[tooncey2]

This article was in my newspaper today:

LEAVING BEHIND MICHAEL VICK'S NO. 7
Lesson on how our heroes fall is bitter not just for the young

By John Keilman | a Tribune staff reporter
September 2, 2007

As cameras whirred and clicked like a swarm of insects, disgraced NFL star Michael Vick stood behind a bank of microphones last week and gravely reeled off apologies to the league, his fellow Atlanta Falcons and the fans -- especially the smallest ones.

"I want to apologize to all the young kids out there for my immature acts," he said after pleading guilty to running a dogfighting outfit. "If I'm more disappointed with myself than anything it's because of all the young people, young kids that I've let down, who look at Michael Vick as a role model."

One of those young kids was my 4-year-old son, Ian.

Since age 2, Ian has worn Vick's No. 7 jersey, a present I bought him during a trip to Atlanta. Vick's freewheeling sandlot style reminded me of the games I played as a little kid, when sports were only about having fun. I wanted Ian to share that attitude, so I was happy when the jersey became his favorite piece of clothing, and when he started pointing out the quarterback in the flurry of ESPN highlights.

"Michael Vick," he would say with absolute certainty, "is the best player."

I shielded Ian from Vick's character misdemeanors, like the time he flipped off his home fans. I changed the channel or the subject, figuring the purity of a boy's admiration didn't need to be stained at so young an age.

That became much more difficult, ethically and logistically, when Vick was accused of dogfighting. I couldn't ignore the crime and its heinous details, and with the story a mainstay of sports television, I couldn't always reach the remote fast enough.

To my relief, though, Ian didn't ask any questions or try to wear his jersey to school. So I kept quiet.

But the reckoning finally came during the Bears-Colts preseason game last month, when a "SportsCenter" alert blurted details of Vick's plea deal. My son, sensing my nervousness, I'm sure, turned to me and asked: "Daddy, is Michael Vick still the best player?"

What followed was one of the most difficult conversations I've had with Ian, right up there with the time our cat was dying. How do you tell a child that his hero is a bum?

I decided to play it only partially straight. I told Ian that Vick was probably going to jail because he had made dogs fight each other, leaving out the part about how Vick had killed some of the animals. No, I didn't know why he did it. But sometimes, I said, people we think are really great do things that are very wrong.

Ian seemed to accept this explanation, agreeing when I said I didn't think he should wear Michael Vick's jersey anymore. We talked about sending it to an animal shelter, as people across the country are doing, to muck out cages or serve as a dog's bedding. I told him we would get him a new one, and that there were many, many football players who were good people.

My daily scan of the sports pages, though, leaves me with less than granite confidence in that statement. Ian also owns the jersey of Clinton Portis, a Washington Redskins running back given to assuming goofy alter egos such as Sheriff Gonna Getcha and Coach Janky Spanky. He seemed like a fun guy until he defended Vick earlier this year by saying, "[It's his property, it's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it."

Compared with Vick's federal case, though, Portis' dumb and quickly disowned comment was like a parking ticket, so his jersey will stay. I don't have the stomach for another heavy conversation. But I'm still looking for a player my son can cheer without me dreading a future conversation about steroids, domestic abuse or strip club shootouts.

As an adult, I look at time sports with cynicism and occasional contempt, put off by the grubbing commerm and win-or-die ethos. I still watch, though. Some part of me is elevated by seeing elite athletes perform feats so incredible that they briefly wipe away my disillusionment.

I'm sure Ian, too, will be jaded some day, probably a lot earlier than I was. But it still has been painful to watch the seeds take root in his young mind, and to have no choice but to water them with the truth.

He keeps asking if Michael Vick really made dogs fight, as if I might say I was just kidding. He keeps asking why Vick did it, as if there were an answer a 4-year-old could understand.


Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen, though. That's the problem. -Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh