Newport News Plans To Hold Celebration For Michael Vick

 

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Community organizers in Michael Vick's (FSY) Virginia hometown are preparing a "celebration" for the former NFL quarterback.

Andrew Shannon, who is president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapter in Vick's hometown of Newport News, says the event is scheduled for Aug. 8.

 

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What Team Wants Michael Vick?

If any NFL teams are interested in Michael Vick(notes), they’re not saying.

A day after the quarterback was conditionally reinstated to the league, only the Baltimore Ravens would directly acknowledge evaluating him.

“We’ve had long discussions about Michael Vick and we have a feeling about how he would impact our team and not impact our team,” coach John Harbaugh said Tuesday.

General manager Ozzie Newsome declined comment. Previously, he has said the Ravens have enough quarterbacks.

Other teams either refused comment or insisted they wouldn’t pick up the former Atlanta Falcons star, who served 18 months in federal prison for running a dogfighting ring and was released from home confinement on July 20.

Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday that Vick can immediately take part in preseason practices, workouts and meetings and can play in the final two preseason games—if he can find a team.

Once the season begins, Vick may participate in all team activities except games, and Goodell said he would consider Vick for full reinstatement by Week 6 (Oct. 18-19) at the latest.

Two clubs that might have seemed like a logical destination—the Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals—said they wouldn’t pursue Vick.

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Your Black Sports: No Obamamania For Brandon Marshall

No Obamamania for Brandon Marshall

By: Dave Zirin

All Brandon Marshall wanted was the opportunity to be part of the moment. The Denver Broncos wide receiver wanted to feel connected to the thousands who have flooded into the streets and the millions in a state of shock and awe around the world, celebrating the election of Barack Obama.

Marshall's plan was to score a touchdown on Thursday night and then take out a black-and-white glove and hold it up to the sky. "I wanted to create that symbol of unity because Obama inspires me, our multi-cultured society," he said after the game, choked with tears. "And I know at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico,Tommie Smith and John Carlosraised that black glove in that fist as a silent gesture of black power and liberation. Forty years later, I wanted to make my own statement. I wanted to make my own statement and gesture to represent the progress we made."

Unfortunately, we will never know what would have happened, or how the crowd would have reacted. We will never have that image of a football player bringing politics to the field. Marshall did score a touchdown, but as he removed the glove from his pocket, his teammates stopped him.

The problem was that Marshall's touchdown came with only one minute and twenty-two seconds left to play, putting the Broncos ahead, 34-30. His teammates--particularly fellow wideout Brandon Stokley and tight end Tony Scheffler--saw what he was about to do and stopped him, fearful of an automatic fifteen-yard penalty for "unsportsmanlike conduct."

One can be charitable toward Stokley and Sheffler, given the moment in the game--although the image of two white players surrounding a black player to block his political statement is the antithesis of the very ideas Marshall was attempting to communicate.

Yet the reaction from ESPN was even worse. The first talking head back at the SportsCenter headquarters took a shot at Marshall's emotional press conference saying, "Well, the sentiment is exactly right, even if the speechwriting needs some work." His partner then said of Marshall, "It's not about you or what you think. It's about the team and what they need to do." Ex-player turned broadcaster (and sometime soap opera star) Mark Schlereth called it, "The best play of Stokley's career." The Sporting News' Chris Mottram quoted Cleveland based blogger Vince Grzegorek,who called it "Marshall's Moronic Touchdown Tribute to President-Elect Obama."

Grzegorek then wrote of Marshall, "He's not bright, or flat out selfish, or a combustible mixture of the two."

There is no question that Marshall was taking a risk. There's no question he could have cost his team the game.

His coach, the stone-faced Mike Shanahan, has a written rule about not bringing politics into his all-business locker room.

Marshall could have risked the ire of the NFL, known as the No Fun League for cracking down on any hint, any whiff, of individuality on the part of players.

But maybe Marshall thought that the moment was more important than the game. Maybe he looked at basketball players like Kevin Garnett, who had the slogan "Embrace Change Vote '08" written on his sneakers, or Carmelo Anthony, who said that he would score forty-four points Wednesday in honor of the forty-fourth president. Marshall wanted to be part of the energy that has inspired more pro athletes to take part in this election cycle than ever before.

Instead of derision, Marshall merited our respect--sports fan or not-- which should actually be exponentially higher since he was willing to take this risk when the game was on the line. The image of a pro football player raising a black-and-white hand to the skies forty years after Smith and Carlos and two days after the election of a black president in a country built on slavery could have echoed through the ages. Someone should tell the suits and ESPN: some things are actually more important than sports.

