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  • Vick visits prison and vows to continue outreach

    http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/stor..._lnk1%7C206740

    Vick visits prison and vows to continue outreach

    TAMPA, Fla. — Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick enjoyed a rebirth on the football field last season after his career was almost washed away by a 23-month prison sentence for bankrolling a dogfighting ring.

    The NFL's muddy labor situation could put his career on hold yet again, but Vick plans to continue his off-the-field growth even if the labor impasse wipes out next season.

    Michael Vick has returned to NFL stardom after serving time for dogfighting. (AP Photo)

    Vick and former NFL coach Tony Dungy joined about 35 volunteers from Abe Brown Ministries in a visit to a Tampa-area prison Saturday. Vick shared his own experiences with them as well as the lessons he learned from his incarceration.

    Vick spoke to a group of about 1,000 current and soon-to-be-released inmates at Avon Park (Fla.) Correctional Institution. He said it was his first visit to a prison outside of his own stay in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan.

    "It was very humbling and at the same time, a bit overwhelming. You really didn't know what to expect," Vick said. "Hopefully I can be an example to somebody. The thing that I was trying to get across is that we all can be instruments of change. That's something that I've been proactive about since I stepped out of prison and I'm enjoying every minute of it."

    Abe Brown Ministries, named after late former high school football coach, school administrator and pastor Abraham Brown, has been involved with prison outreach since its founding in 1976. Dungy was introduced to it in 1996 while still coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and developed a relationship with Brown.

    After Brown died last year, Dungy continued to support the nonprofit group and vowed to continue to help it continue its work. Dungy and Vick also were planning to attend a celebration Saturday night for what would have been Brown's 84th birthday.

    "I told Michael when we met in Leavenworth is that he'd be able to do some things, say some things and reach some people that no one else can," Dungy said. "Other people can go in and say 'Here is what you should do.' "It may be coming from somebody who they really respect, but not somebody who really knows what they've been through.

    "When they see Mike, they say 'Here's somebody that lived in my shoes for two years.'"

    Vick, who credits his return to football to his rediscovered Christian faith, said he is interested in continuing to work with Abe Brown Ministries and other outreach groups. Dungy said he will welcome Vick whenever he wants to join the group, but said he expects the NFL Comeback Player of the Year will be playing football next year despite the seemingly grim outlook for labor discussions.

    "There will be football next year. There definitely will," Dungy said. "I don't know how much we'll get Michael. We certainly won't be able to get him during the season. But Abe Brown Ministries has been doing this for over 30 years. And Rev. Brown, this was the first one I've done without him. He asked me to go in 1996 and I've been going 15 years. It's something he did and we're kinda continuing to keep the ministry going."

    If the lockout is prolonged, Vick said he plans to organize some informal workouts with his teammates, particularly the younger players.

    "Being a veteran, I think that's important that I take on a leadership role and try to rally the guys to make sure we're being responsible and taking care of our bodies to be ready — whenever this thing is over," he said.
    Vick said his own prison stay also gives him added perspective about having football unexpectedly taken away for an undetermined amount of time. He said he plans to lean on that experience as the NFL's labor strife continues.

    "It does, but at the same time you have to be optimistic in a situation like this," Vick said. "I really don't think about the worst-case scenario because I believe there will be football one day soon. So I'll plan for that.


    "Everything will work out, we just have to be patient."

  • #2
    this guy has changed. just think it's time we all let him up off the mat here. just saying
    You know Darren if you'd have told me 10 years ago that someday I was going to solve the world's energy problems I'd have said your crazy.... now lets drop this big ball of oil out the window.

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    • #3
      http://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2...st-yard-moment

      Michael Vick's Real Life "Longest Yard" Moment

      Peter King is just a wealth of interesting info for Eagles fans today... He's got a pretty amazing account of Michael Vick's real life "Longest Yard" moment while in Leavenworth prison. How this story did not surface over the past two years is almost beyond comprehension.

      From the moment Vick stepped into Leavenworth, the other inmates started badgering him to play a game of football with them, but he was never interested. In fact, he went a full year without even touching a football. Then, with 8 months left on his sentence, he finally agreed to play. His team won 42-14.
      The inmates split into two seven-on-seven teams for a game of flag football. Vick offered to play quarterback for both teams, but that was turned down; a slew of guys wanted the chance to say they were on a team that beat Michael Vick. Alas, the Vick side won in a rout; he said he thought he threw maybe six or seven incompletions. "All my guys wanted to do was go deep,'' he said. I asked him if he was sacked at all. "Once,'' he said. To which Tony Dungy, listening in, said: "Sign that guy up.''
      Like I said, I'm amazed that Michael Vick was quarterbacking a prison football team and no one knew about it until now. King also has some good stuff about Vick's visit to speak with prisoners. At this point, I just find it hard to see how people could doubt his sincerity. He's not out there doing the glossy, shake a few hands, sign some autographs type "community service" work. He was in this prison talking to guys in solitary confinement. There's no cameras there or transcripts of what was said. He's just trying to help people and give those guys some hope. I'm proud of him to be honest.

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      • #4
        http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-destruction/1

        In autobiography, Michael Vick reflects on path of self-destruction

        Michael Vick's path of self-destruction was well-documented before the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback began serving a 20-month sentence for a federal dogfighting conviction in 2007.

        And now in a new autobiography -- Michael Vick: Finally Free -- the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback is unveiling his own memories of the bad choices that turned him from a Pro Bowler into a prison inmate.
        Michael Vick's autobiography will be released July 27.


        CAPTION
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        Said Vick of the humiliation of prison, "You're nobody. You don't have no existence to the world at all. You're just a guy with a name and a number." (See Vick describe prison in the video below.)

        His bounce-back season last year, when he leaped past Kevin Kolb on the depth chart to become the Eagles' starter and finished second in MVP voting, has restored the all-star flair with which Vick once played. And Vick has attempted to atone for his crimes by working with the Humane Society to inform young people about the evils and cruelty of dogfighting.
        But the memories of his path of deception and bad decisions still haunt Vick.

        Vick, 30, hopes he can impart the lessons he learned confined inside a lonely prison cell to young people who might now be damaging their own lives. They are lessons that Vick regrets that he, at age 26, was too naive to absorb.

        "My propensity for trying to lie my way out of trouble only made my consequences more severe," he wrote.

        Vick admitted that not only was he lying to police investigators, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Falcons owner Arthur Blank about his involvement in dogfighting, he was also lying to his own defense attorney, Billy Martin.
        Wrote Vick:
        "When the dogfighting allegation surfaced, my lawyer told me, 'If you were involved, you need to tell me you were involved.' That's when it was on the state rather than the federal level. I kept telling him, 'No, no, I wasn't involved, no, no.' The whole time they were building the case, my lawyer was saying 'no' but he was seeing all this evidence saying 'yes.' If I had just told the truth, maybe I would've received a smack on the wrist instead of a lengthy sentence.

        "So now that I think about it, I believe it was the Lord. It was God saying, 'Kid, I gave you a chance to get this thing right.' It was like, 'Carry your ass to jail.' I know He didn't say it like that, but it was like, 'Go on. You need to do some time. You need to learn a lesson.'

        "He gave me a chance. He gave me three months – April through July – to go to all these people and say, 'Look, I was wrong,' and to get the correct advice, and to use it correctly. But I didn't do it."
        The book is available on July 27, and can be pre-ordered at MichaelVickStory.com.

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