Filed under: NFL
One morning last spring, I sat in a National Press Club audience that was riveted to the testimony of a clean-shaven, light-skinned, middle-aged, college-educated, black man who told us how he was trying to re-establish his life after drugs cost him his livelihood and eventually his freedom. He spoke before a breakfast meeting of Samaritan Ministries of Greater Washington, which he'd turned to for a second chance at mainstream life after so many would-be employers, landlords and others had turned their backs on him because of the most-recent entry on his resume: prison inmate.
The man who transformed us into a rapt audience that morning was living the rule for ex-cons. Michael Vick is, unfortunately, the exception.
The Vick story may be the most transcendent from the sports pages this year, but I'm afraid that it is for the wrong reason.
It really shouldn't be about Vick's redemption off the field as a do-the-right-thing citizen, or on the field as an MVP candidate quarterback for the playoff-bound Eagles. It should be, instead -- as Peter King revealed the other day of the phone call he heard about from President Obama to Eagles' owner Jeffrey Lurie -- about what the Eagles did: extend a hand to a fallen, remorseful man who continues to pay his debt to society.
"The president wanted to talk about two things, but the first was Michael," King said Lurie told him about a phone call he received Sunday from the President. "He [the President] said, 'So many people who serve time never get a fair second chance. He was ... passionate about it. He said it's never a level playing field for prisoners when they get out of jail. And he was happy that we [the Eagles] did something on such a national stage that showed our faith in giving someone a second chance after such a major downfall."
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