A Pirate, a Pony, and a Chancellor walk into an equipment shed…

 

Pride comes before destruction

Proverbs 16:18

This situation has been rehashed 14 different ways on TV, print, and the blogosphere.   Here is my take.  There are five characters at play in this tragedy.

The Pirate :  The Head Coach.  He has built an impressive program that competes at the highest level in one of the top conferences in college football.  He took what was once a backwater program and brought them into the national discussion.  Attributed to an interesting personality and offense to match.  This success has afforded a great following with a fan base in west Texas that was looking for a collegiate outlet for their friday-night-lights football obsession.  This following afforded him some capital in the public forum.  Capital that led people and press to overlook a snide personality with his penchant to publicly explore other jobs.

The Pony:  A former football great.  A former golden-boy running back who was deemed so worthy in high school that a University literally sold it’s soul to get him on campus.  He moved on to NFL glory and a career as a talking head on a major sports network.

The Receiver:  Son of the Pony with the attitude to match.  Largely been reported that he had an air of entitlement to his personality and practiced that way.  His attitude drove his position coach and the Pirate nuts.

The AD:  The poor soul who had to be the boss of an individual, the Pirate. who thought he had no boss.  He was fired from his old job as Basketball coach and received his previous job largely out of pity.  His predecessor leaves the school and puts him in the catbirds seat.

The Chancellor:  A spectator in this whole circus.  A guy who loved the success of his schools football team but had to have heard what it was like dealing with the Pirate.

Here is where I see the mistake was made.  Leach (The Pirate) let a lazy, entitled athlete with a reportedly overbearing, stage-dad get into his head.  If Adam James was such a bad teammate, Leach had many options to deal with him.  Sit young Adam on the bench, suspend him, or give him a signed release and leave it up to Adam to decide if he wants to stay or not.  Instead it appears he went Col. Nathan R. Jessup and tried to train Adam by locking him in various closets and sheds around the Lubbock Metropolitan area.  A big misread by the Pirate in this case.  The Receiver makes a call to the Pony and the public hype machine at the WWL gets fired up.  This unwanted hype and years of abrasiveness made the decision pretty easy to part ways.  All they asked him to do was apologize to the family and he refused (and not to diplomatically either).  Leach brought lawyers into it and filed a restraining order.  Leach’s representation said he couldn’t be suspended  because he didn’t have that clause in his contract.  So the Chancellor said exercised the termination clause.  IMO Leach has no one to blame but himself and his foolish pride.

My Michael Vick Take

Let me start off by saying I’m dog lover. I love my little pug and she is a family member to me. She greets me when I get home. As a pro-dog person, I’ve had a keen eye on the Michael Vick proceedings. I believe that his conviction and punishment were just.

I watched portions of his 60 minutes interview while I made dinner for the family and I have to say that my feelings on this have changed. I initially believed that this man should have known better and that I would be okay with him never playing again. I don’t feel that way anymore. I believe in second chances. I believe in that everyone deserves a shot at redemption if they feel bad about what they did and change the course of their life as a result. I believe Michael Vick needs a second chance to redeem himself. If he truly renounces what he did, then he should get a chance to play again. Now if he blows this second chance and reverts back to a point where he’s involved in dog fighting then all bets are off. Vick seemed genuine in his regret during the interview. How much of that was coaching of his legal and image team remains to be seen. I choose to believe at this point that he regrets this ever happened and wants a second chance.

With all that said, what changed my mind you ask…Couple of things. The fact that Tony Dungy is laying his name on the line for this man says a lot to me. I view Tony as a pretty stand up guy and for him to vouch for Michael Vick admittedly buys him capital with me. I’m willing to give Mr.. Vick a second chance because Dungy thinks he’s changed. Second and really the most important is because of my faith. Without getting into a big spiritual discussion here, I am going to say that my faith has taught me that we need to forgive when no one else will because we are forgiven when we shouldn’t be. I think that applies here.

I am going to continue to watch this situation unfold. If Vick has changed his words will become action. If his words are just that…words then he will fall back into the same traps and lose this chance. I’m willing to watch this thing unfold. I hope has seen the error in his ways and has made a true change.