Michael Vick’s recent reported hiring as the Norfolk State head football coach has prompted a response about his criminal past by the animal rights group PETA. Norfolk State has not confirmed Vick’s hiring, but it was reported on Tuesday by the Virginian-Pilot.

President Ingrid Newkirk provided a statement to Fox News Digital, recounting her experience with Vick during his sentencing for participating in illegal dog fighting in 2007. 

“After interviewing him at PETA’s office in Norfolk, Virginia while his sentence was under consideration, and hearing him tell me bold-faced lies about his poor dogs, I came to believe that he’s a charming, charismatic, psychopath, but since I believe he won’t fight dogs ever again, PETA is focusing on working with law enforcement to bust those who still do,” Ingrid said. 

Vick’s dog fighting scandal came to light in 2007 when his father Michael Boddi told The Atlanta Constitution-Journal that the former star quarterback was staging dogfights in the garage of the family’s home in Newport News, Virginia. Boddie also said Vick kept fighting dogs in the family’s backyard, including injured ones that the father would help nurse back to health. 

In April of that year, a search warrant for a drug investigation of Vick’s cousin Davon Boddie, resulted in authorities discovering evidence of unlawful dog fighting at one of Vick’s properties in Virginia. Vick was indicted in July 2007 for running an unlawful interstate dog fighting venture known as “Bad Newz Kennels” alongside three other men. 

Vick ultimately pleaded guilty to “Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture.” He also confessed to taking part in the killings of 6–8 dogs, by hanging, beating, and drowning.

Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick attends the Pro Bowl Games at Allegiant Stadium. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

BILL BELICHICK EXPLAINS WHY RECRUITING FOR UNC HAS ‘VERY SIMILAR’ FEEL TO NFL: ‘IT’S EXCITING’

The crimes resulted in Vick spending 21 months in federal prison, which proved to be a transformative gap in his NFL career and reputation. While he returned to the NFL after serving his sentence, joining the Philadelphia Eagles, his public persona was forever tainted and overshadowed by the crimes. 

The backlash against Vick was particularly perpetuated by animal rights groups like PETA. PETA put out multiple statements about Vick following his 2007 indictment, and the organization even hosted him in September of that year for its “Developing Empathy for Animals” course. 

In a 2009 blog post titled “The Day I Spent With Michael Vick,” the organization expressed skepticism about his stated intention to become an “ally” in the fight against dog fighting. 

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick makes a stop in Durham, North Carolina, Friday, February 26, 2010, to speak to students and local residents at the New Horizons alternative school about his mistakes being involved in dog fighting and of second chances in life. He was introduced to the packed assembly room by Ralph Hawthorne, right, of the Humane Society of the United States. (Harry Lynch/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)

“Michael and his camp have done little more than mouth assurances that he’s learned his lesson. Since this meeting, they have only surfaced when Michael has been scheduled for court appearances—until now, when he is asking to get his old job back,” the blog read. 

At that time, Vick was attempting to launch an NFL comeback, which he successfully did in Philadelphia in 2009, where he played until 2013. 

He then joined the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers. He last played in the NFL in 2015. 

Fox News Digital has reach out to Norfolk State University for comment. 

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Grainy game footage and yellowed newspaper clippings confer UCLA’s standing as college basketball royalty, the team’s status as a blue blood rooted in the success of a coach who retired nearly 50 years ago.

John Wooden’s 10 national championships in a 12-year span are more than any other program has won in its history. On the flip side, the Bruins have won just one championship since Wooden’s departure, Jim Harrick’s 1995 team preventing the school from going 0 for the last half century.

North Carolina, the fellow blue blood that the Bruins will face Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden in the CBS Sports Classic, has won five of its six titles since 1982. By comparison, the bulk of UCLA’s success can feel like something accomplished on peach baskets.

As the years pass, those banners hanging inside Pauley Pavilion fade like the memories of those championships. UCLA has gone 30 years without a title while 10 teams have added multiple banners to their collection over that same span. Has the fundamental power structure of the sport changed? Might the Bruins be on the verge of ceding their hallowed status, their blood no longer the deepest shade of blue?

“Hell no,” Marques Johnson, a member of Wooden’s final national championship team in 1975, said this week. “I just don’t think you give up that spot in terms of the prestige and elite-level claim that you deserve based on historically what you’ve done as a program.”

A blue blood, in Johnson’s view, is more of a historic honor than a contemporaneous one, belonging to teams that dominated the sport when it was gaining a foothold in the nation’s consciousness more than 50 years ago. Once you’re in, Johnson said, you never give up membership.

