I think there is the misconception out there that Michael Vick made a mistake. I don’t see it that way at all. A mistake is when you bump into someone by accident.
A mistake is when you lose focus and drop a pass. A mistake is proposing to the wrong girl because you didn’t foresee her cheating on you in five years. This was a way of life for a person cut from a twisted moral fabric.
I saw this on CNNSI.com from Atlanta’s NAACP chapter:
"As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football," said R.L. White, president of the NAACP's Atlanta chapter. "We further ask the NFL, Falcons, and the sponsors not to permanently ban Mr. Vick from his ability to bring hours of enjoyment to fans all over this country."
Rehabilitation? Everyone has a different moral ruler they have used to measure the severity of dogfighting, and I get that. Some people, such as Clinton Portis and the NY Knicks’ Stephon Marbury, really, truly don’t see a problem with it. Michael Vick clearly does not see anything wrong with it and he never will, regardless of the fake contrition that he spews from here on (speaking of which, he hasn’t yet. But he will). There is a difference between being sorry you’ve done something wrong, and being sorry that you got caught. In this situation, it’s clearly the latter.
So what is White talking about? Does he really think that Vick is going to sit in jail and all of a sudden think, ‘boy, that was really mean what I did to those dogs’? No way! He’ll practice saying it, but he won’t believe it. The NAACP should not be speaking out in defense of Vick in any way, shape or form. This was not a random mistake.
The NFL is as big as it is for one reason: They have truckloads of fans. These are the same fans that are incredibly offended by his heinous, heartless crimes. They cannot have a marketing eyesore in their league, regardless of whether he claims that he has changed his views. What’s done is done, and as I’ve said here before on this site, he’s guilty in the court of public opinion. Believe it or, that’s more important to the NFL than being guilty in a court of law. Their millions of fans are their ultimate judge and jury, not 12 people in a box.
It’s for this reason that Vick won’t be allowed back in the NFL. No reasonable person is ever going to come to the conclusion that Vick is a changed man (by the way, it’s reported that Vick was betting as much as $23,000 on dog fights. He donated $10,000 to his alma mater after the VA Tech massacre. Something wrong there?). Here is some advice from a publicist to any athlete, celebrity or organization leader (like, say….the NAACP), who wants to speak out in Vick’s defense: Just. Don’t. No good will come of it. I wonder whether this was White the community leader speaking, or White the Falcons fan who dreads the thought of watching Joey Harrington for the next few years.
