I had reserved, yet high hopes for the town hall meeting on “The Vick Divide,” hosted by ESPN at the World Congress Center. As the most popular sports network in the world, they are not required to hold such and event discussing an issue — Michael Vick’s crimes and the relation of his treatment to race — that transcends sports. They built up the televised event by providing a balanced panel and promise of balanced discussion between the panel and questions from the Atlanta town hall attendees.Somewhere along the way, I forgot that the “E” in ESPN stands for entertainment.

The panel was an array of players and journalists, each with their choice blend to the event –

• Terrence Mathis spoke early and often of God and redemption, receiving plenty of applause from the crowd, as he tried to defend Vick’s right to a second chance.
• Neil Boortz stayed out of the way for the most part, realizing the atmosphere was heavily pro-Vick, but managed to slip-up when he said “you people” as he broke down a point on Vick’s own accountability.
• Terence Moore was booed more often than ARod in New York when he hits only one home run in a night. He maintained very pointedly that Michael Vick is a pure villain, through and through.
• Selena Roberts did a good job of becoming a fan favorite throughout the discussion. She maintained that the Falcons organization enabled Vick from the word “go” and they should have done more to prevent this from happening.
• Chuck Smith threw in a few choice words here and there but for the most part was relatively useless on stage.

The main problem with the town hall meeting was how openly bias the Congress Center was with Vick supporters. The lopsided reactions to the comments by the panel worked as a disadvantage to the (hopefully) intended balance of the event. And at best, Bob Fary looked more like Jerry Springer, needing to intervene early and often to ask enraged audience members to be civil and let the panel speak.

The pro-Vick Atlanta crowd booed any dissent or knock on the former Falcons star and his crime. The most misguided boos came when the deputy director of the Humane Society spoke of the brutality and cruelty involved in dogfighting, adding how, contrary to popular belief (including my own), dogfighting has been a felony in Virginia for years. The newly changed law was on the federal level, and involved the crime of transporting dogs between states in order to fight. The deputy director was trying to speak for the animals who have no voice and the audience wrongly took out their anger on him.

The unyielding Vick support from the audience set the town hall meeting into shambles. The end result wasn’t exactly a fair and balanced judge of how divided of society is about race and their public perception. For future reference ESPN, or any other network attempting a similar venture, should have the same type of panel — a mix of players and journalists who covered the event — but give them a more closed environment without crown noise biased in any way. The one thing the crowd provided was evidence that Vick still has very persistent and loyal support in Atlanta.

Vick’s crimes cannot be defended. He pleaded guilty and apologized for his involvement. We can argue that every person deserves a second chance after paying their debt to society. We can try and figure out a pattern of events that led Vick to committing this crime. We can even argue how serious the crime of dogfighting is. But the argument of whether Vick is guilty or not is settled.

Some varied, more detailed responses of the ESPN “Vick Divide” Town Hall:

• ESPN Reminds You Black And White People Hate Each Other (Fynalcut)
• Vick Town Meeting (Atlanta-Journal Constitution)
• Across The Vick Divide The Chasm Is Larger Than Ever (The Starting Five)