“In the other houses, I didn’t feel like part of the family. “When I moved in with Leigh Anne and Sean, I felt loved, like part of a family,” wrote Oher, who went on to found the Oher Foundation, dedicated to providing underprivileged children with a pathway to success. The way that Oher and the Tuohys’ lives merged fulfilled them both. One good deed can change the course of someone’s life. RELATED: Black Couple Adopts a White Child – Shows Everyone What It Means to Be Family “He was real quiet, you know, and just stayed to himself.” That description of the real Oher is what we saw onscreen, which is one element Hancock was sure to get right. “He wasn’t no trouble kid, nothing like that, you know?” Henderson told ABC News. However, the truth is, Oher played three sports: basketball, track and field, and football.Ī local athletic program director, Tony Henderson, was among those who took Oher into their homes. In the film, Oher didn’t have any particular interests before he met the Tuohys he’s characterized as a lonely student who wasn’t involved in athletics.

And while he had his share of academic problems, The Blind Side wasn’t entirely factual in its depiction of his high school life. In reality, Oher was couch-surfing, staying with classmates and foster families. The film portrayed Oher as nearly homeless when the Tuohys met him. “When my mother was off drugs and working, she would remember to buy groceries,” recalled Oher, one of 12 children, “and there would be a mad scramble to grab whatever you could before anyone else got to it.” RELATED: NFL Star Inspires Boys Beyond the Football Field, Teaches Us to Use Our Gifts to Help Others His birth mother struggled with cocaine addiction, and father wasn’t present in his life. Our protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side.Oher’s tragic early life was, unfortunately, true. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost.

Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school such as, say, how to read or write. The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. By the author of the bestselling Moneyball: in football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis