From cell to stardom - the resurrection of Michael Vick

New Year is the time for new starts and wiping slates clean.

So what better than to consider the extraordinary tale of Michael Dwayne Vick, one-time practitioner of the foul and illegal business of dogfighting - a disgraced athlete who has climbed back from the depths of national ignominy to the pinnacle of his sport.

Three years ago, he was inmate No 33765-183 of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, having barely begun a 23-month sentence at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, as punishment for his involvement with the Bad Newz Kennels, a dogfighting operation Vick ran at an estate he owned in rural Virginia.

Today he is the superstar quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, and by one measure the most admired player in the entire National Football League, the richest professional sports league on the planet.

So remarkable has been his resurrection that President Barack Obama held it up last week as an example for the nation.

The President's intervention may not have been politically wise. For every person who regards Vick as a poster boy for spiritual redemption, there is another convinced he is a sadistic, overpaid thug who should have been banned from the NFL for life.

The old Michael Vick of early 2007 was a familiar figure - the brash and swaggering sports star with a permanent entourage of hangers-on to inflate his enormous ego even further.

Of his athletic abilities, there was no argument. In 2004, Vick signed a 10-year US$130 million ($166 million) contract with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons team, becoming the then highest-paid player in league history.

Then the Bad Newz broke. In mid-2007, Vick was charged with running a dogfighting ring that extended across state borders.

As the criminal case unfolded, one repulsive detail followed another. Vick, it emerged, not only financed the operation, he had himself hanged, drowned and electrocuted some underperforming animals.

Disgrace was quickly followed by financial ruin. The Falcons demanded their money back, business associates sued for breach of contract, and his legal fees soared.

In August 2008 Vick filed for bankruptcy, citing liabilities of up to US$50 million.

The strutting megastar had been reduced to a virtually penniless jailbird, who had lost his homes and everything else. But in Leavenworth, as Vick tells it, he saw the light. His misfortunes had been entirely self-inflicted. Dog-fighting was part of his child-hood, but what had happened "was all my fault".

The past was hard to talk about, he said, "but if you talk about it and let it all out, it kind of helps put the demons to rest". The road to redemption had begun.

Vick left prison in mid-2009, and was provisionally reinstated by the NFL. At first, no team would have him. But in mid-August he was signed by the Eagles as a back-up quarterback on a one-year contract for US$1.5 million, a pittance by NFL standards, with the option for a second.

That first season in Philadelphia, Vick showed enough of his old ability to be retained for the second year, but still only as a reserve. Then the Eagles' main quarterback was struck by injury, and Vick took over.

During the 2010 regular season he wasn't merely good, he was sensational. Across the US, fans made him their top choice for the ProBowl, the NFL's all-star game. Conceivably, Vick could lead the Eagles to their first triumph in the Super Bowl; it is also possible that a convicted felon will be named the NFL's Most Valuable Player for the 2010 season.

All of which, predictably, has led to an outbreak of national schizophrenia. America may be a nation of football lovers, but it is also a nation of dog lovers.

Vick's heroics on the field and his contrition off it - he works with animal rights groups and talks to schoolchildren about the evils of animal abuse - have won many over.

The President, too, appears convinced. Last week Obama called Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles' owner, to thank him for giving Vick another chance. Obama reportedly said he felt "passionately" about how "there was never a level playing field" for released prisoners, and was hugely grateful to Lurie for allowing Vick the opportunity to rebuild his life.

To which opponents reply, phooey. The Eagles were not taking Vick aboard out of altruism, the say; the team was making a hardnosed (and cheap) investment in the throwing arm of a once, and perhaps future, superlative quarterback.

And animal lovers complain, the adulation of Vick makes people forget his crimes. One hyperventilating TV pundit has even proclaimed he "should have been executed".

But perhaps the true moral of this New Year story is that not only convicted football stars, but every one of the two million-plus Americans now behind bars, should be given a second chance once they have paid their debt to society.

MICHAEL VICK A TURBULENT LIFE

Born: June 26, 1980, Virginia.
1999: Led all college quarterbacks in passer rating at Virginia Tech.
2001: Was taken as No 1 pick in NFL draft by Atlanta Falcons.
2002: Made 177 straight passes without an interception during the season.
2004: Became highest-paid in the NFL.
2005: Listed as No 33 in the Forbes list of most powerful celebrities.
2006: Became the only NFL quarterback to rush for more than 1000 yards.
2007: Police find evidence of dog-fighting at his house. Jailed for up to 23 months.
2008: Filed for bankruptcy.
2009: Released from prison in May. On probation, he had to work as a labourer for a construction company for a month. Returned to the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles.
November 2010: Became the first player to throw for 300 yards, run for 50 yards, throw four passing touchdowns and rush for two touchdowns in a game.

- INDEPENDENT