five-day tryout.
He worked for 32 years in the financial services field for Smith Barney/Citigroup Global Markets, and he also served as the president of the Chicago Bond Club, the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois, and the University of Michigan Club of Chicago.