So Michael Vick is going to play for the Eagles. Ideally, the NFL, and every other facet of life, would be populated by saints and poets. But it turns out that people have flaws and people need jobs. Hence imperfect people populate all jobs, including the NFL. The NFL has very carefully crafted an image of itself as being a group of very upstanding and professional men. It's not. In fact you have a lot nastier characters in the NFL than in most lines of work. These are tough, violent men. What Vick did was wrong, but he is not an outlier. Dogfighting, bullfighting, and cockfighting have long histories. He shouldn't teach elementary school, but he should be able to play a violent sport.
People are going to expect him to do some do-gooder kind of stuff. I hope he doesn't pick a pro-animal cause. It would just be too transparent. He's obviously not sensitive to the suffering of animals. It would be like asking the guy who works in the slaughterhouse to act like he is concerned about a cow's feelings. And a person hardly comes out of prison softened. Vick should pick a human charity that he really does care about. The more miserable the people he tries to help, the more sincere his attempt at redemption will be. It will also marginalize the PETA crowd. He should help starving children in Africa or something. That would look much more genuine and would embarrass PETA for protesting him when he finally does play again.
