Michael Vick and his ‘double life’: How exactly did he do it?
I was encouraged to hear that Michael Vick, in advance of his reality show that debuts Tuesday on BET , is saying he led “a double life,” and I use the word “encouraged” advisedly. Because you don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself and asked people who worked inside the building at 4400 Falcon Parkway if I/they had any hint — any hint — of what was to come.
And I did not. Which might make me the world’s worst reporter, except that I’ve not yet found anyone within the compound who saw it coming, either.
I know, I know. People on the outside will harrumph and say they knew it all along because he wore his hair in corn rows and dressed in a manner different from, say, Peyton Manning. But I grew up in the ’60s and have had some fairly extravagant hairdos myself, and I attended my high school graduation wearing platform shoes with four-inch heels. Me, I stopped judging on appearances long ago.
And even if you believed Vick mightn’t have been a model citizen, you knew this … how? Before the Ron Mexico civil action was filed in 2005, there wasn’t a hint of misdoings, and he’d been a Falcon since April 2001. In hindsight, the weird part wasn’t that we “knew all about” the most famous person in Atlanta but that we knew, as in really knowing, hardly anything.
Even after a relatively quiet NFL season, Vick is back in the news. Scott MacFarlane of WSB recently gained access to documents stemming from the Federal investigation into dogfighting. The highlights: That Vick, according to informants, shot some dogs and hit others with a shovel, and got an “adrenaline high” from the brutality.
Eight days ago the Dallas Morning News reported that David Jacobs, a steroids dealer who has since killed himself and his girlfriend, told the paper he supplied Vick when the quarterback was still a Falcon. (Vick has denied to federal investigators he used performance-enhancing drugs.)
The Falcons made Michael Vick the NFL’s highest-paid player by signing him to a new contract on Dec. 23, 2004. Not just a franchise player, he was The Franchise. And surely that’s the best evidence they didn’t have an inkling that another Vick — the part hidden on a back road in Virginia — existed. Maybe their screening processes weren’t airtight, but maybe Vick was just an expert at living two lives.
Working on a profile, I spent a little time with Vick in 2002. I remember asking what teammates he considered close friends. He mentioned reserve wide receiver Trevor Gaylor, and Matt Winkeljohn, then the AJC’s Falcons writer, suggested Quentin McCord, another sub. I was a bit surprised the team leader didn’t have more of a locker-room constituency, but I’d be lying if I said I thought much about it.
Loading ...I knew he had friends from Virginia living at his house in Sugarloaf — he admitted as much — but it wasn’t as if they had the run of Flowery Branch. After Vick was sentenced, a researcher for “60 Minutes” asked me if his Virginia associates had been around all the time, and I told him the truth: I never once saw them.
Even after the various “incidents” — Ron Mexico, the bird-flip, the trick water bottle — I stuck to my default mode: That Vick was a decent guy. Then he was indicted, and reading that indictment on July 17, 2007, was the equivalent of staring into a funhouse mirror. Was that guy capable of this? Reading the same document in a plane returning from Africa, Arthur Blank had the same response: “This was not the Michael Vick I knew.”
That’s why I’m intrigued by “The Michael Vick Project”, and what it might reveal. I thought I knew him. Turns out I only knew what I was allowed to see. I’m intrigued to see how he kept his lives compartmentalized. I’m intrigued, as the spies in John le Carre’s fictional Circus would say, by the tradecraft.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
168 comments Add your comment
todd grantham
January 31st, 2010
4:48 pm
the other scoop making the rounds is vick’s pending deal with PetSmart.
GT
January 31st, 2010
4:50 pm
I think you are entering the world of public relations and how it filters reality and how much of the heavy carrying is done by journalistic types that do not go against the fraternity of their fellow reporters, and make their living off collecting and rewriting other people’s work, usually paid by the party it is written about. Not unlike the lobbyist who write law for lawmakers.
GoVols
January 31st, 2010
4:50 pm
Haters, no. We struggle to understand anyone who gets an adrenaline high by hitting an animal with a shovel. And I don’t need the relativist arguments that those who harm people get more compassion. It diverts from the very real point that what Vick did was wrong, cruel, sick. Let’s hope he continues to see and learn from this past.
MV7
January 31st, 2010
4:50 pm
You’re a punk, Bradley. Good-bye.
todd grantham
January 31st, 2010
4:50 pm
I am personally quashing the rumor that vick will be in ads for the UGA School of Vet Science.
