“Sometimes you just have to man up.” A captain of the varsity football team that I coach for, recently said these seven words to a teammate of his when he was questioned as to why he needed to lift weights if he hated it so much. I was in the middle of doing some work on my laptop when I heard this conversation start. I paused to listen. I was not only impressed by the way in which this senior leader was encouraging his teammate and friend to not only find ways to become a better football player but he chose this moment to pass on one of the many very important life lessons that football, or any team sport for that matter, can teach today’s young men and women. The six-two 225 pound offensive tackle who amazingly benches the same weight that he squats (we are working on this by the way) continued to explain to this underclassman that lifting weights and working hard in practice is just like a lot of things you do in life. Whether it be school, work or taking care of your home, these are all  jobs that can be enjoyable but they are often times done out of the desire to live a richer and fuller life. The tasks that we go through on a daily basis are often times not fun but they must be done. Yes, enjoyment can come while the work is taking place but the real happiness is living in the moment of achievement.

The moment of achievement is when everything you were doing comes together and you are able to see the end result. A chef slaves in the kitchen for hours and in the end has a meal.  A carpenter pounds his hammer for months and in the end has a home.  A father raises his son and after 18 years his son is a man. However, in all three scenarios along with countless others, it is not just a matter of time that allows us to get to our end goal. Give a guy a kitchen and he will be able to mess around with some food, turn on the stove and make something to eat. But it takes real work and concentration to make a five-star meal. Give a guy a yard filled with wood, a hammer and box of nails and he can build a shelter. But it takes skill, knowledge and extreme attention to detail to construct a stable home. Give a man a son and provided that he gets adequate food and shelter, after eighteen years his son will be a man. But much like the chef and the carpenter, the finished product of the father will be that of what he puts into it over the course of eighteen years. We have seen time and time again that almost anyone can make a child but only a real man can raise a man.

Michael Vick did not have a father figure in his life that was a positive influence when he was growing up. Is this part of the reason the 2001 No. 1 draft pick and once highest paid player in football decided to almost throw all of his fame and fortune away during the greatest time of the most prestigious sports league this country has ever seen? Probably. Maybe. Not really sure. That doesn’t matter right now. That is the past. With only three weeks remaining before the start of the 2009 NFL season, one can only focus on the present and near future. Throughout the first twenty-something years of Michael Vick’s life, he did not have that father figure. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters right now is that he is fortunate enough to have a mentor and a father figure who is the main reason we see the former Falcon back on an NFL roster today. Not only can Michael Vick learn a lot from Tony Dungy but so can everyone who follows (or doesn’t follow for the matter) the NFL.

Dungy, who is regarded as one of the finest men in the often troubled world of sports that we live in, retired from his lofty head coaching position with the Indianapolis Colts months ago. People were confused. He wasn’t suffering from burnout. He wasn’t stressed. He was at the pinnacle of his profession and everyone looked up to him. For Dungy, it was just time to do something different. While some choose to take their millions and retire to a warmer climate to sleep in and golf every day (which is perfectly acceptable by the way) the Super Bowl winning coach wanted to do something to help a generation of young people realize their potential. He had done some great work already with thousands of players who already made it to the NFL but as the coach puts it, these were men for the most part that had already gotten some good mentoring along the way. It was time for Dungy to reach out to those that didn’t have the benefit of the college or NFL environments. This made his decision to reach out to Michael Vick even more difficult to understand. Vick had his opportunity and blew it. He had people wanting to help him in college and in the pros. They were invested in him and he let them down and in a big way. The world turned their backs on Vick when he was convicted in August 2007 of conspiracy and running a dog fighting operation. Vick was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and suspended indefinitely by the NFL. The world turned their back on him. I turned my back on him.

You don’t have to be Christian like Dungy to believe that the community should be structured. Wisdom, which is a combination of age, intelligence and experience, ought to be passed down from elders to juniors. From the Tony Dungy’s of the world to the Michael Vick’s. From the captain of the varsity football team to an underclassman trying to make the squad. From a father to a son. This isn’t the case too much of the time in our society and is the affects are obvious. What Tony Dungy has done and is doing isn’t easy but it is necessary. In order for us to help correct society’s flaws, we must work together to help the generation following in our footsteps. We must pass down the wisdom we have acquired throughout our journey in life.

Will Michael Vick be able to make defensive coordinators lose sleep at night and have defensive backs run into each other out of confusion in which way to go? Probably. Maybe. Not really sure. What I do know is that Michael Vick is getting a second chance in life. Many men, much more influential and successful than Vick by the way, have committed much more heinous acts and have been forgiven. Don’t get me wrong, we all understand how appalling dog fighting is, and neither I nor Tony Dungy, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell or anyone in the Eagle organization condone it. But once again, that is the past. I urge you to take a look at the man that spent two years in prison often times crying himself to sleep. Take a look at the man that spent days and nights wondering what went wrong. Time spent trying to find himself. Can we be like Dungy and forgive Vick and take an honest look at the person who is leaving that prison who saying he’s sorry? The man ready to apologize with actions and not just his words. The man who wants to get back to his three children and to be that father figure he never had. The man who has been given a second chance to stop the cycle.

As a football fan I am curious to see what this second chance will do for Michael Vick on the football field. As a man I am curious and excited to see what he does with this second chance off of the field. I am curious to see how Michael Vick takes this second opportunity to be a man. I am hoping that one day when his son asks him how he got through this time in his life he will look at him and say, “Sometimes you just have to man up.”