Michael Vick on “60 Minutes”

Michael Vick said all the right things on his “60 Minutes ” interview yesterday. There is no point in conjecturing as to whether or not he is being sincere. Time alone will tell.

Personally, I can’t stop vacillating. Because of what he has already done and the times we live in, it is hard not to be skeptical. But I also want to believe in redemption and second chances. Michael Vick has been given a second chance. Despite many of the personal opinions I have expressed about the guy, more than anything else, I always want to see more good in the world than bad. I hope he can help with that.

I embedded the interview in it’s entirety. Underneath it, I included my thoughts on key quotes:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHyKCB0pgdU

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qatm3gG3yxI

On how “disgusting” his crimes were:

I don’t know how many times I have to say it.

Let me help you out with that one, Mikey. You will probably have to say it over and over and over again until the day you die. That is one of the consequences of getting caught running a criminal enterprise with such “disgusting” implications.

On how his crimes make him feel:

It sickens me to my stomach.

Join the club. And Alka Seltzer doesn’t help.

I could have put a stop to it.

This is a key quote. It puts all the blame squarely where it belongs. On Michael Vick. If he really wants to make an impact on kids for the better, he has a lot of work to do on himself first. This is a big first step. But that is all it is. A step. Now he has to complete the one thousand mile journey.

Football don’t even matter.

Yeah, right.

I deserved to lose the 130 million.

Again, another step in the right direction.

On how police in his neighborhood ignoring dogfighting made it feel:

It’s not as bad as it may seem.

I have to call BS on this one. Early in the interview he said he would not blame what he did on his neighborhood’s “so-called” culture. This statement is doing just that. By recounting an isolated incident in which he saw a policeman ignore a dogfight in his neighborhood, he seems to be justifying his ignorance about the moral cesspool he was wading in when he bankrolled and participated in a dogfighting operation. There is even a certain irony to an African-American male from the inner-city claiming this type of police non-action molded his morality in such a way. It just doesn’t fly. I wonder if he ever saw the police harassing anyone who didn’t deserve it. Did that make him think that was ok?

On his reliance on his natural gifts instead of hard work during his first go-round in the NFL:

I was lazy.

This is a huge admission. He admits he was always the last one to practice and the first to leave. Not only is that no way to improve your game, it is the antithesis of what you want from your quarterback. There is no way to argue that his game had not regressed significantly at the time of his convictions. If Michael Vick hones his incredible talent through dedication and becoming a student of the game, there is very little doubt he can still be an impact player.

It seems unlikely, but time away from the game could actually be what Vick needed to improve as a quarterback.

The important thing will be whether or not he has improved as a man.

Follow FasterSport on Twitter

Photo by dvs

Comments