From Edge Of Sports

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Brandon Marshall on what the glove symbolizes:

Your Black Sports: Vince Young And The NFL's Depression Denial

Vince Young and the NFL's Depression Denial

By: Dave Zirin

Your sports page may have recently induced an unpleasant sense of déjà vu. A pro football star, by all accounts, seemed caught in a spiral of depression. Friends and advisers were worried enough about suicide to call the police. After an ensuing public-relations fracas, the player and the team assured us that it was all a grand misunderstanding.

Two years ago, this was the story of Dallas Cowboys star receiver Terrell Owens. Less than 24 hours after Owens had sleeping pills pried out of his mouth, his PR flack said that the police report was a fabrication and "Terrell has 25 million reasons to be alive" — an ugly reference to the dollars he was due in his contract.

This month it was Vince Young, quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. During a Sept. 7 victory over Jacksonville, Young threw two interceptions, sparking a chorus of boos from the home crowd. Then he seemed to be refusing to re-enter the game — and was injured shortly after he did return. The following night, when he didn't return calls to his cell phone, the police were sent to find him. He had apparently uttered the word "suicide" to his manager, and perhaps a team therapist, and made clear that he was in possession of a gun.

But now Young and the team say that this is a whole lot of noise about nothing.

"I'm fine. I'm good," Young said. "I just needed (time) ... to get through some things. But now I am OK. I was never depressed; I just hurt a little bit. ... When it happens again, I'll know how to handle it."

The response by many columnists and bloggers has been repellent and elucidating. This is why athletes keep these issues under wraps. Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star used this moment to write: "I'm going to do my best to avoid turning this into an I-told-you-so column. But the truth is, I told you before the 2006 draft that Vince Young was primed for NFL failure."

In the NFL, there is no worse sin than failure, and players are expected to shake off losses, injuries and criticism. In football, it is well understood that performance-enhancing drugs, legal and otherwise, are part of that process — just not antidepressants.

In such a high-pressure sport, where contracts aren't guaranteed and any play can be your last, depression lurks like a blindside linebacker. This shouldn't surprise anybody. Studies show that repeated concussions are linked to depression. One 2007 study that examined more than 2,500 retired NFL players found that those who had suffered at least three concussions had triple the risk of clinical depression compared to teammates. Those with one or two concussions were one-and-a-half times more likely to be diagnosed with depression.

And yet the NFL is selling a fantasy about professional football: It's all perpetual adolescence and a nonstop frat party. Fans don't want their star players to be human.

As Mike Messner, professor of gender studies at the University of Southern California and author of Taking the Field: Women, Men and Sports, said to me: "Therapists will tell you that it's much harder for men than for women to recognize the signs of depression, and then to ask for help. Quintuple that for a famous man. Being an NFL star is like being put on a national stage as the ultimate man: tough, decisive, invulnerable. Superman isn't supposed to get depressed, so depression gets viewed as a source of shame, like failing at manhood. ... In failing to discuss and deal with the very human reality of men's vulnerabilities, it seems to me the football establishment is once again giving boys and men a very unhealthy message."

In other words, team and league executives don't want to be upfront about Terrell Owens or Vince Young. And they certainly don't want to talk openly about the story of Shawn Andrews. Andrews, of the Philadelphia Eagles, missed days of training camp in August because, as he told reporters, he was depressed. "I'm willing to admit that I've been going through a very bad time with depression," the two-time Pro Bowler said. "I've finally decided to get professional help. It's not something that blossomed up overnight. I'm on medication, trying to get better."

But the Eagles didn't see Andrews' mental health as a legitimate medical problem and fined him $15,000 for every practice he missed. That wouldn't have happened to a player with a sprained knee. Andrews is now back on the field. After Young's episode, Andrews told reporters that depression is the silent scream of many NFL players.

"When we faced the Patriots, those guys were really concerned, and when we played the Jets, a couple of guys were inquiring — told me if I wanted to talk or needed to talk (to contact them)," Andrews said. "A lot of guys, you'd be surprised, are going through what I'm going through and don't admit it. I think guys are sensitive to it. If they haven't been through it, they know somebody who has."

Surely many fans know someone who has endured the darkness of depression as well. But the NFL, rather than take the opportunity to educate fans about a disease millions of men face, just pumps up the music and gets back to the big frat party. Let's hope more people like Andrews break the silence before tragedy strikes.

Reposted From Edge Of Sports