thoughts on vick
Ron Mexico’s, er, excuse me, Michael Vick’s dogfighting allegations is one of the stories which prompted me to start this blog. Yea, I’m a little late with this story, so I’ll try to make it brief. But this story, along with two other stories, the Tim Donaghy NBA fiasco and Barry Bonds’ pursuit of Hank Aaron’s record, are all HUGE sports stories all taking place at the same time. I felt like I needed to weigh in.
While a lot has been said already, I’ll offer my opinion and a few more points. One, this is different from the Kobe and Duke lacrosse cases. Those two cases involved one isolated incident, basically comprised a lot of he said/she said, and as much as we didn’t want to do it, we had to give the alleged attackers the benefit of the doubt. In Vick’s case, the Feds (not the police) have SIX YEARS of evidence on Vick. There is also a 95% conviction for this particular charge. Plus, one of Vick’s co-defendants is pleading guilty and will likely offer testimony against Vick. The evidence is so overwhelming, you can’t give Vick the benefit of the doubt. In sum: Vick’s chances of walking are good pause not.
As far as the NFL’s response/the Constitution/due process.. Yes, the American legal system allows people their day in court, innocent until proven guilty, etc. But, the NFL isn’t the United States Government. The NFL can do whatever it wants to if one of its players violates the code of conduct. Roger Goodell realized that a huge backlash would occur if he allowed Vick to play. Not only from PETA members or from similar groups, but from casual fans as well. I know my reaction would have been along the lines of “how the hell is he allowed to play?”
In today’s microscope society, athletes and celebrities are held to higher standards than everyone else. Whether this is unfair I’m not going to discuss. But I will ask this: did he not think that a dogfighting operation that he financed and directly participated in for six years would go under the radar? With a celebrity of his stature? To allow Michael Vick to waltz into training camp like nothing was up would have proved a huge detriment to the league, and Goodell made the right call. We’ll give Vick his day in court. But if convicted, will we give him another chance? Doubtful.
As for now, let’s just all have fun with the start of the Joey Harrington era!
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