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BAM MORRIS HAS ADVICE FOR MICHAEL VICK: Former Chiefs running back also spent time in Leavenworth penitentiary.
*Upon Michael Vick's transfer to the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas earlier this month, The Kansas City Star caught up with another NFL player and Leavenworth veteran to gain some insight.
"He's got to just stay to himself and swallow it," says Byron "Bam" Morris, a Leavenworth prisoner during 2000-03 and a Chiefs running back in the late 1990s. "If you interact with everybody, eventually something's going to happen. Because everybody wanna try the football player."
Morris pleaded guilty in 2000 to federal drug trafficking and spent 30 months in Leavenworth before the government downgraded it to medium security in 2005 to cut costs. Nevertheless, he figures his experience was much like what Vick should expect as he serves a 23-month sentence for charges related to dogfighting.
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Bam Morris
Kansas City's Star Sam Mellinger writes:
Morris remembers cellmates barking in the yard, loud enough for him to hear, about the stupid NFL player who threw away all the money and opportunity for drugs. Every night at 10 p.m., when the cell bars locked and the lights went out, Morris got on his knees, put his palms together and thanked God that another day of the worst three years of his life was over. It's the closest thing to a best part of the day Morris ever had.
There is a code among some prisoners that they don't talk about their cases. Problem was, everybody knew about Morris' case because it was all over the newspaper, all over the television. Multiply that by a million, and you're in Vick's neighborhood.
"The guards tell you from the jump, because you're a football player, you're not getting preferential," Morris says. "It seems like it's the opposite. It seems like you get treated worse because you're an athlete. They look at an ex-football player coming in, millions of dollars, and the first thing they can say, 'He's dumb, that was stupid, him doing that.'
"The guard doesn't understand how in the hell can you be caught up in certain situations when you have all this money and they have to work for theirs. There's jealousy from that standpoint, and you will automatically find out which guards don't like you and you'll stay away from them."
Morris also stayed away from the TV room. Part of that was lying low, he says, but most of it was trying to stay away from football. You think a sports bar is filled with armchair quarterbacks? Try a prison.
Morris quit watching football completely in prison-college or pro. Says it depressed him, knowing what he was missing. Still, guys approached him on all things football. Wanted to hear stories about his old teammates, his old games. Wanted to tell him he lost them money in the Super Bowl.
Even wanted an autograph.
"I always told them the same thing," Morris says. "I said, 'Look, bruh. I'm in prison just like you. I got a number just like you. I don't want to talk football. When I get out, you send me your address, I'll send a card to your son or something. But I'm not trying to sign autographs. I'm not trying to make any friends here.'"
Read entire article here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/442240.html
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