Ulysses B. Rank
January 31st, 2010
4:53 pm
Morality is relative, different moral truths hold for different peeps. Absolute moralists are the biggest a-holes in society. You can find the absolute types in Church or posting their superiority on blogs in aninimity….
"Chef" Tim Dix
January 31st, 2010
4:53 pm
And now for something completely different:
The RAMONES used as bumper music during CBS’s broadcast of the golf tourney today.
Won’t see that at Augusta!
BugKiller
January 31st, 2010
4:55 pm
todd,
Sick Vick will be Uga VIII personal chew toy.
can you confirm or deny? what’s the word out of Butts-Mehre?
todd grantham
January 31st, 2010
4:57 pm
bug, i’ll have to check with russ and let you know.
GoVols
January 31st, 2010
4:59 pm
Morality is relative??? What normal “peeps” would find such brutality to be acceptable? Don’t defend someone unnecessarily. I’m not condemning the man, but I am condemning his actions.
Parrotplegic
January 31st, 2010
5:00 pm
Wow nice swipe at BET. But you’re SO deprived though.
I have the great fortune of having the ability to speak and write with above average intelligence, very gainfully employed to the tune of a six figure household income (and that’s with a W-2 I might add), daughter headed to Duke U., BUT..
I have the benefit of having a hole in each ear to wear earrings when I desire, have FOUR tattoos, don’t rely on the government, and here’s the kicker…I’m not the wussy that you are, so I don’t even care about “domestic and international protection” (while out the other side of my mouth complaining about how I want the government out of my life), as my destiny is in the hands of the Most High.
Check yourself.
Oh sorry BugKiller, please pardon my “sociopathic” rant.
BugKiller
January 31st, 2010
5:00 pm
Morality is relative???
Wow.
Looks like a member of Obamanation found their way to the blog. ‘Cause that’s how Godless Socialist Democrats think, right?
Hehe. Yeah. Gonna get this REAL riled up! Might as well. LOL.
GoVols
January 31st, 2010
5:00 pm
Good ones, todd grantham and BugKiller
todd grantham
January 31st, 2010
5:01 pm
maybe he meant perps
LovelyLibra
January 31st, 2010
5:04 pm
In response to this column, for someone to say that a person got an “adrenaline rush” is not concrete evidence. How do they know he got an adrenaline rush? He could’ve been high prior to the actions that he took with the dogs. How do they know it was actually the action of torturing the animals that gave him that adrenaline. I think that’s just someone’s opinion and opinions are not fact. That’s what’s wrong with reporting these days, too many people are not reporting facts, just opinions. In addition, to compare him to Peyton Manning, is not a comparison at all. What makes you think Peyton is a model citizen. He may have skeletons in his closet too, he may be living another life as well, he just haven’t gotten caught. Secondly, Vick and Peyton are two different people with two distinct backgrounds. You can’t make that comparison. You may want to compare him with someone who grew up in the same/similar type of environment, single-parent household, etc. Prior to Vick going to jail and other allegations that came forward, people would’ve considered him a “model citizen”. It’s funny how people are all over you when you have fame and fortune, but as soon as you make a mistake, you’re disown, ridiculed, and treated like you don’t exist. God forgives, so should everyone else. If you believe in God then you should try to be more God like.
GoVols
January 31st, 2010
5:09 pm
What does Manning have to do with MV’s actions? Vick participated in and was convicted for running an illegal dogfighting operation. In American society, REGARDLESS OF YOUR BACKGROUND, that is a crime. And as a total aside, I don’t remember Vick being considered a model citizen. I guess you were stating your opinion.
BugKiller
January 31st, 2010
5:13 pm
– Habitual drug abuser
– Knowingly infected AT LEAST one female with an incurable STD
– Sociopathic freak who got off on torturing and killing animals.
Yeah… a REAL model citizen.
Pat Kerney
January 31st, 2010
5:15 pm
Hey, doesn’t anyone care about the rape of a WOMAN at my home?
Michael Turner
January 31st, 2010
5:16 pm
Whoa, doesn’t anyone care that I hit my girlfriend upside the head?
native
January 31st, 2010
5:16 pm
who gives a damn
GT3O
January 31st, 2010
5:17 pm
No way am I watching this crap.
