What the Fall and Rise of Michael Vick Really Means?

2009-08-18
By Brian Gilmore

It was in January 2007 that Michael Vick’s water bottle was seized at a Miami airport. As reported in the New York Times, Vick “reluctantly surrendered a water bottle that smelled like marijuana and contained a substance in a hidden compartment to security at Miami International Airport…” Vick was not arrested, not charged with anything and it was reported days later that the bottle contained no evidence of drugs.

Not long after Vick’s water bottle incident, one of Vick’s teammates, Jonathan Babineaux, a back-up lineman, was charged with killing a pit bull in Georgia.  Babineaux’s arrest created a flurry of activity by the Humane Society and PETA, or The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Letters were sent to NFL Commissioner, Roger Goddell by PETA, and the Humane Society, and the demand was for the league to suspend Babineaux if he was convicted of the charge. The charges, however, were suddenly dropped in November 2007 even though Babineaux did admit to taking actions against the dog (training techniques that caused the dog to get disoriented whence the dog hit its head) that led to the death of the dog. It was against this backdrop that Michael Vick’s connection to a dog operation came to light (Adam “Pac Man” Jones was also suspended around this time by the league for multiple off the field incidents and there were other incidents by other players).

Initially, state prosecutors in Virginia were handling the allegations against Vick, and the investigation was proceeding routinely in the summer of 2007 except that PETA was aggressively calling for Vick to be prosecuted.  At least one letter was sent to Gerald G. Poindexter, state commonwealth attorney for that area where the house Vick owned was located.
Then suddenly, in June 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General raided a home owned by Vick in Surrey, Va., where the alleged dog fighting operation was located. Here is the reaction to this development by Poindexter, at the time the search occurred as reported in the New York Times.

“What is foreign to me is the federal government getting into a dog-fighting case…I know it’s been done, but what’s driving this? Is it this boy’s celebrity? Would they have done this if it wasn’t Michael Vick?”

Poindexter, an African-American, who was vigorously pursuing his investigation, added the following regarding the sudden federal involvement in the Vick investigation:

“There’s a larger thing here, and it has nothing to do with any breach of protocol…There’s something awful going on here. I don’t know if it’s racial. I don’t know what it is.”
The New York Times columnist William Rhoden, who interviewed Poindexter extensively when the Vick story broke in the summer 2007, also mentioned another big time dog fighting case in Surry County, Virginia from 2000 in a column about the case. A man named Benjamin Butts, it seems, was allegedly running an operation in 2000 similar to that which Vick was allegedly operating. Poindexter uncovered hardcore evidence of the operation; Butts was charged. Did the federal government ever show up for this Butts case?

Nope.

A bad search eventually ruined that case according to the Virginia Pilot online but where were the feds with their resources, to build a stronger case against a nobody like Butts?

Bad searches happen in the legal world.  Zealous U.S. Attorneys who want to bag a celebrity client and use it as a springboard to a cushier job or maybe a judgeship down the line also happen. Was this what the Vick prosecution was really about?

But back in the summer of 2007 when the Vick drama unfolded without a trial, William Rhoden made another suggestion: the prosecution of Vick was a blow to his status as a new kind of quarterback who threatened the storied NFL tradition regarding the quarterback position. Rhoden described Vick as the “most dangerous player on the field” some games and believed that opposition to his playing style presents “a deeply rooted cultural bias against athleticism at one of the most hallowed positions in sports.”

Rhoden should know the issue. He is the author of “Third and a Mile: From Fritz Pollard to Michael Vick--an Oral History of the Trials, Tears and Triumphs of the Black Quarterback,” For anyone who doesn’t understand why Vick’s personal failings were so devastating to some people, it would be a good idea to read the book. The hell the black quarterback faces and has faced in history is in these pages.

Tony Dungy and his role now as Vick’s mentor fits into this history.

How many people know that Tony Dungy was once a very good college quarterback who did not get a chance to play the position in the NFL? Dungy, the statistical leader at the position at the University of Minnesota when he left the school, was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers as a defensive back, a familiar move by NFL teams towards black quarterbacks historically.

Then there is Donovan McNabb, the starting quarterback for Philadelphia, who is living and has lived the hell described in Rhoden’s book. McNabb stuck his neck out for Vick and urged his owner and head coach to sign Vick last week. McNabb once told Bryant Gumbel on HBO Sports that black quarterbacks face more scrutiny than white quarterbacks and that people don’t want blacks to play the position.

The point is, the Vick case, is about race and the black quarterback but not in the way we think.  Vick, immature, and reckless, was in position to alter history: he was going to be successful at the position and was going to be successful on different terms, the kind, often undervalued by the NFL and its rigid QB tradition.

He ran for over 1,000 yards in that final year before the dog fighting was uncovered. He also threw for over 2400 yards and 24 touchdowns. He made the Pro Bowl twice with this non-traditional quarterback play and his team, the Atlanta Falcons had enjoyed success during his tenure though no Super Bowl appearances. The hope was, at least as suggested by William Rhoden, was that Vick would make it to a Super Bowl playing the position as never before.

Perhaps, Michael Vick is a continuum and didn’t know it (perhaps Dungy and McNabb have told him of this). Is this still about the black quarterback’s long journey to be able to stand on top of the sports world, on his own terms? Michael Vick, vilified, and all but written off by the sports media will play again in the NFL.

We shall see.

Brian Gilmore is a public interest lawyer, poet, writer and columnist with the Progressive Media Project in Washington, D.C.