Historical references go back many decades, a 1951 story in the Cincinnati Enquirer describing Xavier’s early season losses as having come against teams listed in “college basketball’s blue blood directory.” The term has long become a favorite of broadcasters even if it was never one that Wooden used, according to Gary Cunningham, who played for the legendary coach before becoming one of his early successors.

Johnson’s bonafide blue bloods — UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke and Kansas — largely jibe with the list of the most decorated programs. Kentucky’s eight national championships rank second behind UCLA, followed by North Carolina and Connecticut (six each), Duke and Indiana (five each) and Kansas (four).

While Indiana won titles in 1940 and 1953, the Hoosiers are more widely associated with their success under coach Bobby Knight, who won three more championships in the 1970s and ‘80s. Johnson puts Indiana in his second tier of elite teams.

“We’ve got to slide them in there,” Johnson said, “because they were a little bit late to the party, not exactly nouveau riche but around and dominant long enough where they definitely need to be talked about in the same breath.”

Connecticut guard Tristen Newton celebrates after their win against San Diego State to clinch a national championship on April 3, 2023.

(Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)

Who does Johnson consider nouveau riche? He listed UConn and Gonzaga, teams that have enjoyed wild success the last few decades but haven’t won enough historically to be considered classic blue bloods. Gonzaga continues to seek its first title, having lost in the championship game in 2017 and 2021.

UCLA’s run of 10 titles from 1964 to 1975 puts the Bruins in a standalone category, according to Johnson.

“That’s something,” Johnson said, “that will never ever be duplicated by any school in history for a number of reasons, as we know — NIL and one-and-dones and all that.”

Even though Duke has won all of its titles since 1991, Johnson said the Blue Devils qualify as a blue blood based on their having been a top team long before that, reaching Final Fours in 1963, 1964 and 1978.

Jay Bilas, a center for the Blue Devils as the team was establishing itself as a national power under coach Mike Krzyzewski in the mid-1980s, said his definition of blue blood mirrors that of the Supreme Court when it comes to obscenity.

“I can’t define it,” BIlas said, “but I know it when I see it.”

A blue blood, as far as Bilas is concerned, combines sustained high-level success with a tradition of championships. Bilas agreed with Johnson’s characterization of UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas and Duke as no-brainers but added UConn as a top-five school based on the Huskies’ recent run that has six championships since 1999 and back-to-back titles the last two seasons under coach Danny Hurley.

“Nobody’s been better than UConn the last 25 years,” said Bilas, now a veteran analyst for ESPN.

Part of the fun in discussions of who qualifies as a blue blood is that there’s rarely consensus.

Bilas said he considered Michigan State, which won titles in 1979 and 2000 and has made eight additional Final Four appearances, a blue blood but understood not everyone agreed — including Spartans coach Tom Izzo.

“Oddly enough,” Bilas said, “Izzo would say no and I used to argue with him and say, ‘No, you’re a blue blood’ and he’d be like, ‘Nah, I’m not sure we’ve achieved that.’ ”

UCLA remains firmly entrenched as a blue blood despite its recent lack of titles, Bilas said, because of its three consecutive Final Fours under coach Ben Howland from 2006-08 and another appearance under coach Mick Cronin in 2021.

“It’s kind of hard to go against UCLA winning 10 out of 12 and they’re not a blue blood,” Bilas said. “Now, even though UCLA hasn’t really sustained the same sort of dominance, they haven’t fallen off a cliff, either. It’s just when your standard is to win 10 out of 12, nothing looks quite as good. So UCLA is in there and they’re probably top five.”

One of the biggest questions in parsing blue bloods is where is the cutoff line? Do schools like Louisville and Villanova, with multiple championships, belong? What about Syracuse, which won just one title but enjoyed a decades-long run of success under coach Jim Boeheim?

UCLA coach John Wooden and his players celebrate with their trophy after defeating Duke to win the 1964 national title in Kansas City, Mo.

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

“To me,” Bilas said, “blue blood is more of a feeling than a recognized moniker that we hand out like, ‘OK, here are our blue bloods’ and ‘Hey, you’re almost a blue blood, another few years and you’ll get in.’ There’s no arbiter for that, but it’s an interesting barroom question.”

Cronin said he considered a blue blood to be defined by the public’s perception of who’s supposed to be good, listing the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Dodgers based on their success when most adults were growing up.

