Michael Vick was in court today (July 26, 2007) to plead not guilty to the federal charges against him in a disturbing dog fighting venture. No surprise here. And yes, due process is in action and he is innocent until proven guilty. But the evidence leaked thus far is pretty damning.
To read George Dohrmann’s special report “The House on Moonlight Road” in Sports Illustrated, June 4, 2007, it really hits home how Vick’s innocence may be questionable. After all, whether he was on the property or not, it was still his property. It’s like giving someone else the keys to your car. If they get into a wreck and hurt somebody, you’re responsible. You can cry ignorance all you want but your insurance company isn’t going to buy it.
With additional charges looming, even if Vick gets off on a plea bargain or a light sentence, the images are hard to shake. You’d have to think it’s impossible for anyone with any sense of decency or humanity to watch the clips of dog fighting for more than 30 seconds, less than five seconds if there is sound. It’s why the issue is so volatile.
For the people who were close to him, like Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank, this behavior is not the Michael Vick they know. They can’t picture how such a warm and generous individual can watch or take part in such inhumane cruelty toward another living being. Some will say it’s because he has such a big heart that he’s involved, helping out his childhood friends. Well, it doesn’t matter how much anyone loves their friends, few would engage in such a venture because their friends were into it. They’d more likely start dissing their friends. And if the company you keep determines your character, it’s not looking very good for Michael Vick right now.
So what if he gets off? He’s most likely done from the Falcons. The club is probably waiting for the right moment to release him so it won’t cost them as much money. Unless the league bans him for life (probably only a possibility if he is convicted), then he could potentially play for the Raiders. (Who else but Al Davis would bring him in? Okay, maybe Dallas.) And if he’s banned altogether from the NFL, you know some team in Canada will try and pick him up. PETA members better start making sure their passports are up to date.
Even with all of these scenarios – guilty, not guilty, acquitted, plea bargain – what are Michael Vick fans supposed to feel? If you want to know how big a Vick fan I was, my friends have been holding off calling me for days because they knew I needed time to digest and mourn.
Regardless of where the trial goes and how it ends, we can’t erase the images, knowing it happened on his property. How can we look at a picture of Michael Vick without thinking about what those eyes have seen and that he might have enjoyed it? But – then there are the highlight reels.
How do we erase the jaw dropping plays that endeared us to him in the first place? The magical runs. The touchdowns. Do we feel cheated? Can we ever enjoy the historic football plays that are forever etched in our minds? Do we all become Vince Young fans and hope that he carries on as the Human Highlight Reel? (So far, from his first season, it’s not too far a stretch.)
What do Michael Vick fans do now that they have been cheated out of some of the most exciting football the league has ever witnessed? Maybe someone can start a support group: Michael Vick Anonymous. But as our initial anger subsides and gives way for mourning – mourning what was and what can never be again – we can only hope that maybe this was a good thing for the American Pit Bull. It’s made our conscious more aware of a disturbing sub-culture – one that we will be paying a lot more attention to from now on. Perhaps we’ll be more vigilant about noticing the condition of our neighbor’s dogs from now on, too. I suppose we can thank him for that.
© 2007 Debbie Elicksen
Loading ...
6 users commented in " What do Michael Vick fans do now? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackPlease let Michael Vick play.Everybody make mistakes in life….I’am a big fan of his and i love him
to death and i feel without Michael Vick being there Falcons is going to be no good at all…
Please let Michael Vick play? Are you insane or black? Have you ever owned a pet? Did you ever imagine someone taking your pet from you to use it as bait? That is just one of the things Michael Vick did, they would pick up strays and use them to train their killer dogs to kill. Think about that the next time you sit down to watch a game with Skippy on your lap all nuzzled and warm. The next time you stare into your little Fifi’s big brown eyes as you stroke her pretty fur coat, think about Michael Vick’s killer Pit Bull ripping little Gigi’s head off and Michael Vick laughing the whole time as he praises his killer to tear little Muffy’s ears off. Let Michael Vick play? Are you insane or Black? This is just what this country needs. Let’s just keep on perpetuating stereotypes. What does Chris Rock say? He loves not knowing. Yep, that’s it, just keep on keepin on.
