LET VICK WORK AND PLAY AFTER PAYING DEBT

Everyone who followed pro football knew Michael Vick was a talented football player.

Now everyone in the country knows that, as well as his apparent second talent as a bit of a mogul in the unsavory and illegal world of dog fighting. No bleeding heart entrepreneur was Vick, keeping an eye on the bottom line by quickly disposing of injured or pacifist dogs who could no longer ring up profits as fighting champions.

During the week he has until his guilty plea is finalized August 27, Vick can contemplate all he has lost: a hundred million dollar income as football hero and product pitchman; idol to millions, and most importantly, his freedom.

But it is sad to hear the outcry of sports writers, fans, pundits and Average Joe’s who will not be satisfied that Vick will eventually pay his debt for his crimes and have to map out a life for the next fifty or sixty years, hopefully a chastened and reformed man.

They say he should never play pro football again even if the crimes committed are not directly connected to his legal profession, he fulfills every condition of his sentence and he proclaims and demonstrates his redemption.

To demand a lifetime of punishment for Vick reflects poorly on both its advocates and a society which can only prosper morally as well as materially by nurturing the concept of redemption for reformed law breakers. One of the reasons prison becomes a revolving door for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of criminals is that our heartless society offers little support and resources to become productive citizens.

A reformed, redemptive Michael Vick piling up yardage instead of dead dogs would be a shining example to America’s youth and fellow parolees struggling to have a life after prison.

If he makes it back to the NFL, I’ll root for him, as I do all Underdogs.

Published in USA Today, August 29, 2007
Published in Glen Ellyn Sun, August 31, 2007 Published in Chicago Sun Times, September 3, 2007