“These teams are historically good teams and have won titles and competed at a high level, so there’s a connotation with a certain program whether it’s college football or basketball, whether it’s the NBA or whatever,” Cronin said. “Who are the blue bloods in the NBA? You would say [Boston] Celtics, Lakers. And then really, that stems from the ‘80s, but we would say that because that’s what we all [knew as children.]”

But perception can differ from reality, Cronin said, given downturns by those same teams. UCLA and North Carolina are trying to rebound from recent struggles — the Bruins posted a losing record last season and the Tar Heels failed to make the NCAA tournament two years ago. Both have learned that being considered a blue blood doesn’t put extra points on the scoreboard.

Along those lines, Cronin said, he’d rather be a big boy — a team with the most money — than a blue blood.

“All you’ve got to do is look at who’s getting what recruits,” Cronin said. “Look, you’re talking about certain kids, they’re going to the highest bidder now — 90% of these kids in basketball and football. I’d rather be a big boy than a blue blood in this era because the big boy’s got the advantage.”

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In October, before Kim Caldwell had coached a game for Tennessee, she sat on an orange couch in her office and tried to get comfortable.

This was both a physical and philosophical challenge for the first-year Lady Volunteers coach at the time. At five months pregnant with her first child, there were certain realities about what “comfortable” might look like moving forward for her, and she missed the caffeine that she had given up months earlier (especially at this point in the year when team prep could seem never-ending).

But there was a deeper question: How does Caldwell — who had coached just 33 Division I basketball games — get comfortable in a position once held by one of the most important people in women’s basketball? And not just that, but how does she proceed when the program had fallen from its previous heights to a middling territory, which in Lady Vols-speak, is as bad as irrelevance? As someone who had coached against just three power conference opponents, how would she come up with the answers to get this program back to the standard that Pat Summitt set?

Caldwell, 36, grew up when Tennessee and UConn ruled women’s college basketball. Summitt and Geno Auriemma — their intensity and their rivalry — broke through the noise to make those epic matchups part of the mainstream sporting culture.

“It made people talk about women’s sports. It made people talk about women’s basketball,” Caldwell said. “It was such an incredible time.”

At her AAU practices in West Virginia, Caldwell’s teams were split up not by Team A versus Team B but by the Lady Vols versus the Huskies. At a tournament as a high school player, she looked into the stands and saw Summitt and Auriemma sitting next to one another evaluating recruits and later, walking past Summitt in the hallway.

She never thought — even as recently as a year ago — that she would be coaching against Auriemma in that rivalry game, or throwing on an orange pullover and walking into tournaments to recruit just like Summitt. Last summer, as she prepared for one such tournament in Chicago, she had to give herself a pep talk before walking into the gym — “Here we go. You’ve got bright orange on. Hold your head up high. Get in there,” she told herself — as she wondered if any players would react to her the way she once had to Summit.

Along with UConn and Stanford, Tennessee is tied to a singular coach like almost no other program in women’s college basketball — or college sports. So even on the days when she doesn’t drive past the nine-foot statue of Summitt outside Thompson-Boling Arena on her way to Tennessee staff offices, she still walks by a glass display of the eight national championship trophies that Summitt won. “The Summitt” is painted in script on the floor where Caldwell now coaches her home games. And then there’s the Tennessee orange. A color that Summitt made iconic.

“I will never be Pat Summitt. Nobody can, but I will strive every day to be someone she would be proud of.”

New Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell on the legacy of the program she is about to lead. pic.twitter.com/yMZCs4M2xe

— Karthik Venkataraman (@KarthikV_) April 9, 2024

Advertisement

In her book, Summitt wrote, “I remember every player — every single one — who wore the Tennessee orange, a shade that our rivals hate, a bold, aggravating color. … But to us, the color is a flag of pride, because it identifies us as Lady Vols and therefore as women of an unmistakable type. Fighters.”

Since Summitt retired in 2012, Tennessee has been fighting. First, to remain at the top, where Summitt had led the program. And then, to retain relevance. Both endeavors were mostly failures, though the program retained some prestige simply because of its history.

Now Caldwell, who had one season of coaching Division I basketball under her belt when she took the job in April, holds the reins to one of the sport’s most important programs.

“There’s an enormous weight that comes with it, and I knew that going into it. You talk about the history, what Pat Summitt did for sports in general, what she did for the state of Tennessee, what she did for basketball,” Caldwell said. “Where basketball is now. … I don’t know that we would be here without her.”

But over the last few seasons, as women’s basketball has grown more and more popular, Tennessee has been strangely missing from the fold. As the game moves forward, Tennessee hopes that its most recent (unexpected) hire means the Lady Vols don’t miss the next chapter, too.

