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I have to pay homage to my man Lester Munson of ESPN.com, because the battery of words that I’m about to offer up on Michael Vick and his cast of characters is all owed to Munson’s research in an article he wrote on August 15, 2008.
I don’t want to put words into the famous mouth of Stephen A. Smith, but in describing Michael Vick during the whole dog-fighting situation, Stephen A. called him something to the effect of “The dumbest math student ever.” His point being that Vick risked his multi-million dollar life to fund a dog fighting kennel that at most, brought in thousands of dollars for him, if it made a substantial profit at all.
I certainly don’t disagree with that.
But after reading Munson’s article, not only is Vick the dumbest math student ever, he is one of the biggest fools on Earth, because, apparently, before he forfeited his millions away for a felonious stint in prison, he was giving his millions away to every jerk-off with an idea.
I’m not talking about your average spending spree that puts so many athletes in the tank. I’m talking about a forfeiture of money that is on par with Mike Tyson. And we’re talking about a lot of money. Vick signed a $130 million contract in 2004, which was the most in the league at the time, and he received at least $37 million up front in guaranteed money. Not to mention a plethora of outside marketing contracts.
But owe how the cookie crumbles. Let me just run down a list of just a few of the things that Munson found while looking up claims against Michael Vick.
He owes $6 million in loans to banks for starting a car rental business and a wine enterprise, among other business ventures.
A $5 million claim against Vick comes from a sports marketing company he hired before being drafted.
Federal agents demanded almost $1 million for caring for the dogs involved in Vick’s dog fighting kennel.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real tragedy in Vick’s financial losses is that many of his losses came from people stealing from him.
Now I know, this seems like your story where a celebrity who trusted someone with their money ended up getting robbed. But this is worse than that. This is Michael Vick. A man who was once the face of the NFL. He was the highest paid man in all of football. This isn’t like somebody stealing money from TLC. This is like when people stole money from Iron Mike. To have the gall to steal from somebody who is such a public figure, who’s every move is being tracked, is just amazing. It’s also stupid, on the part of Vick and those who stole from him.
For example, take Ms. Mary Wong, somebody who Vick turned to, at the financial recommendation of his former teammate Demorrio Williams. Vick came to her just last summer, hoping that she could help him pay off the $1 million restitution he owed. She came up with the money by tapping into Vick’s retirement fund and convincing a bank to loan Vick the rest.
First of all, Vick should be able to tap into his own retirement fund, the big dummy. Secondly, can someone explain to me why a bank would loan a man facing prison-time any money?
Anyway, Wong didn’t stop at getting the restitution money. She got a little piece for herself, wrongfully taking $900,000 from Vick and taking stock in Vick’s business ventures.
Wong is now under court order to present documentation of her actions to a bankruptcy court.
I don’t understand how somebody just turns over their entire life’s worth to somebody else. I hate to play the education card, but clearly, like Stephen A. said, Vick apparently was not that good of a student. You just don’t do that. I don’t care how much money you have, you don’t give people access to all of it like that, especially some lady you don’t even know. He wouldn’t fire Wong until he “suddenly found out” that she had been barred from the New York Stock Exchange for stealing money while working at Wells Fargo Investments.
As for Ms. Wong, she has some audacity. Did she think that a high-profile man going through a federal investigation wouldn’t have substantial losses like that unveiled?Did she think Vick’s high-powered attorneys were going to miss $900,000 in his account? Well, they didn’t. And now the courts want Wong’s information. Good luck to her.
However, Vick’s story doesn’t start or stop with Wong. After Wong, Vick turned his financial worth over to a medical school graduate. Yeah, because when I think of people I want handling my money, it’s a guy who spent his formative adult years learning about the human body as opposed to working at an investment bank—not to mention, it’s an added bonus that this medical grad, David Talbot, isn’t even a doctor!
Needless to say, Talbot stole a car, charged Vick $35K for managed expenses, and required a $15K/month salary. Talbot is now facing fraud charges from a number of people for having lied, cheated, and stolen from many others.
There are many other cases where Vick allowed people access to his money, only to be stolen from, but I don’t want to rip off Munson too much here.
This just goes to show you that an education is a hell of a thing. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of people out there with degrees that are doing some stupid things, so having a degree doesn’t necessarily make someone financially intelligent, or even smart in general.
However, applying your education does make you smart, which makes you wonder, just how dumb of a person Vick was to not have taken advantage of his opportunity to learn from a great institution like Virginia Tech, a school that causes many Virginians a great deal of grief when they don’t get accepted.
But Vick went to school to play football, not learn how to mange his money or get a well-rounded education. As a result, he became a great football player, a renowned felon, and a fool who allowed people to steal his money, charge him 25% marketing fees, and even take stock in his business ventures. Thus, after years of using and abusing players on the field, and dogs off of it, a number of individuals used and abused Vick and left him bankrupt.
There’s always the United Football League, Vick.
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