A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star - Rated 
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college.
Brilliant - Rated
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan.
Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go! - Rated
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion - Rated
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection - Rated
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today?
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