[jammin' jamey]

There are probably a few younger people on this website that think Vick's Dog Fighting charges are not that serious or "BS". Found this article on Vick that pretty much sums it up, especially for those who say Vicks a "good guy" and it's all a "race thing" or "it's just dog fighting."

From the Atlanta-Journal Constitution...http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-...t_all.html

He owned a team. He owned a city. He owned a league. He spit on all of it. Everything and everyone. This isn’t a time for apologies, unless your name is Michael Vick. No excuses, no alibis. This didn’t happen because of bad friends today or a bad family situation as a youth or the pursuit of some ravenous and misdirected and racist media.

An icon has just lost his freedom and possibly his career, and it’s not because Michael Vick is a great guy who made one bad decision. He is flawed. Not a little, but deeply.
People of great character make bad decisions and rebound. They don’t fund and operate an illegal operation whose primary functions are to fight and kill dogs. They don’t go through life always deflecting blame on friends or family. They grow up. Michael Vick never grew up. He probably never felt he had to.

He is as wonderful an athlete as we’ve ever seen. But he was flawed on the field, the residual of poor work habits and laziness. He got away with it because coaches and surrounding yes-men let him, and all the money in the world apparently couldn’t buy him a decent mirror.

He owned this town with his smile. But he was flawed off the field. So many people have said Vick is not a bad guy, but they miss the point. Somebody doesn’t have to be a bad guy to do awful things. When somebody in a position of power is immature, arrogant and just plain stupid, it’s a lethal combination.

He lied. Easy and often. He lied to the owner of the franchise who gave him a $130 million contract and the platform to earn millions more. He lied to the commissioner of the most powerful sports empire on earth. He lied to you, the people who defended him and adored him and bought his jerseys. He lied, probably because it worked before and he saw no reason to change. He thought he could skate. Why wouldn’t he? It happened after the water bottle incident in Miami, which devolved into a great tap dance by Vick and the Falcons organization. Rather than show appreciation to authorities and accept that he got away lucky, Vick suggested the police tried to frame him. That didn’t go over well in Miami or Flowery Branch.

He flipped off a crowd but figured people would forgive him quickly. Many didn’t. He allegedly transmitted an STD to a woman, but he and his attorney didn’t move quickly to bury the matter and settle the case, probably because he figured she would disappear. She didn’t. The result was talk-show lampooning and what some in the Falcons’ front office viewed as a permanent defect.

He lied about missing flights for testimony before Congress, incorrectly thinking that his endorsement company (AirTran) wouldn’t throw him under the plane. Oops.
Nike. How do you become so tarnished that you lose Nike?

So many people have wanted to make this about race and not the individual. ESPN recently explored Atlanta’s racial divide on this and several issues, dating to the Civil Rights era. But in doing so, its Web site juxtaposed photos of Vick with the likes of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Ralph David Abernathy, as if they were somehow equals, either in morals or objectives.

Michael Vick and Martin Luther King — are you kidding?
“Not guilty,” Vick said three weeks ago.
“I have a dream,” King said, a week short of 44 years ago, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

This isn’t the case of a person with great character jumping the track with one bad decision. A six-year operation does not constitute one bad decision. So many other incidents don’t constitute one bad decision. Betraying those who trusted you, particularly owner Arthur Blank, does not constitute one bad decision.

We’ve seen great athletes throw away careers before. Drugs, spousal abuse, a general attitude of feeling above the law. We’ve never seen somebody blow so much over something so dumb. But all are symptoms of the same thing — serious defects.
Judge Michael Vick by the content of his character. And what he just spit on.