Michael Vick

Michael Dwayne Vick (born June 26, 1980) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons.

Regarded as having transformed the quarterback position with his rushing abilities, he is the NFL leader in quarterback rushing yards and was the league's first quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.

Ferguson High School was closed in 1996 as part of a Newport News Public Schools building modernization program.

Vick, as a sophomore, and coach Tommy Reamon both moved to Warwick High School.

Vick was a three-year starter for the Warwick Raiders.

Under Reamon's coaching, he passed for 4,846 yards with 43 touchdowns.

He added 1,048 yards and 18 scores on the ground.

As a senior, he passed for 1,668 yards, accounting for 10 passing and as many rushing touchdowns.

During one game, he ran for six touchdowns and threw for three touchdowns.

Reamon, who had helped guide Brooks from Newport News to the University of Virginia, helped Vick with his SATs and helped him and his family choose between Syracuse University and Virginia Tech.

Reamon favored Virginia Tech, where he felt better guidance was available under Frank Beamer, who promised to redshirt him and provide the freshman needed time to develop.

Reamon sold Michael on the school's proximity to family and friends, and Vick chose to attend Virginia Tech.

As he left the Newport News public housing projects in 1998 with a college football scholarship in hand, Vick was seen in the Newport News community as a success story.

In his first collegiate game, as a redshirt freshman, against James Madison in 1999, Vick scored three rushing touchdowns in just over one quarter of play.

He made a spectacular flip to score his last touchdown but landed awkwardly on his ankle, forcing him to miss the remainder of the game and all of the following game.

Vick played college football at Virginia Tech, where he won the Archie Griffin Award as a freshman, and was selected first overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2001 NFL Draft.

During his six years with the Falcons, he was named to three Pro Bowls and led the team to two playoff runs, one division title, and an NFC Championship Game appearance.

In a 2001 interview, Vick told the Newport News Daily Press that when he was 10 or 11, "I would go fishing even if the fish weren't biting, just to get away from the violence and stress of daily life in the projects."

Boddie's employment required a great deal of travel, but he taught football skills to his two sons at an early age.

Vick was only three years old when his father, nicknamed "Bullet" for his speed during his own playing days, began teaching him the fundamentals.

Michael subsequently taught the game to his younger brother, Marcus Vick.

As he grew up, Vick went by the nickname "Ookie", and learned about football from Aaron Brooks, a second cousin who was four years older.

Vick and Brooks spent a lot of time at the local Boys and Girls Club.

"Sports kept me off the streets," Vick told Sporting News magazine in an interview published April 9, 2001.

"It kept me from getting into what was going on, the bad stuff. Lots of guys I knew have had bad problems."

Vick first came to prominence while at Homer L. Ferguson High School in Newport News.

As a freshman, he impressed many with his athletic ability; he threw for over 400 yards in a game that year.

Vick's NFL career came to a halt in 2007 after he pleaded guilty for his involvement in a dog fighting ring and spent 21 months in federal prison.

His arrest and subsequent conviction garnered Vick notoriety with the general public, which lasted throughout the rest of his career.

He was released by the Falcons shortly before leaving prison.

Local residents interviewed in a 2007 newspaper article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted that "not much [had] changed" nearly a decade after Vick left.

One resident said that there was drug dealing, drive-by shootings, and other killings in the neighborhood, and suggested that sports were a way out and a dream for many.

After serving his sentence, Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles for the 2009 season.

As a member of the Eagles for five years, he had his greatest statistical season and led the team to a division title in 2010, earning him Comeback Player of the Year and a fourth Pro Bowl selection.

In his final two seasons, Vick played for the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers, primarily as a backup.

He officially retired in 2017 after spending the 2016 season as a free agent.

Vick was born in Newport News, Virginia as the second of four children to Brenda Vick and Michael Boddie, then unmarried teenagers.

His mother worked two jobs, obtained public financial assistance and had help from her parents, while his father worked long hours in the shipyards as a sandblaster and spray-painter.

They were married when Michael was about five years old, but the children elected to continue to use their "Vick" surname.

The family lived in the Ridley Circle Homes, a public housing project in a financially depressed and crime-ridden neighborhood located in the East End section of the port city.