The last pit bull to escape the dogfighting operation run by Michael Vick, the Virginia Tech and NFL alum who is in Year 2 as the head coach at Norfolk State, crossed over to the other side of the rainbow bridge in 2021.
Frodo was one of more than 48 survivors rescued in 2007 from Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels in Surry County – the lucky ones, who survived the fighting, and the punishments given to the dogs who didn’t perform, which included hanging, drowning, electrocution.
There are plenty of people out there who think, OK, so, Vick served 19 months in prison, paid $1 million in restitution and care for the surviving dogs, move on – and you can count Vick himself among those who think that.
“I don’t get any questions about it anymore. People don’t talk about it. They don’t ask me about it,” Vick said in a 2019 interview, the last public comment I can find from him on the case.
We’re supposed to have all just bought the PR whitewashing that the Humane Society helped concoct for Vick as he tried to work his way back into the NFL, and later into TV work as a football analyst, as being authentic.
When we all know that, as is the case with everything else in the world, that was about money.
In reality, Vick and his NFL teams wrote checks, Vick gave a few speeches, and he was allowed to go about his way, like nothing had happened.
To the credit of his PR team, the whitewashing worked.
A reporter at Tuesday’s game-week press conference with UVA Football coach Tony Elliott asked the coach one of the most tone-deaf press conference questions of recent times.
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“You mentioned special players, freak athlete, for, I guess, some of us in here, covering Michael Vick, is Michael Vick cool to your guys? Does his name resonate with your players?”
Seriously, take this guy’s credential, and perp-walk him into oblivion.
It hurts me to my core that Elliott went along with the premise.
“I’m just excited to have a chance to meet him, right, and I got a tremendous amount of respect for who he is as a person, all that he’s been through, and then the impact that he’s now making, and that’s what he probably may not get as much credit for,” Elliott started his gushing response.
Seriously, here: what the actual …
“People are going to remember him for all of the great plays, but what he’s done with his life, I mean, it’s very commendable,” Elliott said.
“He’s had to learn through some adversity, and now he has an unbelievable platform.”
Just, stop.
He had to learn through “some adversity”?
He created the adversity, and what he learned about adversity was that you can pay your way out of having to deal with it, if you have enough money, and powerful friends.
And now Michael Vick is trying to be a celebrity coach like Deion Sanders, which, actually, he’s doing that better at that than he could have known – his first Norfolk State team finished 1-11.
So, the dogfighting, the fake apologies, the failure as a college football coach, and yet, we have Tony Elliott in a press conference literally fanboying over Michael Vick – going on about how he’s “never met him,” but his wife has, in an airport, and “he was gracious to take a picture, and she’s a big fan.”
“I mean, it’s Michael Vick,” Elliott went on. “Like, I just I’m glad you asked that question, and obviously I’m going to step outside the rivalry for a second, right, and pay respect to a guy that that has done a lot of things in our sport, and then also is doing a lot of things from a community standpoint with his journey and with his message, and I got a tremendous amount of respect for that.”
We can give Mike Barber his credential back; it might be time to perp-walk Tony Elliott.
According to federal court documents, this guy that TE can’t get over having the chance to chat with before tomorrow night’s game, who has done so much “from a community standpoint with his journey and with his message,” who Elliott has “a tremendous amount of respect for,” personally executed eight dogs that did not perform well in testing sessions “by various methods, including hanging, drowning and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”
Vick and his crew, per the court record, “fought their trained pit bulls with pet dogs, and they ‘thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs belonging to Bad Newz Kennels injure or kill the other dogs.’”
I’ve got six pet dogs, and the idea of Michael Vick thinking it’s funny to watch his fighting dogs injure or kill somebody’s pets.
I don’t have words.
Actually, I have words. Plenty of them. None of them printable.
Frodo, the last of the lot, was a “sweet, shy dog” who lived the last 14 years of his life “pampered like a prince” by the California couple who adopted him, per a state from BAD RAP, an Oakland-based rescue that fought to get the Humane Society to reverse its policy of euthanizing dogs rescued from dogfighting operations.
That’s the same Humane Society that Vick supporters point to as having rehabbed his reputation for him.
Those two deserve each other.
Frodo, for probably obvious reasons, was initially too timid to look caretakers in the eye, before later blossoming into a “cheerful dog” always on the lookout for human attention.
“Sweet Frodo – how we loved him. He was one of the bravest survivors we’ve ever met,” the folks at BAD RAP said of him.
We know Michael Vick has no shame.
Tony Elliott, my man, shame ain’t even the word here for you on this.
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Chris Graham
