Last year at this time, Michael Vick was behind bars watching the Super Bowl. For as talented a football player as Vick, it is easy to understand why that must have been so difficult. In 2001, Vick was the overall #1 draft pick and was signed to the Atlanta Falcons, where he shined. But in 2007, Vick was convicted of running a dogfighting ring and served a 23-month sentence in a federal prison. Since his release, he has returned to football, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, and has launched a reality show on BET, called “The Michael Vick Project.”

ESSENCE.com caught up with Vick to discuss the details of his dogfighting past, what prison has taught him, and where he is mentally and spiritually now.

ESSENCE.com: I know of your football fame and success, but after being in prison and returning to outside life–the NFL, your family–there is so much written about you, but I’d like to ask you: How are you, Michael? How is this new phase of your life going?
MICHAEL VICK: I am doing well. It’s been a tough road–18 months locked away–but I am doing better because I detached from the people and the activities that were hurting me–that risked everything I’d worked for and that was ruining all of the goals I had attained.

ESSENCE.com: You mention the “people” you had to detach from–you mean your old friends from growing up? Did you somehow feel responsible to take care of them?
VICK: I did feel I had to take care of my old friends, the people I came up with. Here I was, making all this money and I wanted them to have a shot, too. I wanted them to be in a position to have a good life, too. I felt a responsibility to keep something going for them. I grew up with them, love and respected them. At the beginning of doing this thing for them, i never thought it would end up as it did.

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