The Football Blitz

If you haven’t seen The Blind Side it is one of the best football stories to be told.  There are lot of great football stories portrayed in movies, but this one goes deeper.  The Blind side tells the story of Michael Oher who played football for the Old Miss Rebels and currently plays for the Balimore Ravens.  

Oher was born in 1986 to a mother who suffered an addiction to crack cocaine. Due to his mother’s addiction  he received little attention as a child. He attended eleven different schools during his first nine years of school and repeated both first and second grade. He also was in and out of various foster homes and having no permanent address until he was sixteen years old.  Oher was estranged from his father who was murdered while Oher was a senior in high school.

Oher stayed with Tony Henderon at one point and Henderson initiated his admission to  Briarcrest Christian School.   Henderson was sending his son to the school in order to fulfill the dying wish of the boy’s grandmother, and thought Oher might as well come along. Although the school’s football coach was interested in Oher, School administrators did not feel that Oher was capable of handling Briarcrest’s academic workload due to his minimal educational background; He was eventually admitted to Briarcrest.  Eventually, Oher moved in with Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy who had two children that attended school with him.  This was a move that would change his life.  After becoming aware of Oher’s personal struggles and his background, the Tuohy’s began taking care of his needs and started to shape his life.  His grade point average was a 0.6 when he was admitted to Briarcrest and with the help of the Tuohy’s a tutor and pure self determination his GPA rose to 2.52.  He was eventually adopted legally by the Tuohy family.

Oher was recruited by many major colleges and received scholarship offers from Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss.  He chose to attend Ole Miss where he graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice.  He was selected in the 1st round of the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens as the 23rd overall pick.  He remains on the roster today. 

Not only is the story of Michael Oher amazing, but recognize the Tuohy’s for thier amazing selflessness.  They had a choice and they chose to change the life of a child so much in need not even knowing what his true potential was.  It is clear to see now that the sky was the limit for Michael Oher once a family of his own believed in him and loved him completely.