Vick

[Ohio Buckeye]

I just hate that football player Vick from Atlanta has been involved
in dogfighting.  With all the money pro. football players make, you
wouldn't think they would go for something like this.  It angers me
how many of the football players act as if they above the law.
They are so fortunate to be able to be making a living doing what
they love to do and make good money, yet they do crazy things.
I'll never understand it.

[goofynina]

I am with you girlfriend,  i dont see why ANY one has to let such cruelty happen, especially to innocent animals, *shakes fist*  DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL I SAY!!! 

[KT0930]

I live very close to Atlanta (all media comes from Atlanta), so it has been quite interesting watching this unfold. I don't know how much play Vick's legal problems have gotten outside of this area, but let's just say he's not in unfamiliar territory, being the center of controversey. It probably is, however, the first time he's been held accountable for what he's done.

Earlier this year, he was stopped in the Miami airport with a water bottle that had some sort of "secret compartment" in it, and the compartment had suspected marijuana in it. Amazingly, after about a week, the Falcons came out and basically said, "it was all a big misunderstanding". Okay, sure, whatever. I, for one, am glad to see him finally have to face reality like the rest of us would if we pulled any of this crap.

This doesn't even begin to touch how I feel about dogfighting...where's Kit's big stick???

[kitkatz]

They are not going to let me close enough to the man with my Big STICK!  He sure needs a whack of common sense given to him.

[Black]

For anyone who doesn't know, I own and operate a small dog boarding and grooming facility, and up until Mike and I developed health problems, I did some rescue work -- mostly Shih Tzu.  My best friend's son and his wife are members of the "Out of the Pits" pit bull rescue in Upstate NY.  We could tell you tales that would make you sick to your stomach.

I simply can not understand what makes anyone abuse a person or animal just because they can.  As much as I would like to put Vick in the pit with all of the dogs he abused and let them have him, I could not do it.  I can envision it and feel some measure of justice at the thought of him being horrified and not so brave with no weapons and the muzzles off, and I would feel a measure of satisfaction in knowing that he would be feeling what the dogs that suffered in that pit felt.  I know I couldn't do that, but, I can damn sure hope that he pays a huge fine and does the maximum jail time.

As much as I despise the group PETA, I am glad that they are already pushing this case.

[BigSky]

All pro sports need to start having a league termination policy.

Do crap like this get banned from the sport for life.

Baseball banned Pete Rose, and what it did doesn't even compare to what these athletes do and get away  today.  They get nothing more than a slap on the wrist these days.

[George Jung]

            
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.............only one reason.

[KT0930]

