Eagles quarterback Mike Vick made the most of his lockout downtime on Saturday by joining former Bucs and Colts coach Tony Dungy, now a mainstay on NBC’s Football Night in America, for a visit to a Tampa-area prison. They were joined by 35 members of Abe Brown Ministries.
Dungy told PFT Live this week that Dan Patrick and Peter King would also be attending.
“It was very humbling and at the same time, a bit overwhelming. You really didn’t know what to expect,” Vick said, per the Associated Press. “Hopefully I can be an example to somebody. The thing that I was trying to get across is that we all can be instruments of change. That’s something that I’ve been proactive about since I stepped out of prison and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”
“I told Michael when we met in Leavenworth is that he’d be able to do some things, say some things and reach some people that no one else can,” Dungy said. “Other people can go in and say ‘Here is what you should do.’ It may be coming from somebody who they really respect, but not somebody who really knows what they’ve been through.
“When they see Mike, they say, ‘Here’s somebody that lived in my shoes for two years.’”
Vick said he wants to continue working with Abe Brown Ministries, a group named for a former high school football coach who engineered the outreach program. Brown died in 2010.
“There will be football next year. There definitely will,” Dungy said. “I don’t know how much we’ll get Michael. We certainly won’t be able to get him during the season. But Abe Brown Ministries has been doing this for over 30 years. And Rev. Brown, this was the first one I’ve done without him. He asked me to go in 1996 and I’ve been going 15 years. It’s something he did and we’re kinda continuing to keep the ministry going.”
Without question, if Dungy is involved, it will continue. And we applaud him for that.