The NY Jets have been busy this offseason and one of the biggest moves for the team was signing quarterback Michael Vick to a deal and while Rex Ryan, Woody Johnson and the organization are thrilled about the move, some are not so excited and that is why a Change.org petition has started to go around asking that the quarterback be banned from attending training camp at SUNY Cortland, where the Jets hold their summer workouts.
According to FOX Sports, the petition has been circulated and now has over 3,000 signatures and the petition is sent to Erik J. Bitterbaum, who is the president of the State University of New York at Cortland, and it says that Vick should be barred from the campus due to his past crimes of dog fighting. The petition describes what Vick was convicted of doing to dogs before he served his sentence in jail and it also mentions how the university should "stand for what is right".
The Jets have been going to Cortland for a number of years and they held training camp there in 2009 and continued through last season and missed only 2011 due to the NFL lockout. While the Jets and the school have not yet confirmed that the team will have training camp there in 2014, the team likely will be returning. The NY Daily News writes that the school or the Jets or organization has not commented on the petition.
"We MUST send the message that we won't be party to the torture of animals by conveniently forgetting what he has done. If we welcome Vick onto our campus, we are complicit in his crimes. We are sending the message that, for money and publicity, we will turn a blind eye to the horrors of dogfighting. I don't want to be that person, and I don't want SUNY Cortland to abandon its principles so easily."