What Michael Vick did to you is exactly what you deserve

This ain't funny so don't ya dare laugh,
just another case 'bout the wrong path,
Straight 'n narrow or yo' soul gets cast
-Richard Walters

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the bottom fell out.

After a morning of listening to random sports radio hosts shoveling dirt on the casket that may or may not contain the career of Michael Vick, something struck me.

How much of this is really OUR fault?

Whether it's Sports, entertainment, or politics, we invest our hopes and dreams in OTHER people.

Not family, or friends, but complete strangers.

I heard a sports columnist tell me that Michael Vick doesn't deserve to entertain us.

Mike Vick should not play another game in the NFL. Ever.

It is not that I do not believe in second chances. I do. Everybody deserves a mulligan or two or four in life. What Vick and apparently a lot of other people need to learn is do-overs do not necessarily mean you escape unscathed.

Mike Vick should not play another game in the NFL. Ever.

It is not that I do not believe in second chances. I do. Everybody deserves a mulligan or two or four in life. What Vick and apparently a lot of other people need to learn is do-overs do not necessarily mean you escape unscathed.

There have to be consequences.

There has to be a message sent to every athlete, in every sport, everywhere, to every team, to every owner, that enough is enough. Our patience is gone.

We are sick of rooting for convicted felons. For wife beaters. For drug pushers. For drunk drivers. For steroid cheats. For rain makers. For thugs. For hooligans. For those who obstruct justice. For athletes who make our kids cry and us blush.

We are sick of athletes who can not seem to grasp that a $117 million paycheck comes with a little bit of responsibility to those fans who pay to turn on the lights in the buildings.

What you mean WE Kimosabe? (c) Tonto

Sports is was and always will be a BUSINESS. A sports journalist, of ALL people cannot possibly be as detached from reality.

A cruel game is being played, yall. And I have never been too sure of who to blame.

Until NOW.

Its OUR fault.

For centuries, since the dawn of time, people of prodigious talent have been elevated to staggering heights in the eyes of the public at large, only to ultimately fall under the weight of the unrealistic expectations.

Once upon a time, Michael Vick was the future of the NFL. Occasionally, he was every bit the jaw dropping physical talent Football fans hoped for.

Mostly he was a Young Black man staggering through life under the weight of city desperate to achieve some sort of football legacy.


Michael Vick came along at a time when The NFL was just now ready to be crowned the undisputed KING of the sporting landscape.

It took Heroic, if scientifically enabled, acts never seen before to bring baseball back from the brink of relative obscurity despite the previous century of being hailed as being MORE than sports, being hailed as the American Pastime.

Basketball was in the afterglow of the Jordan era, smoking a cigarette and watching him get dressed, playing it cool, but knowing that he wasn't coming back and wondering how it would be able to make it without the arm candy it had enjoyed for the past 12-15 years.

But this is all irrelevant now. Vick is but a passing memory, football wise.

He has crossed over from Human being to poster child, stripped of that suddenly elusive third dimension that separates object lessons and poster children from Human Beings.


What has transpired is probably16 years in the making, and the responsibility for it falls squarely on your own shoulders.

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