Vick looks to future while acknowledging his dogfighting past
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Michael Vick says he didn't want any "hoopla" when he returned to the NFL, but three years later, he has created plenty.
Once bankrupt, he is in the second year of a lucrative contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Three years after being released from prison for his role in a
dog fighting ring, Vick has a new "V7" clothing line that doesn't run
from his past, acknowledging his sins with T-shirts that read, "It's not
how you start, it's how you finish."
And now there is Michael Vick, author. His autobiography, Finally Free, which he started writing when he was behind bars for 21 months in Leavenworth, Kan., hits bookshelves Sept. 4.
The starting quarterback for a Super Bowl
contender and recovered financially, Vick says he is "free to do
whatever I want to do, and I couldn't ask for a better life right now."
He has accepted that his dog fighting past holds a permanent place in his
legacy.
"I've made peace with it, because I
have no control over it. It's not like I could do it all over again," he
told USA TODAY Sports. "But at the same time, I think I made a lot of
changes for the better and I think in my quest to be an advocate against
dog fighting and working with the Humane Society, I've helped more
animals than I've hurt,
Vick says he wrote the book to help others who
have made serious mistakes but also to reclaim the narrative of his
life, to "tell it my way." Bored in prison and looking for a way to pass
time, Vick said he wrote 70 pages in one day.
"People are always going
to have their opinions and feel the way that they do," he says in an
interview. "You can't change it. The reason I'm writing this book is so
people can have an understanding and not just go off of what they see on
TV or what they heard, the picture that's been created."
In
the book, excerpts of which were provided to USA TODAY Sports by Core
Media and Worthy Publishing, Vick describes seeing his first dogfight at
8 years old in Newport News,
Va., and a childhood filled with nights interrupted by the sound of
gunfire. He also recalls, years later, when he had to explain his crimes
and impending jail sentence to his son, Mitez, then 5.
"Your
job is to be a role model to your kids and to be the best father figure
you can be," he says in an interview, "and it was a situation where I
couldn't do that and I had to confess and tell him the truth.
"It
was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do. Seeing him crying,
knowing I had no control over it. It was something that money couldn't
get me out of."
Avoiding controversy
The
quarterback, 32, last summer signed a six-year contract that included
$35.5 million in guaranteed money. He wanted to lay low after he was
reinstated in 2009. Vick hoped some team would give him a chance. "I
just wanted to fly under the radar. I never wanted 'The Michael Vick
Resurgence' or the hoopla," he says.
The
Eagles signed him to a modest deal, a move that prompted animal rights
activists to picket the team's training facility. Then came the
questions, always about his past, always focused on his undoing six
years after the Atlanta Falcons drafted him No. 1 overall in 2001.
In 2010, Fox News correspondent Tucker Carlson
said Vick should have been executed for his crimes, a sentiment that
Vick wrote in the book left him "stunned." Vick chose not to respond,
and Carlson later backed off his remarks.
Vick
has avoided controversy. He lived up to his pledge to become an
advocate for animal welfare and won the NFL's 2010 comeback player of
the year award. He appeared in public service announcements for the
Humane Society and lobbied Congress to pass a law that would make it a
misdemeanor to watch illegal animal fights and a felony for adults to
bring children to such events.
On the field,
Vick earned the starting job in 2010 and had the best season of his
career, passing for 3,018 yards with 21 touchdowns and six
interceptions.
"I thank God," he says. "With
success comes a lot of responsibility. This is my responsibility.
Because it's not just about me, it's about every kid that I can affect."
At
the launch of his apparel line at a Philadelphia store last week, Vick
was surrounded by family, friends and fans, with no sign of protesters.
Still, Vick knows another question about dog fighting is always coming.
"It's
definitely a part of who he is," says his wife, Kijafa. The two have a
pair of daughters: Jada, 7, and London, 4, who was born a month before
Vick went to prison. Vick's son is from a previous relationship with his
high school sweetheart, Tameka Taylor.
"He
can't run from his past all the time," Kijafa Vick said. "He has to
answer questions about it. Accept responsibility. And I think he does a
fairly good job of it. Of course you get tired of it, because it's a
negative thing and he's trying to get past it. He understands that it's a
part of his life and he has to try and make the best out of it."
With
his daughters clinging to his calf-length shorts at a news conference,
Vick held up a black-and-red shirt that read "Mental toughness." A
portion of the proceeds from his clothing line will go to
Philadelphia-area Boys & Girls Clubs, and a portion of the book
proceeds will go to Philadelphia- and Newport News-area charities yet to
be named.
In a foreword written for the book by Tony Dungy,
the former NFL head coach and Vick mentor discusses the challenge of
winning over those who celebrated his imprisonment. Dungy declined to be
interviewed for this story.
"I had gotten
letters and phone calls vilifying me for even going to see him, so I
couldn't imagine what he would face once he got out," Dungy writes. "He
was going to have to do it with actions, not words."
The
first actions came on a football field, with Vick's return to NFL
stardom that Dungy wrote even he "didn't have faith he could
accomplish."
Supremely confident, Vick says
he's in better shape than most of the current rookies and credits good
genes. But Vick's freewheeling style has often kept him out of the game —
he rushed for 589 yards last season but missed three games because of
injury. The left-hander has started all 16 games in a season once, in
2006 with the Falcons, yet he seems unfazed by the prospect of more
punishment, including concussions.
"I've taken
some hard shots," he says. "Part of the game, the integrity of the
game, the grit, the guile that you've got to have, is getting up. It's a
rough game. It's a man's game. Get up. If you can't, then lay there;
the paramedics can come get you. And you get back up, you brush yourself
off and you do it again in two or three weeks."
Vick
says he chooses to play and is aware of the "consequences that may come
along with it. For the most part, I don't even worry about it."
In
a radio interview Friday, he told fans he would do more to protect
himself this season. In his book, Vick promises devoted Eagles fans an
NFL championship.
It all fits into his
post-prison plan. "I just wanted to live a low-key life, to play
football and compete every Sunday and try to win a championship," he
says.
If Vick does bring Philadelphia its first Super Bowl win, low-key will not be an option. I'm Big Blac This is Your BHR HollyWood Reports
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