Sports Column

Vick case is just a sign of the times

On Sports

By dwight jaynes

The Portland Tribune, Aug 24, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (73 Reader comments)

I get asked over and over, “What do you think about Michael Vick?” It’s all anyone wants to talk about. And for a guy who usually has an opinion about everything – whether he knows anything about it or not (a trait of a good talk-show host, by the way) – I’ve had trouble coming up with an answer.

For a long time I thought it actually was the kind of subject that really didn’t make for much of an argument. I mean, where’s the controversy? Can anyone reasonably mount a defense for this fool? Is there a way to rationalize the “sport” of dogfighting?

And no, especially in Vick’s case, it really wasn’t just the fighting. Or the gambling on the fighting. It was as much the unconscionable cruelty detailed in the charges against him in regard to killing the dogs that didn’t perform well in fights. You don’t want to read that stuff after a big breakfast.

Now that Vick finally has decided to go the smart route and cop a plea, some people are coming forward with weak excuses for him. Some even go so far as to play the race card or talk about how deep the roots of dogfighting are in parts of the South – as if a long tradition of inhumane behavior somehow explains it away.

Vick will go to prison, where he probably will be hailed as some sort of hero and be treated very well, and then someday he will be back on a football field making decent money again. It’s the way these things usually work out.

But does anyone else see this whole thing as just one more sign of our rather weird world’s inconsistencies? The guy possibly is going to do more prison time for this than some people have done for rape or manslaughter.

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