Getting set for his 40-yard dash, the Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton leaned into a sprinter’s stance and swept his left arm upward, ready for the downward thrust that would launch him off the line. The Forty, as insiders call it, is the premiere test of raw speed. Newton’s burst at the 2011 NFL Scouting Combine showed that he has plenty of it: He covered the distance in 4.59 seconds.
A version of this article appeared in the September 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.
