James Brown interviewed Michael Vick for a segment on 60 Minutes over the weekend.
Here’s the video:
I’m not an expert on reading body language, but I thought he was honest throughout the segment. I still don’t know if he fully understands the magnitude of what he did (maybe it was his constant smirking throughout the segment), but I do think that he’s regretful about what happened.
Not to make excuses for Vick, but as he says in the video, he was introduced to dog fighting at an early age and therefore grew up thinking it was a sport instead of a sick, twisted hobby. As he got older, should he have gotten away from it knowing it was illegal? Absolutely. But again, he grew up thinking it wasn’t a big deal so the thought to get away from dog fighting never occurred to him.
Besides the dog fighting, Vick’s biggest mistake was lying to everyone after he was caught. He thought that if he lied enough, he could evade the accusations just like he evaded defenders on Sundays. And for that, he paid a significant price.
That said, he still has a long way to go. Now that he’s out of prison, he has to prove to everyone that he can stay out of trouble and not fall back into the pitfalls that cost him the past two years of his life. Until he does that, the general consensus will always be that he’s not remorseful for what he’s done.
