Thursday, August 23, 2007

Yesterday, while I was watching ESPN, I noticed that they were doing yet another story on Mr. Michael Vick. This time, they chose to interview other athletes in various sports to get their reaction to his alleged crimes. As I expected, most of the athletes gave cryptic responses. None of them wanted to really side with Vick, but clearly none of the athletes wanted to violate the unwritten code of throwing a fallen fellow athlete under the bus..which I can understand to a point. But my favorite part of this segment on ESPN, was the brief interview with Jim Brown. Even well into his 70s, Jim Brown is still one of the most compelling athletes in any sport. He completely dominated the NFL, from 1957-1965. He walked away from football, when he was at the peak of his career, because he wanted an acting career. He acted in various movies, and he was one of the first black men to have romantic sex scene with a white actress (Ms. Racquel Welch). Jim Brown also happened to be an outspoken activist during his time(along with Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, etc) and this was also unheard of, because up until that time, most black athletes smiled and dazzled on the field/court. Jim Brown took it a step further and was very outspoken about racial and economic conditions. Of course, Jim Brown is/was no angel..he has a history of beating women, and he was sentenced to community service and jail time as a result. So as you see, he is a very complex figure. If you get a chance, go rent this..it is a damn good look at Jim Brown and its directed by Mr. Spike Lee

Anyway, Brown brought up a damn good point when speaking of Michael Vick. He said that people are worried about when he's going to play football again, and what his life will be once he gets out of jail. But people are forgetting that he is going to be IN a real jail with real criminals for anywhere to 1 to 4 years. Brown said that we have NO idea how that is going to affect Vick, and we are just assuming that he comes out of that experience unscathed. He also said that Vick should use this time to separate himself from that element that got him in this trouble, and get a fresh start in all aspects of his life. Its a fairly obvious point I know, but in this firestorm of Vick stories, it is definitely a point that I hadn't given much thought to..plus right now, it is easy and trendy to just bury Vick, but there are certainly other viewpoints that can be highlighted.

After today, I won't have the intern to kick around anymore, since today is his last day. I will get a card to be signed by the entire office, and I'll send an email to my boss and his, praising his work, because he really did work hard under difficult conditions(my hazing). But before he leaves, I will definitely remind him about his missteps while he was here, so he doesn't repeat them as he ascends through this thing we call life. That's the least I can do..

Real Love - Rell featuring Kanye West and Consequence

4 comments:

BewRadley said...

who will u haze when he leaves?

Anonymous said...

It's some much I would like to say about Vick but I won't use your blog to do that.

That's nice about the card. Admit it, you loved that kid. Being a mentor is always cool..

maxwellsmusze said...

Great song!

The saga of the doofus intern ends:(

Miss Black River said...

The lyrics are definitely grown n sexy ..."if love could ever have a flavor it would taste just like you..." Ummm hmmm that's hot.