Just another way for BET to cover for felon of color. I hate BET and their propaganda.
MV7 Productions
January 31st, 2010
5:18 pm
Bugkiller I guess you’re going to the party tonight huh?
http://thergsc.com/MV7/
Now there’s something else for you to be mad about! LOL
MV7 Productions
January 31st, 2010
5:21 pm
Bugkiller you going to the party aren’t you?
http://thergsc.com/MV7/
GT3O
January 31st, 2010
5:21 pm
LovelyLibra…”God forgives, so should everyone else. If you believe in God then you should try to be more God like.”
Do you think he forgives before he sends them straight to hell? Take you religious hypocrisy somewhere else. This is a law issue, separation of church and state. Vick is also subject to social beatings which is what he is getting. God has nothing to do with it. I sure hope “God” is taking care of those dogs Vick killed.
Bobby Cox
January 31st, 2010
5:22 pm
Michael.
I bethca NEVER hit your girl upside the head as hard as I hit mine! (He he he..)
MV7 Productions
January 31st, 2010
5:26 pm
GT30, you know you’re gonna watch! LOL, then you’ll report back on Wed morning to tell everybody how you DIDNT watch when you know you did.
O3TG
January 31st, 2010
5:27 pm
@GT30.
God is taking care of those dogs that “Vick killed”, just like the ones that the “humane society” kills every day, and PETA and everyone else.
He is taking care of the deer and and other animals that hunters KILL for the sake of putting a nice head on the wall. He is taking care of the wolves that Palin gunned down from a helicopter..Spare us your moral relativism please. We can go back and forth, on and on.
Charlie Sheen
January 31st, 2010
5:29 pm
Are we talking about “whippin’ girls” here???
Jt
January 31st, 2010
5:33 pm
Nice take, Mark. I knew him only from a fan’s perspective and always wanted to believe the best about him. Every time an incident occurred I overlooked it- I cared about his production as a QB and despite what he can’t do- frankly, he did a lot of good things for the Falcons as football player. And that’s what I cared about
Ulysses B. Rank
January 31st, 2010
5:36 pm
If a dog is crucified by his master, and doesn’t accept jesus as his personal lord and savior, is the dog condemned to eternal damnation?
3rdandlong
January 31st, 2010
6:13 pm
I am always amazed how this one guy can always provoke a response from so many people. People need to understand Vick did his time (the government feels that killing dogs and funding for the fighting and killing of others is 2 years and million dollar fine and probation. That settles it account closed and paid. I don’t think the Falcons knew to look for something like this Mark, I mean who really heard of this type of thing before Mike. Who knows what any wealthy person is backing legal or illegal how could they or anybody know……
No more Vick talk
January 31st, 2010
6:19 pm
Can we please stop talking about Vick. Thank you.
From the Grave
January 31st, 2010
6:27 pm
Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character. Can anyone explain to me who killing a defensless dog is different than killing, say, a defensless deer, or a bird?
Sick & Tired Of Being Sick & Tired
January 31st, 2010
6:28 pm
Oh My…..Another Michael Vick Article…..SURPRISE SURPRISE……I THINK NOT….THE AJC SPORTS WRITERS ARE STUCK ON STUPID WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING ABOUT CONSTANTLY ABOUT MICHAEL VICK……CAN WE ALL JUST PLEASE MOVE ON…..PLEASE!!!!!
frank james
January 31st, 2010
6:28 pm
Hey Bradley! Why waste ink on Michael Vick? There are alot of good stories out there that deserve the medias attention.
Harry Douglas
January 31st, 2010
6:29 pm
Patirick, how was the rape of the woman in my home treated any differently than the rape of the woman in your home?
Matt Hatter
January 31st, 2010
6:32 pm
Blank knew.
Oh yeah.
