It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Designs A T-Shirt With Vick Hanging A Dog

So some frat boy at Texas Tech, Geoffrey Candia of Theta Chi, came up with (I think) quite the ingenious concept for a t-shirt. As you can see above, the front of the shirt has the words "VICK 'EM," a play on the Texas A&M Aggies slogan "Gig 'em." The back of the t-shirt bears the likeness of Michael Vick hanging the dog mascot of rival Texas A&M.

Apparently this t-shirt was deemed too shocking by Texas Tech, which not only banned him from selling the shirts, but also temporarily suspended his fraternity, which will now "face judicial review for allegedly violating the solicitation section of the students' code of conduct."

The school is saying the shirts were in poor taste and that he exercised poor judgment. Of course, the censorship/free speech people are out there, too.

Candia says he knew that he shouldn't have made the shirts (I think in order to keep his frat out of trouble). Candia posted this note yesterday on his Facebook page: "a little tshirt get aggies all worked up... its a t-shirt people!"

Says one commenter on ESPN.com calling himself (I'm going to assume this is a man) ttech06:

This is what's wrong with people these days. Because this shirt has to do with a dog, it's all the sudden tasteless and horribly crude. It's ok to print shirts that say "Tuck Fexas" (I saw these shirts at the UT-OU game too) but it has dog on the back so it must be horrible. You can say Book 'em horns making fun of the fact that UT has a bit of a run in with the law but there's a dog on the back so it must be classless. You can even post pictures with the longhorn upside down with a bullet hole in the head and say "bevo, its what's for dinner," but now all of the sudden its not ok to have michael vick with Revielle. You can have A&M people talk about how they want to saw off Bevo's horns and roast Bevo but when it comes to their own mascot and Michael Vick it's not okay. This is completely hypocritical.

The majority of the people who are for animal rights are generally the same people who are always referring to freedom of speech. Now there's a dog involved and it's "how could anyone say such a thing. This should be banned." But if they were saying something and it was banned it would be all about freedom of speech. This absolutely ridiculous. Candia was right when he said it's just a shirt.

I get what this guy is saying, but given all the heat Vick took and the fact that he not only fought dogs but killed them, I would have erred on the side of not printing this shirt. People love their dogs enough for this to be comparable to a picture of a woman being hung by, oh, I don't know, O.J. Simpson.

Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, kid.