Michael Vick - is he really human after all?
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Michael Vick just may be a nice guy? Huh?
We are all so quick to jump on the Michael Vick is a Monster bandwagon. It is just too easy. After all the guy took dogs, man’s best friend, but evidentially not Michael’s best friend, and he outright killed them by torturous means.
Yeah, it is all too easy.
We live in a crazy world that just seems to get crazier by the day. There is way too much news in the world and 99 percent of it is bad. We are inundated with everything bad happening in the world.
So why does the Michael Vick dog fighting thing make us so angry?
Let’s face it; do you wake up angry about Iraq, or the killings in Africa, or North Korea, or the price of gas, or high inflation? No, you don’t, to any great degree, because all those issues seem so far away and so huge that you don’t have any control over them.
But with Michael, it was a dog. Many dogs, in fact. That hits home. Michael is not protecting any religious beliefs or profiting from oil. Vick just seems cruel.
There is a problem with that perception. The people that have surrounded Michael Vick in his adult life do not see him that way at all.
Everyone from family and friends to coaches and teammates describe him as a hard worker who cares for those around him, who never shows the sort of ego one would expect from someone of his staggering skills, who would rather hang out at home playing video games than go out on the town. source
Michael Vick came from a poor neighborhood rampant with drugs, crime, and just pure lack of everything else.
If nothing else, though, it seems clear that Vick — born 27 years ago to teenage parents and raised largely by his mother in a neighborhood where gangs and drugs and poverty were a constant reminder of one’s standing in life — never quite shook off the code of the ‘hood.
Machismo and loyalty help keep you alive from one day to the next. Not even a $130 million contract, luxurious cars and a mansion in the suburbs can necessarily change that.
“It’s difficult for people to understand, particularly the middle class and upper middle class,” said Brian Colwell, a sociology professor at the University of Missouri. “They just see it as a bad behavior, rather than a learned sense of how to survive.”
Michael went on to be a great player in high school, but was overshadowed by Ronald Curry. Vick then blossomed in College.
Curry had a solid career at North Carolina but nothing special. Vick, on the other hand, led Virginia Tech to the national championship game as a redshirt freshman, doing his best to single-handedly beat Florida State in the Sugar Bowl. He was favored to win the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, but an ankle injury scuttled his chances.
So who is the real Michael Vick, the one portrayed in the papers or the one his friends know?
Just a couple of months ago, old mentor James “Poo” Johnson called Vick to ask if he could get some equipment for a Boys & Girls Club tournament. No. 7 sent the stuff right along and said he would try to attend the event.
“He’s being portrayed now sort of like a monster, but that’s not him,” said Johnson, who first met Vick two decades ago. “I know his heart.”
It seems Michael never could leave behind his upbringing and friends from his old neighborhood.
Colwell, the sociology professor, said it’s not unusual for someone coming from a poor neighborhood to stick with those he grew up with, even after going on to fame and fortune. If anything, the bonds to the past are especially comforting when one is suddenly faced with a drastic change in lifestyle.
“You’re asking a lot out of a person to divorce themselves from their background,” Colwell said. “Your identity is rooted in actual people. You’re asking someone to be someone else, to essentially say, ‘Ignore everyone that cares for you and you’ve come to know.’ It can feel a little like jumping off into an abyss.”
Will we ever get to know the real Michael Vick?
NFL Football Fan Question Can Michael be a nice guy and still be a dog torturer?
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Tags: atlanta, Atlanta Falcons, dog-fighting, dogs, football, michael_vick, nfl, nfl_footballRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Atlanta Falcons, Michael Vick, NFL Football
3 opinions for Michael Vick - is he really human after all?
NFL FAN
Jul 30, 2007 at 6:13 am
“NFL Football Fan Question Can Michael be a nice guy and still be a dog torturer?”
Your question is behind the curve. Nice guy to some? So what? The facts show he IS a dog torturer and that is why he’s taking a fall. Even if his slick DC lawyer, Billy Martin, manages to beat this rap (highly doubtful now that a co-defendant is going to testify against Vick) Vicks owning the property where dog fighting took place and his other personal involvement in the enterprise leaves him as ‘damaged goods’ as far as a career in the NFL is concerned. He brought it all on himself. He is the author of his own misfortune.
surtin
Jul 31, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Seems to me like the media/bloggers/everyone are just taking this whole thing and inflating it. Sure as it’s been said, dog fighting is sick and cruel and gives otherwise kind animals bad names (e.g. pitbulls and rottweilers). But for me some football fans are just as bad as deranged bible thumpers now. And just how many of them, even while this is going on and they’re so “outraged”, still think members of PETA are bat sh*t retarded?
James
Aug 1, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Surtin,
PETA tried to drive me away from ice fishing on a lake, but we did not electrocute, drown, or hang any of the fish.
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