Tom E. Curran • E-mail

ATLANTA - Michael Vick belonged to Atlanta. Atlanta belonged to Michael Vick.

Few cities embrace a superstar athlete as tightly as this one embraced the former Falcons quarterback.

With a black population close to 61 percent when Vick came into the NFL in 2001, black Atlantans in particular appreciated Vick's ability and identified with his persona.

Falcons safety Lawyer Milloy has been in the NFL since 1996. He's played in New England, Buffalo and, for the past three years, Atlanta. This city's bond with Vick, Milloy says, was special.

"The passion and love for him was something I noticed immediately when I got down here," Milloy said. "Any talk about the Falcons was 'Vick, Vick, Vick.' From the stadium to the airport, you'd see everything geared to him.

"As a young kid growing up or as a father raising children, you do identify with role models who look like you. Skin color can be a part of that. The city of Atlanta, the inner-city especially, has the same skin color as Michael Vick. He dressed like them. He talked like them. He looked like them."

And that made the period from April 2007 through August 2007 especially painful. From the time word surfaced that Vick was involved in dog fighting through the time he pled guilty and was sentenced on federal dog fighting charges, Atlantans were torn.

"It was a city divided," acknowledges Ryan Stewart.

Stewart, a former NFL player with the Lions who went to college at Atlanta's Georgia Tech, now co-hosts a successful radio show on AM-790 in Atlanta with his brother, Doug, called 2 Live Stews. The Stewarts have their fingers on the pulse of Atlanta's sports population.

"When I talk about division," Stewart said, "there was a black/white division, but it was also Mike Vick's fans and Falcons fans divided. There were folks who appreciated his game and bought tickets to see him first and the Falcons second. And they were pro-Mike Vick. They wanted due diligence and for Mike to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And there were folks who didn't like Mike's style and what he represented and how he played, and who felt that Arthur Blank spent more than he should have, and they wanted to see Mike convicted."

That the two factions split somewhat along racial lines was also clear to Stewart.

"My brother and I have been doing this show for seven years and a month," he said. "We ain't acting like race is the elephant in the room we won't discuss. And there were racial tensions (in the way the Vick situation was discussed); a lot of people played their hands. Even when it comes to co-workers. The true colors of a lot of people were shown. I look at people differently now based on the situation."

INTERACTIVE Timeline Take a look at the key dates in the dogfighting case against Michael Vick.

People are looking differently at the Falcons now as well. Remade after a horrible 2007, the Falcons turned over 60 percent of their roster and have a new coach, new general manager and a new quarterback, rookie Matt Ryan, who looks as much like Richie Cunningham as Vick looked like 50 Cent. They are 6-4 and sniffing around a playoff berth. On Sunday, they host the Carolina Panthers in what will be the team's biggest home game to date in the post-Vick era.

At this point, it's worth wondering: Has Atlanta embraced the Falcons and Matt Ryan or do race-based animosities linger?

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