From falling down to establishing himself as a better player

[tchandy]

If you didn't watch Monday night's game Michael Vick embarrased the Washington Redskins with an incredible performance. If you recall he also spent some time in prison since he was involved in a dog ring a fewyears ago. No matter how difficult things get, it's your ability to rebound that makes a person a winner.

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Washington Redskins - Recap - November 15, 2010 - ESPN

 

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[rocksolid]

I personally do not consider him a winner. He is a loser! I base a winner partly on how he or she treats other individuals. Even though dogs are animals they still deserve the same respect as people do. Anybody who miss treat any living thing is not a winner but a coward and if it was up to me he would never play the sport again. As much as I like football, it is just a game.....a form of entertainment. The guy makes me sick. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Icy]

I personally do not consider him a winner. He is a loser! I base a winner partly on how he or she treats other individuals. Even though dogs are animals they still deserve the same respect as people do. Anybody who miss treat any living thing is not a winner but a coward and if it was up to me he would never play the sport again. As much as I like football, it is just a game.....a form of entertainment. The guy makes me sick. Just my 2 cents.

I agree that he's a PoS, but why shouldn't he be allowed to play the sport? The idea of discriminating against people based on morals, thoughts, past choices, whatever disturbs me.

If he did something to disturb the game of football, I could understand the idea of not letting him play, but this is a different area of his life...

 

[rocksolid]

I agree that he's a PoS, but why shouldn't he be allowed to play the sport? The idea of discriminating against people based on morals, thoughts, past choices, whatever disturbs me.

If he did something to disturb the game of football, I could understand the idea of not letting him play, but this is a different area of his life...

I agree with what you are saying. I guess I just feel that a POS does not deserve to be rewarded by having tons of money and the ability to live a life that only a small % gets to live.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I have mixed feelings about it ... if he truly learned and is a changed man, then its a wonderful story. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we can truly change our lives, and our outlook. The man is playing like he has nothing to lose because after all, he already lost it.

 

[Anon3587x]

Vick was one of the best regardless what he does off the football field. People did not like him because he had a sparkling personality. They liked him because he played some dam good football.

I respect him as a football player but that's it.

 

[Darkside]

I personally do not consider him a winner. He is a loser! I base a winner partly on how he or she treats other individuals. Even though dogs are animals they still deserve the same respect as people do. Anybody who miss treat any living thing is not a winner but a coward and if it was up to me he would never play the sport again. As much as I like football, it is just a game.....a form of entertainment. The guy makes me sick. Just my 2 cents.

He committed some evil acts but he's served his jail time and he looks like he's changed and is on the right track. Don't you believe that people deserve a second chance if they make an effort to change? Why even let people out of prison if we don't believe that they can change and become decent citizens?

 

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[Darkside]

Vick was one of the best regardless what he does off the football field. People did not like him because he had a sparkling personality. They liked him because he played some dam good football.

I respect him as a football player but that's it. The same goes with anyone else in a professional sport. I do no idolize them simply because they kick a$$ as throwing a ball. But sheeple middle America has a dam good reputation of believing in things without even knowing why they believe in them.
Prime example

Same here. I don't care what sports players do in their personal lives; I watch sports to see them do amazing things on the field but I know that their skills as athletes don't translate into their value as a human being.

 

[rocksolid]

I guess people can change but most of the time once you hit a certain age what you see is pretty much what you get. Do you really think that a person that hangs and drowns dogs could all of a sudden realize that this is not the way that a civilized person should act? The guy got caught and said all the right things because somebody told him that if he wanted to have any chance of life after prison he better say the right thing. Ask yourself this, if he did not get caught would he still be doing terrible things to dogs? I don’t care how good you are in business, if you are a piece of S@#T then I have no respect for you. These are just my views.

 

[tchandy]

Most of these comments are the same comments the Eagles got when they signed Michal Vick a year ago. I'm not perfect. Vick is for sure not perfect but he paid his time. He currently donates his time to make sure kids don't follow in his footsteps to do the same thing he did. When he did things with dogs was the lifestyle he grew up in. Just because he got paid millions with Atlanta after coming out of college, he still had that same mentality when he was a kid. It's hard for college athletes turning pro to make changes. So all this carried over to the NFL. I think he's paid his price. I'm sure anyone would after serving time in jail. Since he's come to Philly he's done nothing wrong.

