Michael Vick was the sportsman who got me following college football. So crucial were his talents to the Virginia Tech football team, that I remember when Vick couldn't play due to an injury, Coach Frank Beamer went ahead and put him on the field anyway, his leg in a cast in an attempt to keep from losing a game.

Vick's professional football career had so much hope that the Falcons were rearranging their entire team around taking advantage of Vick's talents. I even owned a #7 Vick football jersey.

Not anymore.

The millions of dollars Vick would have earned from his football career have vanished, and his luxuriant lifestyle will soon be replaced with months or years of prison time.

And for what? A dog-fighting operation. He threw it all away to indulge in strangling, electrocuting, hanging, drowning, and forcing dogs to tear each other apart in a ring for his amusement.

The more than 50 dogs still living at Vick's home are so irreparably brutalized that they must be euthanized, because they have been raised to be killers.

Public outrage over Vick's crime has everything to do with maintaining a healthy society. The serial killer, Jeffery Dahmer, abused and killed dogs as a youth, as do many psychopaths.

By safeguarding the welfare of "man's best friend" we are safeguarding the human race as well.

Football players are public figures. They are idols and heroes in addition to being superstars. We and the NFL have a responsibility not to put someone who butchers dogs for their own decadent amusement back in the game for our children to admire and look up to. Michael Vick must never play professional football again.

RYAN SOMMA

Elizabeth City