Imprisoned, Vick found direction for his life

By BOB JACKSON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

As a star quarterback in the National Football League, Michael Vick had money, fame and adulation from fans. What he didn’t have, though, was a purpose for his life.

He didn’t find that until all the other glittery things were stripped away from him and he ended up behind bars.

“This may sound crazy, but I had to go to prison to figure out a direction for my life,” Vick said Saturday morning at the Covelli Centre, where he was the kickoff speaker for the 10th annual Men’s Rally In the Valley. “I learned so much [in prison] and I grew so much mentally. I became a man. It’s said that it had to happen that way.”

Vick, a former quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles, served two years in prison for his role in operating a dog fighting ring, to which he pleaded guilty in 2007. Since then, he’s been dogged by criticism from animal rights advocates, and his appearance at Saturday’s rally was no exception.

Several protesters continually shouted and heckled him during his remarks, with police eventually removing some of them from the building. Vick seemed unfazed, though. He walked onto the stage to a rousing, standing ovation from those in the audience who believe in his redemption.

Rather than giving a traditional speech, Vick sat on a stool and answered questions from Pastor Gary Frost, vice president of the Midwest Region North American Mission Board and one of the Rally organizers.

Frost didn’t waste time addressing Vick’s controversial background, asking Vick how he deals with being protested everywhere he goes.

“It’s surprising that it still happens 15 years later, but it’s understandable,” Vick said. “I made that bed and I still sleep in it. I put myself in a position for people to look at me that way.”

Since his imprisonment, though, Vick said he no longer wants to be a part of the lifestyle that led him into dogfighting, and he’s worked to put it behind him.

“The ratio of protesters to supporters these days is in my favor,” he said, drawing loud cheers from the audience. “I worked hard for that.”

Vick spoke of his upbringing in a rough section of Newport News, Va., where was first exposed to dogfighting at 8 years old. He also saw people shot and stabbed, and fell into running with the wrong crowd.

“It was a lifestyle that I wasn’t proud of as a kid,” Vick said. “But it headed me into eventually becoming a great man and a great leader as I got older.”

Pastor Frost said there were some in the audience who don’t buy Vick’s claim that he’s changed since becoming a Christian. “They think you’re just doing this because you want to foster a positive public image,” he said.

But Vick said the loss of everything good in his life, especially his freedom, forced him to face up to the bad choices he’d made in his life, and to make positive changes.

“Money couldn’t buy me out of the situation I was in,” he said. “Nike [with whom he had a lucrative endorsement contract] couldn’t help me. The NFL couldn’t do anything. My family couldn’t get me out of the situation I put myself into. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but that’s what being a man is all about. It’s stepping up and being a man and facing adversity when adversity finds you. You’ve got to be strong in faith.”

Irvin Hoover, associate pastor of the First Christian Church in Wellsville, was among those in the audience who supported Vick, and said he believes the turnaround in his life is genuine.

“I think the evidence is there that he’s been transformed,” Pastor Hoover said. “That’s all you can go by, right? You have to look at the fruit of his life, and I think it shows genuine change.”