Michael Vick shouldn’t have any fans left, but I’m sure there are some dim bulbs out there, who are morally bankrupt, or just plain stupid. Read a book!
He should rot in hell.
I have pets and I love them to death but its they are still just dogs….wouldn’t he have served society better by doing anti- animal cruelty PSA’s and making donations? The NFL, the Judge, and you people are all insane…
PHILADELPHIA—Michael Vick’s pregame pep talk Sunday, in which he recounted the events of a brutal 2004 dogfight between his pit bull terrier Zebro and rival pit bull Maniac, failed to inspire his teammates in any way whatsoever, Eagles team sources reported.
Vick, who was playing in his first NFL game since serving an 18-month prison sentence, called the 10-minute story “really motivational,” and reportedly failed to understand why his graphic recounting of how Zebro ripped out Maniac’s larynx caused teammates to stagger out of the player tunnel and onto Lincoln Financial Field with their heads hanging.
“I don’t know what their problem is, because that story pumps me up every time,” Vick said during a postgame press conference. “It’s a classic underdog story: On one side of the dogfighting pit you had Maniac, who was a beast, and on my end you had Zebro, who was pretty good, but not great. Yet we had trained him hard. We strengthened his hind legs by forcing him to constantly jump at a teasing stick; we emotionally tortured him so that he would attack everything in sight; and from the time he was a little puppy, we toughened him up by beating him with a metal baton.”
“I told my teammates that the stakes were high, because if Zebro had lost, I would have either electrocuted him, drowned him, or slammed his body to the ground until he was dead,” Vick added. “How is that not inspiring?”
According to Eagles players, Vick’s voice increased in intensity at key moments throughout the pep talk, and he was at his most impassioned when he spoke of how Zebro continued to fight despite the fact that numerous chunks of flesh had been ripped from his body.
Vick also sought to motivate his team by comparing the Eagles’ weekly preparation to Zebro’s, saying that just as Vick had forced his pit bull to drag a tire with his mouth for hours on end to strengthen his jaw, the Eagles defense had put in the training necessary to stop quarterback Matt Cassel.
Sources confirmed that by the end of the locker room speech, the Eagles were so demoralized they could barely muster the will to put their hands into the team circle for a group cheer.
“I don’t know why he told us those things,” said Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb, visibly disturbed as he told reporters that Vick looked proud when he explained how Zebro nearly lost consciousness several times throughout the fight. “I spent the first half of the game trying to get all that imagery out of my head: the bloody pit, the cigar smoke, grown men shouting as dogs ripped each other to shreds. It was so messed up that it didn’t even sound real.”
“They turned those dogs into monsters and made them kill each other for their own sick enjoyment,” Kolb added. “For their own fucking enjoyment.”
Running back LeSean McCoy echoed Kolb, saying that at no time during the game did he draw on the thought of Zebro losing half his ear as a source of inspiration.
“Before we went out on the field, [Vick] told us how the dogs went at each other’s throats one last time, and when Zebro broke free, his snout and face were completely covered in blood,” McCoy explained. “That’s when—and I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life—Mike looked at us, smiled, and said, ‘But it wasn’t Zebro’s blood. It was Maniac’s. Now let’s go out there and have some fun!’”
“Jesus Christ,” McCoy added.
Teammates said Vick continued to reference the story throughout the game as a motivational tool, at one point shouting, “Remember Zebro!” when the team faced a difficult third-down situation.
In addition, as Vick finally entered the game to a loud ovation, his teammates said they were further disturbed when Vick compared them to his dogfighting crew, the “Bad Newz Kennels.” Vick said the group would do anything for each other, especially when it came to the mass execution of dogs who failed to win the multimillionaire $1,000 in illegal prize money.
Vick then broke the huddle by loudly barking three times.
“The only reason the Chiefs scored in the second half was because I was still thinking about what Mike said during halftime about ‘trunking,’” said linebacker Omar Gaither, referring to the practice of putting two pit bulls in a car trunk, closing the door, and allowing them to fight for 15 minutes until one is dead. “Why is this freak on my team? Why are people cheering for him? Seriously, answer my questions. Why?”
Leave A Reply