This article was in Sunday's Atlanta paper. Kind of sums up Vick's career highs and lows...

~~~~~~~~

By ALAN JUDD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/22/07
Michael Vick joined the Atlanta Falcons a month shy of his 21st birthday, a naïf whom his new team would shelter from the bright lights of the big city.

Or so the Falcons thought.

Shielding Vick from temptation quickly gave way to protecting his image. Long before a grand jury indicted him Tuesday in a federal dogfighting case, Vick's performance on the football field often competed for attention with his conduct outside the arena.

But repeatedly during the past six years, Vick's celebrity, his money and his value to his team helped insulate him from public censure for his actions.

Vick settled a lawsuit last year by a former girlfriend who said he knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease. But the case was closed in such secrecy that the woman's lawyer can't even say why he can't comment on it.

Vick surrounded himself with unsavory associates, two with criminal records for drug trafficking. After two friends with Vick pocketed someone else's fancy watch at the Atlanta airport, the owner said a Falcons executive offered him money to keep Vick's name out of a police report.

Even the contents of Vick's water bottle raised questions. Vick gave contradictory explanations about a bottle with a secret compartment that police confiscated in January in the Miami airport. Police said it contained suspected marijuana; five days later, authorities said no drugs were found. Vick later claimed he kept jewelry in the compartment, and that police tried to frame him.

How the Falcons, Vick and his fans responded to those episodes illustrates the incredible leeway afforded talented sports stars, according to sports psychologists and others who study the actions of elite athletes.

"To some degree, there is a sense of entitlement and a sense of things get overlooked and things get taken care of and the rules don't apply," said Jonathan F. Katz, a psychologist in New York who consults with professional sports teams.

"It's like a parent," Katz said. "If there's tacit approval of misbehavior and there are no consequences, the message on some level is it's OK.

"We're all complicit in that," he said. "People are still going to pay for their cable television and their Falcons tickets and things like that."

Whether the team or the National Football League will discipline Vick remains up in the air. It's clear, however, that the Falcons missed several opportunities to curtail Vick's erratic behavior, from his brushes with the law to his obscene gesture directed toward booing fans last season.

Vick, though, long had lamented what he considered excessive scrutiny.

"I ain't got no control over what people are going to say about me or write," Vick told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2005. "That's the worst part of my life right now."


Entourage

Dan Reeves, Vick's first coach with the Falcons, called his quarterback into his office in February 2004 to discuss a troubling news report.

In Vick's hometown, Newport News, Va., police had charged two men with drug trafficking after finding marijuana in their pickup truck. Actually, it wasn't their truck. It was Vick's.

Reeves saw the episode as a teaching opportunity. He lectured Vick on the importance of reputation, on choosing the right friends, on staying out of trouble for the good of his team.

"You are an Atlanta Falcon," Reeves says he told Vick. "Whatever you do is going to be a reflection on all of us, not just you."

"He wasn't in the car," Reeves recalled last week, "and he didn't have anything to do with it. But he was the one responsible — it was his vehicle. He understood that."

Yet, Vick continued spending his free time with the same friends, engaging in the same activities. Like Vick, many came from a rough section of Newport News.

There was Quanis Phillips, a high school classmate of Vick's. He served brief jail terms on drug charges, including possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

There was Tony Taylor, who came to Newport News after serving two years in prison for drug trafficking in New York.

There was Davon Boddie, Vick's cousin and cook. Boddie's drug arrest led to the April 25 police search of Vick's house in Surry County, Va., allegedly the base of a dogfighting organization called Bad Newz Kennels.

Phillips and Taylor, along with Purnell Peace, were indicted with Vick last week. Prosecutors allege they conspired to sponsor and participate in illegal dog fights and to transport animals across state lines to engage in fights. The charges carry maximum jail terms of six years and fines as high as $350,000.

In the 2005 interview, Vick defended his friends, whom he described as his "crew."

"We all grew up tight," he said. "We all stuck together before I was Mike Vick ... before the fame and stardom, before the money. There's not one new guy in my circle. Everybody I have around me is out for my best interests."

Two members of that circle traveling with Vick through the Atlanta airport in October 2004 seemed to have other interests in mind.

According to Atlanta police records, a security camera caught Phillips and another man, Todd Harris, picking up a Rolex while passing through a security checkpoint with Vick.

The watch belonged to Alvin Spencer, a security screener. After seeing the video, Spencer went to the airport police to file a report.

Spencer later said a police detective, promising that Vick would return the watch, urged him not to file a report. The detective hadn't talked to Vick, though, records show. He had called the Falcons.


