Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Vick and his handlers

What follows is the script to this week's Sports at Large, , which airs on WYPR (88.1 FM) in Baltimore each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and again each Tuesday during Maryland Morning at 9 a.m. The show can also be heard live through streaming audio at www.wypr.org.


Michael Vick's return to the National Football League essentially ensures that his will be the dominant storyline of the upcoming professional football season.

But for as much attention as Vick will draw, there are four men who will be under the microscope as much as Vick, for his conduct and success will be tied to them.

Two of them, Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and his coach, Andy Reid, are directly affected by what Vick does this year.

It was Reid who made the call to pursue Vick, then convinced Lurie to offer a one year contract, with an option year, to a player who has been out of football for two years.

Even with the extended period away, the decision to sign Vick makes enormous sense, from a football standpoint. He is only 29 years old, and is blessed with tremendous speed and a powerful throwing arm.

Of course, there was so much more to the choice to bring in Vick beyond his 40-yard dash time and his ability to throw a 70-yard pass.

Vick's crimes against dogs were heinous and reprehensible. At each of the Eagles' 16 games, there will be a heavy presence of protestors, not to mention fans, asking how such a depraved individual could ever be allowed back on the field.

With all due respect to them and to those who love and cherish pets, the Eagles did the right thing.

Michael Vick has met all the requirements of the criminal justice system, and has pledged to speak out against the horrors of dog fighting.

His celebrity and his story could make him an amazing living example against animal cruelty and he ought to get that chance.

That's where Roger Goodell and Tony Dungy come in.

Goodell, the NFL commissioner, signed off on Vick's return. He is entirely correct to ensure that Vick understands that playing football is a privilege not a right.

To that end, Goodell, who has placed a premium on good citizenship among the league's players, put a hold on Vick's comeback, giving him as much as six weeks of the regular season to prove that he gets it.

The commissioner smartly also enlisted the assistance of Dungy, the former Indianapolis Colts, to help Vick repair his character

There are no perfect people, and the NFL is increasingly becoming a home for miscreant behavior.

Indeed, on the day Vick signed with the Eagles, Goodell imposed a one-year suspension on Donte Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns receiver who pled guilty to a March DUI in which the car he was driving struck and killed a Miami man.

But Dungy's track record of mentoring and molding players is long and impressive. If anyone can show Michael Vick the straight and narrow, it's Tony Dungy.

To be sure, touchdowns and interceptions will tell one part of Michael Vick's redemption story.

But if you never hear the names of Andy Reid, Jeffrey Lurie, Roger Goodell and Tony Dungy again in the context of Michael Vick, you'll know the quarterback has made it all the way back.

One more thing: the league wasted no time authorizing the sale of Michael Vick jerseys in Eagle green.

Both Vick and the NFL should donate a portion of the profits of his jersey sales to a Philadelphia area animal rights concern. It may be one of the few good things Michael Vick has done in a long time.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Should Art get the call to the Hall?

Here's the script from this week's Sports at Large, which airs each Monday at 5:30 p.m. on WYPR (88.1 FM) and again the next morning during the 9 a.m. hour. If you don't live in the Baltimore area, you can hear the show live on streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

You get the feeling that Rod Woodson was the kind of kid who would go around stirring up a nest of hornets, then would stand and dare the insects to sting him.

In his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech Saturday, Woodson, who anchored the defensive backfield at safety in the Ravens Super Bowl season, told the crowd that former owner Art Modell belonged with him in Canton.

That would be Canton, as in Ohio. That would be Canton, as in an hour south of Cleveland. And that would be Cleveland, the city where Modell once owned the Browns, before he moved them to Baltimore.

So, Woodson stood in front of a crowd of Ohio football fans and told them that the guy who ripped their hearts out of their chests deserved to be honored among the greatest figures in the history of the sport.

And when the predictable boos rained down on him, Woodson stood there and told the crowd they were wrong, that despite what their feelings told them, Art Modell was a football legend, and should be eternally recognized as such.

In a world of complexities, of nuance, of shades of gray, we come to sports for the simplicity they offer. The guys in our uniforms are heroes. The guys in the other uniforms are the villains.

The trouble comes when the roles change, when the saints become sinners.

That day, for football fans in Northeast Ohio, came in November, 1995, when Art Modell decided to pick up his team and move them east.

From that point forward, Modell became the Cleveland version of Cain, a man who couldn't go home because of one misdeed.

Of course, Modell didn't kill anyone. And unlike another son of Ohio, Pete Rose, Modell didn't commit an unpardonable sin against his sport. All Art Modell did was move his team.

Actually, Art Modell's record in the NFL is a remarkable one.

It was Modell nearly 50 years ago who approached his friend Wellington Mara, the owner of the New York Giants, and sold him on the idea of sharing television revenue among the league owners.

Without that, there would be no way that cities like Green Bay or New Orleans or Baltimore would be able to compete with New York and Chicago or New England for players. The rich in football would get richer the same way they do in baseball.

And without Modell, the longtime chairman of the NFL's television committee, there might not have been Monday Night Football, as he convinced ABC and advertisers to take a chance on a new concept.

But here's where that shading comes in. The Browns were highly successful when Modell moved them.

And for long suffering Baltimore fans who see Modell as a savior, remember he voted against granted Charm City an expansion team, then struck a quiet agreement on a private plane with former Governor Glendening for the same stadium deal he voted against.

On balance, Rod Woodson is right; Art Modell should be enshrined in Canton.

Putting him there, however, would stir up a mighty big hornet's nest, and the voters may wait until the ire of the hornets of Cleveland has died down, and Art Modell has left this mortal coil before they do what's right.