Blank knew.
scott
January 31st, 2010
6:36 pm
leave this man alone please..i for one would love to see him playing here in Atlanta ..i miss the excitement the young fella generated..i didnt miss a game when he was here ..he made some stupid mistakes he has paid the ultimate price…to some degree i think he overpaid for the crime..atlanta needs all the excitement in the sports department it can muster..sad but i think micheal vick was our key to a super bowl in stead of the hated NEW ORLEANS SAINTS(I HATE THAT TEAM) THE ATLANTA FALCONS SHOULD BE THE TEAM THIER ..IF ALL HADNT WENT ON WITH VICK
keep on ramblin
January 31st, 2010
7:04 pm
scott this man got his jollies from hurting and killing a helpless animal. believe it or not they feel pain. even though they are not people the torture and killing of the dawgs is wrong and he got his jail time not for the killing but for gambling across state lines and tax evasion. you are sick if you think just because the man is fun to watch play football he deserves a pass from punishment.
irishmafia116
January 31st, 2010
7:07 pm
Why would anyone have been surprised about Vick’s antics in the NFL if I recall wasn’t he arrested in HS and college? My niece was a barmaid at VA TEch that he frequented and he was in trouble there all the time and treated all the workers like he was king of the world, they all despised him
Jim007
January 31st, 2010
7:10 pm
Vick is Bad News, he’s gone from Atlanta, & only trouble will follow him.
Smitty
January 31st, 2010
7:19 pm
hard to find the right place to vent. probably not here but anyway, Which is more full of crap and ridiculous, the Pro Bowl or the The Emmy’s.? Even the announcers aren’t taking themselves seriously. Are our lives really so desparate?
irishmafia116
January 31st, 2010
7:25 pm
I have to laugh when Falcon fans talk about how great Vick was –they only need to look at the stats to see he really kinda sucked –in 74 games as a Falcons QB they went 39-35 Wow what a winner !!! in those 74 games he threw 52 interceptions lost 19 fumbles and had a 73.3% QB rating –one of the LOWEST IN NFL HISTORY for a QB that started 50 games –so tell us again how he was gonna save the franchise and win numerous super bowls –a thug is a thug is a thug leopards don’t change their spots
VickSick
January 31st, 2010
7:28 pm
I am just so glad this “hood” QB is gone and we have a real QB now.
VickSick
January 31st, 2010
7:28 pm
Can anyone explain to me who killing a defensless dog is different than killing, say, a defensless deer, or a bird?
TO answer the question, yes it is different. One is legal and one isn’t.
Roger Goodell
January 31st, 2010
7:31 pm
Illdoit…HUNDREDS of years have passed since you started it ain’t gonna happen …you WILL NEVER be able to take away our will our manhood
You might need some counciling my friend…me and my white friends spend ZERO time thinking of how to keep you down.
Vick Supporter
January 31st, 2010
7:42 pm
Man…you people just can’t let Vick go can you. Like I’ve said…he’s the best player that we’ve ever had in this city besides Hank Aaron.
Even I am tired of seeing his name in the AJC. Vick has moved on….to what will be a better franchise and better fans than the ones here. Vick f-ed up here off the field, DOUBLE paid the price, and he’s moved on.
Falcon Fans/writers:
I know its hard, but let Vick move on! The usual things are going to happen:
1. Players that leave the Falcons come back with a new team and win/score TDs all over them (he’s already did that).
2. Player wins and goes to a better organization (most of the time).
3. Wins Super Bowl or have deep drives into the playoffs.
You have your QB Matt Ryan. Why don’t you write about him? Vick still owns this town, and it will always be that, but you people need to speed the process of letting him go.
I told you people Vick would shine again, and he’s proved that he can still play. He won’t take his talent for granted this time…. He will do special things on the football field again…while Ryan will do average things on the field.
The Great Mike Vick Has Returned
IlliniDawg
January 31st, 2010
7:44 pm
I don’t care if the man could take us to three consecutive Super Bowls – I don’t ever want my team led by someone with so many character issues as Vick.
Sorry, but the same goes for the Richt critics – I could never cheer for a Saban or Meyer. Never!
Steroid Dog
January 31st, 2010
7:48 pm
Vick remind me of one of those idiots that won the lottery and blew it all.
Algonquin J. Calhoun
January 31st, 2010
7:50 pm
Even now people make excuses for Vick. They say he made a mistake by getting into dog fighting but mistakes don’t last six years, as his dog fighting enterprise did. He admits to liking the feeling of killing helpless animals. How long before he would have progressed to small children? There is a question, a persistent one, as to whether he was involved with the killing of one of his fellow dog fighters in North Carolina. We know he used marijuana and you can bet he used steroids too. He’s back in the league but that won’t last long! Vick, never even a decent quarterback, will self-destruct sooner rather than later. I never liked the guy and I still don’t! My feelings about Vick proved correct when he was here and they’re still correct.