The surprise around the women’s basketball world was palpable last April when Tennessee fired Kellie Harper. Many assumed she would get at least another season to try and turn around the program.

But any surprise around Harper’s firing paled when compared to the reaction when Tennessee announced its new head coach less than a week later: a swift “who?”

Caldwell had just finished her first season at Marshall. Though she had led the mid-major to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1997 (and just the second time in program history), it lost to four-seed Virginia Tech by 43. Before Marshall, Caldwell had spent seven seasons as the head coach at her alma mater, Division II Glenville State University in West Virginia.

The minimal Division I and power conference experience was obvious, but it was just as glaring that she had no ties to Summitt or even the state of Tennessee. The program stayed within the Summitt tree after she retired, hiring Tennessee native Holly Warlick, a longtime assistant and former player under Summitt, and then, in 2019, turned to Harper, a Tennessee native, Summitt protégé and beloved alum. Neither returned the program to its elite perch, failing to reach the Final Four for more than a decade.

Recruits had never witnessed Tennessee achieve the way the program historically had, though their parents remembered. Getting this hire right was important; every passing day seemingly moved the program further from contention.

Given that Harper was fired with four years left on her contract and she had received an extension from Tennessee athletic director Danny White just a year earlier, most in the industry assumed such a drastic move indicated that White planned to swing for the fences. Harper earned $1.1 million a year — making her the 12th highest-paid coach in women’s college hoops — so if the Lady Vols upped that salary even a bit, they could likely lure a high-profile coach to Knoxville. Tennessee alum and Duke coach Kara Lawson and Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, who had just won two WNBA titles, were considered people White should pursue. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb was among the prominent names on media coaching lists. A report connected Tennessee’s search firm to Indiana coach Teri Moren.

The names being floated were esteemed within women’s basketball. Lawson, the only UT alum currently coaching at a high level, was the only Summitt connection in the group.

From Knoxville, White felt a pull away from his predecessors, who had hired from the Summitt tree.

“We had already gone through those chapters twice,” he said. “If there was any pressure at all, it was probably more so to go outside (the tree) and try something different. I don’t know if that was real or something I invented myself, but I certainly didn’t feel pressure to stay inside of coach Summitt’s tree.”

In administrative circles, White’s choice was unexpected, but his methods weren’t surprising.

As the Buffalo AD, he hired men’s basketball coach Nate Oats, who had only two years of college experience as an assistant and had only been a head coach of a high school boy’s basketball team. (Alabama hired Oats five seasons later.) White also hired Lance Leipold as Buffalo’s football coach despite Leipold’s previous seven seasons off everyone’s radar at a Division III school. (Kansas hired him five years later.) At UCF in 2018, White hired Josh Heupel. Many assumed Heupel’s career had dead-ended three years earlier and were surprised he was landing a big job. After three bowl game appearances with UCF, White brought Heupel to Tennessee, which is in the College Football Playoff this season as the No. 7 seed.

“He’s kind of got a Midas touch,” Leipold told The Athletic in 2022.

Hiring for the Tennessee women’s job is its own beast. His conversations with Caldwell reminded him of talking to Heupel. He liked that her system was different and exciting, utilizing a full-court pressing defense that forced turnovers, an offense that took early 3s and hockey-style substitutions that kept players’ legs fresh throughout the games. Her sample size at Marshall was small, but the program had gone from .500 in conference play to winning the league title in her first year.

“I think more frequently in different sports, at the highest level, people are seeing,” White said, “that coaching is coaching.”

The decision made one thing clear: Hiring Caldwell could make White look prescient — and more importantly, the move could return Tennessee to the top of women’s basketball — if it works out. If it doesn’t, it likely will be considered an obvious and avoidable misstep in caretaking the program.

For the first time in a long time, more eyes and scrutiny are on Tennessee. Not because of high expectations, but because everyone wants to know: Is Caldwell the answer to the post-Summitt conundrum?

When Caldwell’s agent, Brian Stanchak, called her on April 1 to tell her Tennessee’s search firm was gauging her interest, Caldwell wondered if it was an April Fool’s Day joke.

“Honestly. I was thinking, ‘Anyone but me. There’s got to be people that have more experience under their belt or an assistant,’” Caldwell said. “I mean, it’s been one year (in Division I).”

Caldwell took a call with Tennessee mostly for the experience of interviewing for a prominent position. She was genuinely happy at Marshall. She and her husband, Justin, had just bought their dream house — a four-bedroom custom home on a spacious lot with an apartment above the garage for her mom.