 

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[Darkside]

I guess people can change but most of the time once you hit a certain age what you see is pretty much what you get. Do you really think that a person that hangs and drowns dogs could all of a sudden realize that this is not the way that a civilized person should act? The guy got caught and said all the right things because somebody told him that if he wanted to have any chance of life after prison he better say the right thing. Ask yourself this, if he did not get caught would he still be doing terrible things to dogs? I don’t care how good you are in business, if you are a piece of S@#T then I have no respect for you. These are just my views.

Along the lines of what tchandy wrote above, Michael Vick grew up with dog fighting being a normal part of his life. Morals don't come prepackaged in humans, we have to be taught them. Michael Vick learned that it's wrong to dog fight and now he's teaching kids the same thing. Rather than let the man learn from his mistakes and try to be a force for good, you'd rather he be banished to a dark corner by society and have him commit vile acts again? The reason why a lot of criminals go back to committing crimes after being let out of prison is that no one will hire them for legitimate work so they have to resort to selling drugs or thievery. I don't know, maybe it's just me but I believe that people deserve a second chance in life.

 

[Icy]

The reason why a lot of criminals go back to committing crimes after being let out of prison is that no one will hire them for legitimate work so they have to resort to selling drugs or thievery..

Do you have a source for this?

 

[FDJustin]

Erm... I don't know if the reasoning is entirely accurate (mostly as I don't believe prison is really set up to 'reform' people.) but it's bound to be true in many situations. Why do I say that? People neither want to trust criminals, nor garner the reputation of someone who hires criminals.

If that wasn't true, then why would so many job apps ask if you are a convicted felon who hasn't received a pardon?

Add to that, many people thing along the lines of "Well if you're going to treat me like this anyway, there's no point in me not doing it. There's nothing to lose."


I am the source for everything I just said. A damn fine source, at that.

 

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[gotbalz]

I am the source for everything I just said. A damn fine source, at that.

Can I use that? haha

 

[FDJustin]

Sure. Maybe it'll become a meme, that would be pretty awesome.

 

[Darkside]

Do you have a source for this?

As FDJustin pointed out, they always ask if you've been convicted of a crime on job applications. Anyone who checks yes is pretty much automatically disqualified. They do background checks so even if the person lies they will find out the truth. Do you know anyone who would hire an ex-con or would want to work with one? I wouldn't want to; I would always be wondering what crime they committed since I could potentially be working with a violent person, pedophile, rapist, etc.

 

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[Icy]

As FDJustin pointed out, they always ask if you've been convicted of a crime on job applications. Anyone who checks yes is pretty much automatically disqualified. They do background checks so even if the person lies they will find out the truth. Do you know anyone who would hire an ex-con or would want to work with one? I wouldn't want to; I would always be wondering what crime they committed since I could potentially be working with a violent person, pedophile, rapist, etc.

Didn't you tell rocksolid that you should give people second chances? Yet you admit you wouldn't... Or do you only mean high profile athletes?

Anyway, yeah, I can definitely assume that, that could cause them to get back into their previous habits. I think it'd be interesting to see if there was some type of study about it though.

 

[FDJustin]

Well, doing a couple google searches, I got a pretty funny response on this search "difficulty for criminals to get jobs". The result? Ask.com Get Jobs For Criminals Find Jobs For Criminals. That's a sponsored link of course.

This website makes me want to punch someone in the gut, but.. Well. The story seems relevant to your question. Former felons feel boxed in by crime question - Washington Times

While I'm not sure the validity of this blog post, it claims that there was a princeton study done that proves black people have a harder time getting job interviews than white ex criminals. White ex-cons get jobs faster than Blacks with no criminal record, study | Jet | Find Articles at BNET While on the surface that might make it look like being an ex con isn't too crippling, you gotta realize the onset study is to prove there's discrimination, so they'll go with a negative group that's either subtly hinted at as someone you shouldn't hire, or more benignly suggesting that it's someone who would be less likely to be hired.
I don't know the researchers, so I can't pick out which subtext it is.

 

[Rick]

Isn't it all about the mindset of falling and then rising again?

 

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[Darkside]

Didn't you tell rocksolid that you should give people second chances? Yet you admit you wouldn't... Or do you only mean high profile athletes?

Anyway, yeah, I can definitely assume that, that could cause them to get back into their previous habits. I think it'd be interesting to see if there was some type of study about it though.

Yes, they do deserve second chances. However, my point was that it's peoples natural inclination as well as mine to not want to work with ex-cons. However, we shouldn't let our personal prejudices stop us from giving them a second chance. I wouldn't be thrilled about working with an ex-con but as long as they were making an effort to change their ways and live a clean life then I would give them all the respect that I would give any other co-worker.