Vick T-shirt goes too far

Sometimes making a fashion statement is a bad idea. Sometimes the world isn’t ready for the next big thing. Sometimes the fashion statement is just in bad taste. \nIn this case, it is all three. \nLast week Texas Tech had to ban the selling of T-shirts bearing the likeness of Michael Vick hanging the Texas A&M dog mascot. \nThe red and black shirts have text that says “VICK ‘EM” on the front, in reference to the Aggies’ slogan “Gig ‘em,” and a football player wearing the No. 7 Vick jersey holding a noose with the mascot Reveille at the end on the back. It was created by a frat boy and sold before the game.\nAlthough the fraternity said that it was planning on donating half the money to an animal defense league in Lubbock, Texas, the school stopped the selling of the shirts, saying that it violated the student “code of conduct.” There were about 300 shirts sold before operations were shut down. However, I wasn’t able to get my hands on one.\nAs much as I love making a Vick joke, people have overused his dilemma to take cheap shots for a short laugh and a small financial gain. \nYeah, it was funny that there are shirts that say “Vick’s my dawg” and “Neuter Vick,” but now we are crossing the line.\nIgnoring the apparent racist aspect of the shirts, there are still many flaws with this idea.\nFirst, Vick has no ties to either school. He has no real ties to the state of Texas. Why is Vick being dogged (get it?) at schools where he isn’t even relevant? If it was Virginia Tech, where Vick starred during his college days, playing Texas A&M, then that makes sense. But two Texas teams going at it? It just doesn’t make sense to me.\nNext, Vick jokes are so last week. We’ve moved on to the Patriots being cheaters jokes, which, I might add, will not go out of style until the season’s over and even then are still relevant. Why isn’t there a shirt of Pats coach Bill Belichick holding hands with Stephen Spielberg singing “So Happy Together”?\nThat leads to my final point. If we are going to make Vick shirts, why aren’t we making shirts of more athletes’ mistakes? Why isn’t there a wife beater with Ron Artest’s name on it? Why don’t we have a shirt with a bunch of one dollar bills on it and Pacman Jones saying “Make it rain”? Why don’t we have Tank Johnson’s mug plastered under a National Rifle Association logo? Why doesn’t Chris Henry have a shirt that has on the front “Pimp my ride” and “That I can’t drive” on the back? Why isn’t there a shirt of Ricky Williams saying “I got a club card!”?\nThe amount of professional athlete-mockery shirts that can be made is immense, but they aren’t in production because they are in bad taste. They are in bad taste just like this Vick shirt was in bad taste.\nOn the other hand, since I make a quick buck making fun of athletes’ imperfections, I really have no room to talk. That’s why I write.