Other mid-major and power conference jobs had come up during her head coaching career, and her response was always the same: “I love winning and I love my players. I don’t love everything else that comes with coaching, right?” she said. “The lower level you are, the more basketball you usually get to do. That’s as honest, as transparent as I can be about it.”

But the Tennessee job was different.

With a tornado warning in West Virginia hitting right before her scheduled interview slot, she huddled in a closet, rather than postponing because of the inclement weather. She sweated through the interview, not because she was nervous but because the closet was so stuffy. When it ended, she thanked Tennessee for the conversation and assumed that would be the end of it.

But when White wanted her to visit Knoxville, it began to sink in that she actually had a shot.

“Do I stay here because I love it and I’m happy, or do I take the best job that I’m ever going to get offered right now?” Caldwell said. “Because I can work for 80 more years, and I will never get offered a job of this magnitude again.”

Caldwell was surprised at how comfortable she felt in Knoxville, and leaned toward a yes if an offer came.

But there were still detractors. Her mom asked why she would leave a state where she was beloved to coach somewhere she wouldn’t be. ”They’re gonna be like: Who is this? Why is she now our coach?” Caldwell said her mom cautioned.

She told her mom the same thing she had told her players: Don’t leave any regrets on the floor.

Danny White when he hired coach Kim Caldwell: “For fans, if you like what you’re seeing inside of Neyland Stadium in terms of the amount of points we score, I think you are going to like what you see on the basketball floor.” https://t.co/Wmq8BFmfiy

— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) December 14, 2024

So when White called, she accepted. But she also knew the pressures that would come at Tennessee. An antsy fan base, a motivated athletic department, the women’s basketball world wondering how she could solve a puzzle that had proven impossible for other Division II and mid-major coaches.

“I think you just have to bet on yourself and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be uncomfortable for a while, but I was just uncomfortable for six months. Yes, I can be uncomfortable again,’” Caldwell said. “You bet on your own success.”

Every season, Caldwell keeps a notebook on her team, what’s going right and wrong, and, most importantly, how she’s feeling. Even during a season when the pressure is so different and the stage is so much bigger, she finds consistent trends in what she writes and feels from year to year.

“I’m miserable,” she said with a laugh in mid-December. “So I’m right on track.”

This is how it goes for Caldwell’s system: In November and most of December, she’s miserable. She never wants to talk basketball at Thanksgiving. By Christmas? She might be ready to talk hoops as things usually start coming together.

With the Lady Vols sitting at 8-0, a few of the early questions have been answered. Tennessee picked up significant wins over Florida State and Iowa earlier this month, but Caldwell knows SEC play will be different.

Home attendance is the highest in Knoxville since the 2015-16 season, and recruiting took off immediately with Caldwell. She’s already picked up two top-25 players in the 2025 class, matching a pace close to Summitt’s in her final five years. By comparison, Warlick signed 10 in seven seasons, and Harper signed just one in her five classes from 2020-24.

“I was pretty shocked at first. And then I kind of told myself, ‘Why not?’ It’s not like the program was a national powerhouse,” said ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, a member of Summitt’s final recruiting class at Tennessee. “I had a lot of reservations, but I started seeing some of the (recruits) she was getting. I just was like, ‘Let’s go.’ The system that she’s running is literally one where you can’t hesitate, so for me, as an alum, not an analyst, I’m not going to hesitate either. … Let’s see what she’s got.”

Caldwell’s Lady Vols lead the nation with 98 points per game and turn over opponents a nationally best 30 times a game. Last season, Marshall finished in the top five nationally in both categories — so that part feels pretty familiar.

just getting started. pic.twitter.com/7cJKbcFgjb

— Lady Vols Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) December 14, 2024

But Caldwell’s still getting used to some differences. At Marshall, she had three assistants, one graduate assistant and two managers. At Tennessee, she has a staff of 13 and nine managers. She never had a video coordinator before coming to Knoxville; now practice and game footage are ready and clipped for her nearly by the time practice is over. She said she learned more during her first three weeks in Knoxville than an entire season at Marshall.

With SEC play around the corner, the toughest tests are still ahead of the Lady Vols, but with each win, the argument grows that White made the right move and Caldwell could be the unexpected answer at Tennessee. Will that be enough to bring the program back to its previous heights? Caldwell’s confident enough to bet on herself and her team.

“You don’t turn it down,” Caldwell said. “And then you spend every day trying to make sure that they realize they didn’t make a mistake.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire, Damian Strohmeyer / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images, Donald Page / Getty Images)