I have to give out the “PR Nightmare Award” out today to Michael Vick. It seems like he gave a certain gesture to the hometown fans of the Atlanta Falcons this past Sunday when the Falcons lost to the New Orleans Saints (go Reggie!). This is not the first time that Michael Vick has been in the news that has been negative, and look what his brother did at Virginia Tech. What is going on here? Here is the link to the picture.
It seems to me that there is a lack of professionalism among some of the athletes today. They feel that they will make their marks or performances speak for themselves– but that will only get you so far. Fans and others want to follow athletes that they know not only as an athlete– but as a person. They want to feel some loyalty towards the athlete and they are even more likely to follow the athlete if they are a decent person as well. Vick and the Falcons are definitely going to have to do some major damage control on this– because this behavior towards the fans is not acceptable. Here is the statement that Vick released:
“I would have never thought that six years into my career I would ever do something like that,” Vick said “It will never happen again. Never.”
Well– as one of the James Bond movies says, “Never say Never”. In this statement, he basically is saying that for the rest of his athletic career– he will never do this again. But what happens if it does? It would have been better to apologize for his actions, state that he is sorry towards the fans, and leave it at that– keep it simple. 🙂
Athletes not only represent themselves, but they represent the team and the coaches. Today we live in an age of YouTube and other video web sites– and people post everything from funny home videos or clips of well-known people that do REALLY stupid stuff! If we miss something that happened on TV, we can be 100% sure that it will be on YouTube in a matter of minutes. Public figures have to realize that they have to be more careful today than a few years ago– because if they do something that could hurt their reputation– more people will see it today.
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