FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) -Jay Feely believes Michael Vick deserves another chance at playing football. The New York Jets kicker thinks the suspended quarterback needs to first focus on his personal life.
“He needs to take steps to be a better man and be a better father to his kids,” Feely told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He needs to rebuild his life and be a benefit to society rather than a detriment.
“But he needs people in his corner.”
And Feely wants that to begin with him. Feely and Vick broke into the league together with the Atlanta Falcons in 2001, and had neighboring lockers. Feely, entering his second season with the Jets, said the two quickly became friends.
“It’s easy to condemn and point fingers,” Feely said. “Guys understand he made a mistake and paid for that mistake. I want to do more than just help him publicly, but personally. Let’s try to grow together as men.”
e at his home in Virginia.
Feely, who plans to speak with Vick at some point in the near future, was one of the first active players to openly show their support for him with a blog he wrote almost two weeks ago, called “The Precarious Case of Mike Vick.”
“Regardless of your circumstances, you are responsible for your own actions and Mike Vick certainly is responsible for his actions,” Feely wrote in the piece on May 9 at www.squidoo.com/Mike-Vick.
“As someone who knew Mike personally, I don’t believe he is the animal that many make him out to be. I believe he has good in his heart and that he has learned from his mistakes immeasurably. He was the greatest athlete on a football field that I ever played with. He had immense courage in the way he played. I look forward to helping him transfer those same qualities into his life as a man.”
Feely, a self-described dog lover, by no means defends what Vick did, but felt the need to show support.
“I’ve read so much on Web sites and articles and seen people on TV and they’re so negative, and nobody ever shows the other side of the story,” Feely said Thursday.
In the blog, Feely said Vick “was always quiet, kept to himself, and usually spent time outside the facility with his bevy of friends from childhood (which ultimately lead to his demise).”
ed into maintaining those friendships, even if they’re detrimental to them, and he believes Vick fell victim to that. He also criticized Vick for not using his stardom to help children in the position he was once in.
“Mike Vick made many poor choices throughout his career off the field,” Feely wrote. “I often wished he would embrace the opportunity he had to dramatically influence inner-city America. … I always thought Mike Vick could utilize his position to have a great impact. Unfortunately he did not embrace that opportunity.
“Maybe this time he will.”
Feely also wrote that Vick “became desensitized to the moral objections” of dogfighting because he was exposed to it while growing up.
“It does NOT absolve him from the responsibility of his actions and the consequences of those actions, but it helps you to understand why someone with so much to live for would risk it all on something so absurd,” Feely wrote. “I don’t believe Mike Vick knew the reality of his actions. I think he was ignorant to the ramifications of his enterprise and had no idea what he was risking.
“He had no one around him who loved him enough to risk their relationship by being honest. No one who would tell Mike, don’t do that, stop and think about what you are risking.”
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On the Web:
http://www.squidoo.com/Mike-Vick
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