The fixer

Billy "White Shoes" Johnson was a star receiver and kick returner for the Falcons in the 1980s. Four years after retiring, he returned as coordinator of player programs. His duties include helping rookies adjust to professional athletics and, since 2001, keeping the Falcons' best-known player out of trouble.

In January 2002, for instance, Vick had twice failed to appear in court for a parking citation. A Clayton County judge threatened to jail him if he didn't show up a third time.

So Johnson took him to court. After Vick paid a $260 fine, Johnson acted as his spokesman, telling a reporter the case was "bogus." He suggested Vick was treated more harshly because of his celebrity.

"It happens all the time," Johnson said of the charge. Afterward, the near-jailing of the Falcons' highest-paid player received little news coverage.

The day that Vick's friends took Spencer's watch at the airport, a police detective called Johnson. According to police records, Johnson offered to have Vick bring back the watch the next day and to pay Spencer $450 for "any inconvenience he may have encountered." Phillips and Harris, Johnson told the detective, grabbed the watch because they thought it belonged to Vick.

The next day, Vick didn't show up with the watch. But Johnson met with Spencer and police officers. Spencer, who could not be reached for comment last week, later said he felt pressured to not file a police report as Johnson tried to negotiate a payment to him.

Johnson did not respond to several messages left at his office by a reporterlast week.

Spencer later said that Johnson and the officers kept him in a room for several hours, apparently less interested in retrieving his watch than in protecting Vick. He said Johnson asked him "what would make me happy." At one point in the conversation, records say, Johnson offered Spencer as much as $1,000.

"He's got Billy in there blocking for him and he probably has no intention of returning my watch," Spencer later said. "I felt betrayed by the whole process."

Spencer filed a complaint with Atlanta police over the handling of the case. When investigators submitted written questions to Vick, Johnson e-mailed back: "Mike will not participate in the investigation under advisement from his attorney."

The detective said Spencer tried to get as much as $20,000 from the team and that he didn't submit a formal report because "Mr. Spencer stated he and Mr. Johnson could settle this matter."


Ron Mexico

Vick settled another matter under the shroud of court-approved secrecy.

A former girlfriend sued Vick in March 2005, claiming he had failed to tell her he had genital herpes. A few days after they had sex without a condom for the first time, the lawsuit said, the woman experienced pains and went to a hospital emergency room. A doctor diagnosed genital herpes.

The woman called Vick, the lawsuit said, but he wouldn't return her calls for several weeks. When she did reach him, court records say, "he would be very short with her while continually denying that he knew anything about what she was saying about herpes."

Finally, the lawsuit said, Vick "confessed" that he had known he had herpes when he had sex with her.

In court filings, Vick's lawyers denied he had herpes at the time. If he did, they said, he was unaware of it.

A year after the woman says she contracted the disease, Vick was testedunder an assumed name: Ron Mexico.

The results do not appear in the court file. But Vick's lawyers described the test as "unreliable."

The woman's lawyer took sworn statements from Vick, his friend Quanis Phillips and his doctors. But in April 2006, with the case headed to trial, the woman asked a judge to dismiss her lawsuit. She and Vick had reached a settlement. Its terms and several thick files, including Vick's deposition, were permanently sealed.

The settlement also precluded the woman and her lawyer from saying anything about the case, or Vick.

"No comment," her lawyer, Cale Conley, said recently. "Those are the only two words you're going to hear from me."


'Lesson learned'?

The incidents surrounding Vick have followed a consistent arc: Public embarrassment; followed by private talks with team officials, often described as "stern"; and concluding with Vick's pledge to do better.

In his only statement on the dogfighting case, he acknowledged in late April that he needed to make changes in his life.

"It's a call for me to really tighten down on who I'm trying to take care of," he said. "When it all boils down, people will try to take advantage of you and leave you out to dry. Lesson learned for me."

But even some of Vick's strongest supporters now wonder what he has learned.

Reeves, the former coach, said the Falcons investigated Vick's background before drafting him in 2001. And team officials were candid then about the extra care they were taking to shield Vick from bad influences.

After the drug incident involving his truck, Reeves said, he took Vick at his word that it was an isolated incident. But he said he found last year's obscene gesture at the Georgia Dome troubling, and the dogfighting allegations stunning.

"It disappoints me, but more it surprises me how he could be associated with something like that," Reeves said. "It's not the Mike Vick I'm acquainted with. He was just a really good person."

Psychologists suggest tougher responses to the earlier incidents — by Vick's teammates, his coaches, even his fans — might have prevented the current troubles.

"Individual behavior does not occur in a vacuum," said Colleen Hacker, a sports psychologist who teaches at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., and is the school's former women's soccer coach.

"The environment you put yourself in influences who you are. The people who are an ongoing part of your life influence who you are."

— This article contains quotes by Michael Vick from an unpublished article by staff writer Matt Winklejohn.

[MyssAnne]

Man, I hope he is kicked out of the NFL. What an embarrassment to our country. I so hope no child idolizes him, unfortunately I fear there are many boys who probably look up to him, and see what he had done, and think, "I can do that too."

[goofynina]

I cant believe how this guy keeps getting away with this crap 

[keefer51]

"Money, it's a hit. Don't give me any of that do goody good bull#$&*. New car caviar four star day dream think I'll buy me a football team!"

[MyssAnne]

Well, today the news says he is NOT going to the training camp as of today....we shall see how that turns out!

[Ohio Buckeye]

They had a news conference from Falcons on ESPN.
They said he wouldn't be going to training camp and a 4 game suspension so far.
Hope it comes to more than that.  He should be out.

[George Jung]

The attitude toward athletes from many people make it seem like the pubic needs them (the athlete) more than they need the public and because of this they are held to a different standard when it comes to matters of the law.  In reality I firmly believe they should be held to a slightly higher standard than the general population and punished to the fullest when a crimes is committed, especially a crime of violence.  Vick may not ever forget what will happen as a result of his latest behavior but I tend to doubt the true impact of his punishment will not resinate within him for very long.  Has anyone ever considered a zero tolerance policy for major league players when it comes to criminal behavior.  It should be a privilege to play pro sports, not a right.

[KT0930]

It's all over the news here, of course....

The Falcons wanted to suspend him for four games because that's the max they can do before the league gets involved. The league said, "Hold off for now, let us review it." So we're pretty much in a holding pattern as far as what's gonna happen. The team is going on with training camp this week acting as though he'll be out for the entire season.

In words, Arthur Blank (team owner) and others, are saying, "they're just charges, so far. We have to assume innocent until proven guilty" Personally, I didn't see the conference, only heard it on the radio, but people who saw it are saying that the body language of everyone on the podium said, "He's never playing in the NFL again...at least not for the Falcons". Let's hope!

On a brighter note, I have heard that the guy who's replacing him in training camp, and possibly for the duration of the season, is a really stand-up guy and someone Atlanta can be proud of (although he still needs help as far as his quarterbacking goes!).

[skyedogrocks]

This guy just disgusts me, he is a total waste of life.  I can't believe he is on a paid leave from football.  He should rot in jail for a very long time for what he did to those poor innocent dogs.

He needs to go to Sherrif Joe's jail!

[MyssAnne]

Now he is saying he had no idea what was going on....that's not a property he is on very often.  Um. If you say so.  Personally I have a hard time believing anything he says. His record does NOT speak well for him.

[LightLizard]

its too bad that this jerks actions reflect so negatively on pro football, really, but i suppose that the ridiculous salary he received as a player was what enabled him to fund his dog fighting business.
he should be put away in a cell with several pit bulls for company.

[Ohio Buckeye]

Some of the pro players just act as tho they are above the law.
They should lead lives that are role models for our young people.

[LightLizard]

no kiddin! what do they think they are, rock stars?

[George Jung]

A guy that I work with was trying to use the excuse that Vick didn't know what was going on at the house.  My response was that well, it's his house so don't you think he should make it his business to know what is going on.  If a brothel was being run from the house would Vick not know about it or not be held accountable for it?  I think he would do both.

[goofynina]

This S.O.B is just trying to get away with this shit just like he got away with all that other shit, (sorry, this just burns me up) 

[Black]

A guy that I work with was trying to use the excuse that Vick didn't know what was going on at the house.  My response was that well, it's his house so don't you think he should make it his business to know what is going on.  If a brothel was being run from the house would Vick not know about it or not be held accountable for it?  I think he would do both.

Tell the guy at work that there is already documentation of a sale of a "Pit Bull" to Vick for many thousands of dollars (if I recall corretly, over $20,000), AND records of a phone call made to Vick when a dog lost a fight and Vick gave orders for it to be wet down and electrocuted, AND people who have come forward to say that they personally saw Vick at a dog fight.  One was a woman on the phone for an interview on TV; she requested that her name not be released to the public and it was not.  She has been working with the police on this case.  Vick may still be innocent in the eyes of the law, but I think he is guilty and will pay a heavy fine for this -- I just hope he gets some jail time.

[Ohio Buckeye]

It is so sad that people could be so cruel to loyal pets.
Man's best friend.
I heard the max. penalty is 5 yrs. and fine $250,000-$350,000.
Also heard on news that Nike has suspended his contract.
He, of course, pleaded not guilty.  yeah right.

[okarol]

Role Reversal...