There was Michael Vick, dressed in a brown prison jumpsuit, sitting at a metal table in a crammed courtyard at a federal penitentiary in Kansas.
It was May. Weeks before he would be released after 18 months of confinement for his role in a dogfighting ring that killed and maimed.
Months before this Thursday, when the Philadelphia Eagles surprisingly signed him to a two-year contract.
That day, far from public view, he was seeking something. A measure of forgiveness. A path by which he could make amends. He sought this from a most unlikely source.
"My organization was the architect of one of the key laws that he was charged under," says that source, Wayne Pacelle. "We had provided a key confidential informant and had been active in his prosecution. . . . We had a very harsh view of Michael Vick."
The organization Pacelle directs as chief executive and president? The Humane Society of the United States.
You might hold a similarly negative view of Vick, even now, after he has served his time.
I understand. I'm an animal lover, a cat guy more than anything. My wife and I treat Pablo, our shelter-rescued tabby, like a son. One of my favorite quotations is from Gandhi: "The more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."
But, as regular readers of this column know, I also believe in redemption. In making amends and helping the contrite. Maybe, for those of us who've been holding an unforgiving view of Vick -- I've long thought he shouldn't be granted the privilege of playing NFL football again -- the story of Pacelle and the quarterback can be instructive.
Pacelle went to Kansas only after sifting through deep inner turmoil. He'd spent much of his adult life working for animal rights. When he'd first received a call from a Vick representative, asking for a dialogue, he was wary and angry. The thought of Vick and what he'd done was so sickening he put off replying for months.
Then he reconsidered. Let's remember what we are, he told himself and those within his organization. "We're devoted to ending dogfighting, not endlessly slogging Michael Vick. We are about not just ending cruelty, but also making people better. . . . This can be about turning adversaries into allies."
