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Vick to be featured on SI cover

Michael Vick continues to garner attention from the national media. This week, he'll be on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

As Michael Vick continues to lead the Eagles to victories on the field, the national media continue to try and find different ways to tell his story.

In recent weeks, NFL Network, CBS and NBC have all ran one-on-one interviews with Vick.

And now Sports Illustrated will take its shot.

Vick will be featured on the cover of this week's issue with the headline: The Enigma: What Michael Vick Tells Us About Ourselves.

The piece is written by S.L. Price. In the article, Vick talks to Price about the summer shooting in Virginia Beach following his 30th birthday party.

"I'm sitting on the chair crying, looking all crazy in the face. My brother, he's sitting there, he ain't got no expression on his face because he ain't going through what I'm going through. I'm going through something totally different: I know what I want in life. I love the game of football. I know what I can do on the field and what I can provide for a team. That's where my heart's at, and it would've killed me to have that taken away. And I could just see in [my mother's] face, she was tired. She told us it was embarrassing. She wanted to disown us. That's what she told me: She wanted to walk away. She's like, 'You went to prison for 19 months, and you come out and you still ain't listening….' Right then and there, I told myself, I am changing my life. I'm going to do everything they ask me to do. I'm getting myself away from this madness."

I took a quick look at SI's online vault of past covers, and it's fascinating how they tell the story of Vick's life and his career.

In August of 2000, he was the centerpiece on the cover with the headline: Mr. Electric: Why Michael Vick Of Virginia Tech Has Sparked A Revolution At Quarterback.

A little more than two years later (Dec. 2002), after Vick had been selected No. 1 overall by the Falcons, he was not the cover story, but a promo at the top read: Michael Vick: Mr. Excitement.

In May of 2003, the magazine listed the 101 most influential minorities in sports. Vick came in a No. 77. He was just short of his 23rd birthday and had led the Falcons to the NFC championship about four months earlier.

In November of 2003, the promo read Waiting for Michael Vick.

And in September of 2004, Vick was the centerpiece again, with the headline: Game On: The NFL Kicks Off And Michael Vick Is Rolling Again.

Another centerpiece for Vick the next summer. In July of 2005, the headline read: I Am A Quarterback: Michael Vick Just Wants A Little Respect.

By June of 2007, things had changed. This time, the promo at the top of the cover had nothing to do with football. It read: Special Report: Dogfighting And Michael Vick.

And finally, in December of 2008, SI ran a photo of Sweet Jasmine, a pit bull rescued from Vick's property, as its centerpiece. The caption said she had found a happy home. The headline read: Vick's Dogs: The Good Newz Out Of The Bad Newz Kennels.

That was less than two years ago. And now, for the first time since Sweet Jasmine was featured on the cover, Vick is being featured again. And also for the first time, he's in an Eagles helmet, with the story likely being about his path back.

It almost makes you wonder what the headline might be the next time Vick is featured.

In case you missed it, I wrote about the Trent Cole-Shawn Andrews matchup in a post on Monday night.

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