I don't write about sports much in this space.

Not because I can't.
Writing about sports is how I won two Associated Press awards for "Best Story of the Year" during my days as a sportswriter at daily newspapers, and how I've made most of the money in my lifetime.

But, I stopped writing about sports a few years ago when I realized there's just far too much more  stuff going on in the world than who beat whom in a game, which ... in the grand scheme of things ... means nothing to whether the sun comes up tomorrow for a majority of people.

This past week, though, has brought my "sports brain" out of retirement ...

I now have a question:
What the hell is wrong with Michael Vick???

I mean, this guy is one of the highest paid athletes in the world, arguably one of the top quarterbacks in professional football (clearly, though, the most dangerous and versatile) and would get a lot of votes for Mayor of Atlanta tomorrow if he chose to run.

So, why then (I ask again) would Michael Vick risk everything that is right in his life by (allegedly) sponsoring an illegal dog-fighting enterprise ... something that the vast majority of society throughout the world looks at about as despicably as it views child abuse?

I have the answer.

Lemme just get right to the point ...
Vick, and other athletes, wanna be athletes or just overall dumb-ass people ignorant to or devoid of caring about "the law" want to be... The Man.

The Man! 
What an overworked, under understood phrase.

Its been used by people who say they can't find work ("The Man is keeping me down!"), people caught breaking the law ("The Man is the reason I'm in jail!"), women who admire a guy's good looks or his prowess in other arenas ("HE is The Man!") or to describe a powerful person who runs things ("George Bush is The Man!").
 
Ok, I just threw Bush in for sport, but you get my point.

So, with ALL Mike Vick has going on, he still has to be The Man, which is why the feds indictment handed down last week says he runs "Bad Newz Kennels" ... a dog-fighting operation based at a house he owned (he sold it when the investigation broke) in Virginia that operated across state lines.

If the evidence the feds have collected prove true ... especially in light of what just happened in the Duke Lacrosse case, where high-profile athletes were vigorously accused, but the case poorly researched up front by prosecutors ... Vick (The Man) is in a world of trouble.

I remember a guy I knew who tried to be The Man once in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama, a few years ago.

He'd just settled with the city for something like $1.3 million on a case where his car was struck by that of a municipal worker's that ran a red light.

The guy's first installment payment from the city was $333,000. 
I saw the check myself.

Well, he cashed it, drove a short distance to Florida the same day and bought three kilos of cocaine.

The cops arrested him as soon as he got in his car to drive back to Alabama.

My question then, as it still is now, was ... why?
Why if you have just been awarded over a million dollars, and just received over $300,000 ... in your hand ... did you need to risk it all by buying three keys of coke?

If he couldn't smoke that much, and I doubt he could've or he'd have been like that mule in the elevator on "Animal House" for sure, why did he need to buy that much?

To give away?
To sell?
But, he'd just become a millionaire.

Oh! I know!
I got it!!! 
He was trying to be The Man ... which hopefully he became soon after his silly ass was sentenced to 5 to 10 by a judge who no doubt thought he was just as big an idiot as I'm sure you do, too.  

Humph ...
Must be something about being The Man.
Must be a hell of a feeling.
A hell of a rush.
I gotta try it one day. Not dealing drugs, but just being The Man.

How else can you explain a jackass who'd just become a millionaire (with money you know a city hated to give up) thinking he could use it to buy drugs?
And not just buy drugs, but buy a LOT of drugs!!!

A-N-D, how else can you explain Michael Vick? 
A guy at the top of his profession popularity-wise, and still in the prime of his life, running an interstate dog-fighting ring.
A felony with a capital "F."

Neither he nor the Alabama dumb-ass needed the money.
Neither one surely needed the aggravation of jail time.
And neither one hardly needed to be branded a mindless idiot, who thumbed his nose at all the positive things going on in their lives just to be ... lets all say it now ... The Man.

Yeah, it all brings it back in perspective for me.

I'd much rather write about world hunger, or how to get everybody in America health insurance than write about athletes who just don't get it like Michael Vick or this clown of an NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, who was just indicted last week too for fixing games to pay off his gambling debts.

Writing about things that make sense just makes sense.


(Darron Patterson is a two-time award-winning freelance writer based in Detroit)