updated 4:51 p.m. ET July 28, 2007

ATLANTA - There’s more than one side to Michael Vick, the star quarterback.

This is a guy who can throw a football harder and farther than just about anyone on the planet, but that’s only half the profile. He’s one of the most thrilling runners the NFL has ever seen, slicing this way and cutting that way a la Barry Sanders, becoming the first at his position ever to gain 1,000 yards in a season with his legs.

Maybe there’s more than one side to Michael Vick, the person.

Everyone from family and friends to coaches and teammates describe him as a hard worker who cares for those around him, who never shows the sort of ego one would expect from someone of his staggering skills, who would rather hang out at home playing video games than go out on the town.

But a stomach-turning federal indictment portrays him as a sinister thug who used his big payday to satisfy a lust for blood, who turned dogs into killers and signed off on gruesome executions when they wouldn’t fight, who never scrambled away from the shady friends or rites of manhood picked up on the hard-scrabble streets of Newport News, Va.

Who’s the real Michael Vick?

“There was no indication, no signs, no whispers that he could be involved in any of this kind of behavior,” said Atlanta Falcons general Rich McKay, sounding as baffled as everyone else that Vick might have thrown it all away in the seedy underworld of dogfighting.

The charges still must be determined in court. If nothing else, though, it seems clear that Vick — born 27 years ago to teenage parents and raised largely by his mother in a neighborhood where gangs and drugs and poverty were a constant reminder of one’s standing in life — never quite shook off the code of the ’hood.

Machismo and loyalty help keep you alive from one day to the next. Not even a $130 million contract, luxurious cars and a mansion in the suburbs can necessarily change that.

“It’s difficult for people to understand, particularly the middle class and upper middle class,” said Brian Colwell, a sociology professor at the University of Missouri. “They just see it as a bad behavior, rather than a learned sense of how to survive.”

Although the Falcons insist they had no indication Vick could be involved in dogfighting, there were warning signs from the beginning.

The first seeds of trouble were planted in an interview that Vick did shortly before he was drafted. He talked proudly of his interest in dogs and said he wanted to open his own kennel.

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According to the feds, Vick did just that after signing with the Falcons, purchasing a house in rural Virginia and starting up “Bad Newz Kennels.”

In 2005, he was sued by a woman who claimed Vick knowingly gave her a venereal disease and sought treatment under the alias of “Ron Mexico.” In January, he was stopped at the Miami airport carrying a water bottle with a secret compartment that purportedly smelled of marijuana.

The lawsuit was settled out of court, and no charges were filed over the water bottle.

Of course, those incidents pale next to Vick’s current troubles. If convicted, he could go to prison for five years, and his career likely would be over before he even reached his prime.

“He’s like a brother,” Falcons running back Warrick Dunn said. “It was definitely a surprise to me.”

Coming out of high school, Vick wasn’t even the most touted prospect in his own area, a coastal region known as the Tidewater. He was overshadowed by two-sport star Ronald Curry, who led his team to three straight states titles in football and one in basketball.

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Vick was content to fly under the radar. He considered Syracuse but didn’t want the pressure of trying to follow Donovan McNabb. He wound up staying closer to home at Virginia Tech after coach Frank Beamer assured Vick’s handlers of a redshirt year to ease the transition to college.

“Mike became Mike at Virginia Tech,” said Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall, another native of the Virginia coast who followed Vick to the Hokies. “He didn’t become Mike playing in Tidewater. Where we came up, it was all Ronald Curry. I think Mike would tell you the same thing. Ronald Curry was the guy everybody was going ’Wow’ over.”

That all changed in college.

Curry had a solid career at North Carolina but nothing special. Vick, on the other hand, led Virginia Tech to the national championship game as a redshirt freshman, doing his best to single-handedly beat Florida State in the Sugar Bowl. He was favored to win the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, but an ankle injury scuttled his chances.

“Just seeing him in college, seeing him grow and mature as a player, it was a beautiful thing,” Hall said. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to go to Tech.”

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By all accounts, Vick was humble and polite during his three years with the Hokies. He actually seemed a bit shy and spoke so softly reporters sometimes didn’t know what was said until they listened to their recorders.

“I don’t have any idea about what’s going on” with the dogfighting case, Beamer said. “I do know this: Michael Vick, he’s a very caring guy, he’s a very giving guy.”

Back in Vick’s old neighborhood, they paint a similar portrait of someone who never forgot his roots.

After deciding to enter the NFL draft, he picked the Boys & Girls Club in Newport News to make the announcement, remembering how it shaped his life.

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