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.
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168 comments Add your comment
It's a cultural thing
January 31st, 2010
8:20 pm
They were just dogs !!!
donttrustthem
January 31st, 2010
8:22 pm
Of course they could write an article about how brilliant Serena was at the Australian open or about how Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Jamal Crawford, Zaza Pachulia, Mike Bibby or about how well all the Hawks are doing in their division this year. But they won’t, you see it’s never putting out anything positive just “LET”S SEE HOW FAR DOWN WE CAN BEAT THEM”. No matter how much Michael Vick try and put this behind him THEY will never let him forget it because They have to at all times look superior to us. Now haveing said that what he did was wrong but most of the maggots on this blog have done something just as bad as Vick in their lifetime, only thing is they didn’t get caught, and we all the know ole saying about what happens behind closed doors. I assure you this has nothing to do with what Vick did but who he is. I saw a white guy beat the crap out of a dog in an elevator on youtube. And I assure you none of these self righteous anglo-american gives a rats you-know-what about it, nor would any of them speak out against it. And to prove it I work in a building with a lot of THEM, these people spend half of their day working and the other half talking about what a monster Vick is. One day after I saw the video with the guy kicking the dog on youtube I decided to e-mail it to everyone in the office, then at break time I started a conversation about it with everyone that was standing in the lot at break. Not that I was amazed at all, but these people actually defended this guy, attributing his behavior to everything from work-related stress to childhood abuse. I assure you that everyone reading this will try to make me out to be a racist. I assure you that is as far from the truth as they will get, I just know trash when I smell it. Cornell West reminded me of something, when he spoke of a great speech delivered so long ago. The speech said these are the same kind of people that sit in church on Sunday and Amen the preacher, and then go out and bomb churches and kill children sitting in Sunday school. The people on this blog are no different. They think it’s alright to live some of the most disgusting and abominable lives imaginable and then pass judgement on us when we do wrong. But I happen to know that there is one coming to judge me, Vick, and them to. Then we will see if their shame is the same as the ones they stand in judgement of. I agree with the guy that posted earlier, any slow sports news day is a day to promote hate and division among all people. And the same Rush Limbaugh idiots keep falling for the same thing.
godless heathen
January 31st, 2010
8:23 pm
In an attempt to steer the discussion back to Mark’s article. I recall when this dogfighting thing first came out, there was speculation(?), rumor(?), allegation(?) that Vick was not the only NFL player involved in dogfighting. Kinda curious that talk completely dried up.
donttrustthem
January 31st, 2010
8:34 pm
Roger, you think about it. Besides how do you know what your friends are thinking unless you all have had conversations about keeping blacks down. See in order to know what people are thinking or not thinking you would have had to have talked about it. And I can’t imagine a bunch of white guys sitting around saying “It’s wrong for us to try and keep blacks down”. How do you even start a conversation like that. GET REAL.
ATLien
January 31st, 2010
8:34 pm
I have a co-worker who grew up in Virginia and lived close to where Vick grew up. It was common knowledge that his family was into dog fighting and that both Vick brothers were doing it through high school, college (what little they attended) and beyond. Don’t kid yourself that this despicable, awful person has changed. Vick isn’t sorry. He’s just sorry he got caught.
MyPapaMadeIt
January 31st, 2010
8:39 pm
“Sometimes, the victims were successful blacks who had aroused the hatred of jealous whites in the community…”
-Resisting Jim Crow: In-Depth Essay
Ain’t nothing changed. They’re just too callous and self-righteous to ADMIT it. It’s woven into the fabric of who they are. Waiting for your response of what’s “woven” into Blacks. Double wammy..it was woven into their fabric by YOU through these very mechanisms.
midtownguy
January 31st, 2010
9:04 pm
Vick is clearly a sociopath and yesterday’s news. A shame he never got help, but he is no longer our problem. Why would the ajc publish an article on an athlete who hasn’t played here in years?
KJ
January 31st, 2010
9:07 pm
“there are rumors circulating that vick is negotiating with wal-mart to endorse Ole Roy.”
That would be appropriate, as feeding your dog Ole Roy is tantamount to animal abuse.
“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)”
Do you own many leather-bound books?
donttrustthem
January 31st, 2010
9:10 pm
Another thing that kills me about THEM is the way they say “Well he wasn’t a great quarterback anyway”. Let’s put that lie to rest once and for all. Not so great quarterbacks don’t sell out stadiums the way this man did. I have even heard some of THEM compare Ryan to him…………Sorry I was gone for so long my side was hurting from laughing so hard. Okay now my 4-year old is going to tell daddy that mommy is crazy. People were excited about seeing Vick play on Sundays. And it wasn’t just blacks, many times I would see whites holding their kids in the air just to have Vick touch them or get an autograph. What he did to those dogs was horrible, but the worst part of all is the hate you people harbor in your hearts. If he ask God for forgiveness for what he did he will be forgiven. On the other hand if you die with all that hate and bigotry in your heart, you don’t have no chance in hell of seeing God. Someone mentioned the fact that there was supposed to be a bigger investigation, because anyone with half a brain would know that Vick was not the only one fighting dogs. Ask yourself why Michael Vick was the only person in the world dog-fighting. If you search deep you won’t like yourself when you come up with the answer. Well since most of you don’t have anything in you that says “FAIRNESS” that answer may not bother you.
sandy
January 31st, 2010
9:12 pm
People get over it. MV committed a crime and he has done his time.
Please tell me how can another person say MV got an adrenaline rush from killing the animals? Is this person in his mind? Also how can the statements of person who kills himself be credible? These things were not worth being printed. Its seems as though the credibility of the people who made these statements would have been considered before being mentioned to the public. People we need to think before we just take some news(possibly lies) and spread it.
MV7 Productions
January 31st, 2010
9:17 pm
midtownguy, they write about Michael Vick because that’s who you and the others are interested in, that’s why you comment…and we thank you.
Mark Bradley
January 31st, 2010
9:19 pm
Getting into name-calling now. So I’m shutting this down.
BugKiller
January 31st, 2010
9:20 pm
sandy,
if you don’t think Sick Vick didn’t sit around, abusing drugs with his thug friends, and didn’t speak about the adrenaline rush he got from personally torturing and killing those dogs, than you are a frakking moron.
MORON.
MORON.
MORON.
MORON.
MORON.
Is the message sinking in, MORON???
uberVU - social comments
February 1st, 2010
1:38 am
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