Christian Vick (center) sits before a green screen while filming an episode of “Celebrity Crime Files” set to air Oct. 20. Photo courtesy of Christian Vick
Christian Vick was a standout basketball player for Robert E. Lee High School, but boxing was really his first sport. A family sport.
His father James worked in boxing promotion for Washington, D.C. boxers Maurice Blocker and Simon Brown, and his great uncle Louie Vick was a heavyweight fighter. And Vick grew up spending every Saturday with his father and brother Zachary, watching bouts of Sugar Ray Leonard and Hector Camacho on the family room floor.
The live fights and documentaries captured his attention and ignited a lifelong passion for the sport, and for examining athletes through multimedia.
“It’s one thing to read a Wikipedia page or a profile in Sports Illustrated,” said Vick, who currently lives in Boston. “But another to actually watch something with people who knew this person, were there, had direct access to firsthand sources -- you learn intricate things about them. These are our superheroes.”
BOXING SUPERHEROES have been a constant driving force in Vick’s career. When he began working as a journalist after graduating from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, he covered boxing for BleacherReport.com.
“He was never afraid to ask tough questions of [Great Falls boxer] Jimmy [Lange],” said Brian Bishop. Bishop works in public relations for Brotman Winter Fried, a division of Sage Communications, and has been a sounding board for Vick. “He doesn’t take no for an answer -- very aggressive in his nature, but a likeable guy, so it’s a good combination.”
These are traits Vick said he developed growing up in Springfield. “It was just wonderful place to cultivate a man, and gave me moral fiber that to this day, people still can’t believe.”
Vick’s first self-published book, “The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe”, is a biography of one of the sport’s sweet -- if flawed -- scientists.
Now Vick is jumping off the page with pugilism, appearing on an episode of a documentary series for the channel TVONE called “Celebrity Crime files.” The Oct. 20 show “Contenders to Pretenders: Heavyweight Champions Behind Bars” features Vick discussing his biography subject Bowe, as well as two other champions who went on to become convicted criminals.
“Christian's expertise was invaluable to this project,” Lawrence Givens, executive producer of the episode, said in a statement. “His vast knowledge of boxing and its history is more than evident. His passion for the sport is unmistakable and contagious.”
After BleacherReport.com, Vick’s reporting resume ballooned with covering the Washington Redskins rookie camp, DC United, Georgetown basketball, major league baseball and the NFL -- notably the Aaron Hernandez trial.
Much of the work was for a media platform Vick helped found in 2012, an internet and radio forum called Sports Debate. He was eventually able to get a foot in the door with ESPN radio, but the effort has been otherwise self-sufficient.
“The journey’s been pretty hard-fought,” Vick said. “I was never a columnist, never picked up by a major publication.” He also had to overcome a learning disability that affects written expression. “It’s been a process to say the least.”
After being turned down for a TV anchor position in Boston, Vick decided to re-evaluate his career path.
Getting onscreen had been a goal since he first saw classic films like “The Bar” and “Chariots of Fire.” So Vick stepped away from sports reporting and dedicated himself to learning about the business and practice of filmmaking. He read books on his own, started working on story treatments and took classes in the Boston area.
He and partner Nicholas Haskard formed the Vick and Nick Productions company at the end of 2013, and are planning to film a pair of documentaries back-to-back in 2015: one on Reggie Lewis and one on Bobby Orr.
For Vick’s sister Wendy, the transition to filmmaker “was definitely always going to happen.”
Wendy worked at the Springfield Mall movie theater, where the siblings would watch countless movies together. Their mother is a film buff and sister Crystal ended up working on scripts in Los Angeles.
“We are a film family,” she said. “He has that film history in his head, an amazing imagination and power with the written word.”
MOST IMPORTANT, though, for Vick’s work with athletes in both journalism and documentary filmmaking, is his personable nature. “He’s able to really connect with other athletes,” said Wendy.
“I understand what it’s like on both sides of the fence -- as a journalist and as an athlete,” said Vick. “I see dreams get crushed and come true. Not being drafted and having my career end abruptly, I have a sense for glory and loss. I felt it. That will help me depict it onscreen.”
After playing four years on scholarship at Quinnipiac, Vick graduated and played overseas with teams in Portugal, Austria and Finland before coming home and signing a standard contract to play in the NBA’s D-league.
“Most of the time when you’re known for sports, that’s all you’re known for,” said Wendy. “But that isn’t all he was, or ever will be.”
Vick’s updated website is sportsdebateuniverse.com/blog.