The Other Side of The Blind Side Posted on March 7th, 2011
If you enjoyed the movie The Blind Side, you’ll love the personal memoir of the real Michael Oher, Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle. Oher’s book, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond shows a different side to this calm quiet giant played by Quinton Aaron in the movie. The real Michael Oher has more sparkle and personality which comes across in his book that he hopes will reach more than 500,000 children in foster care not to mention millions of children living in harrowing conditions where dreams for them may never come true. Oher’s book is about possibilities but it is also about the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. Oher’s childhood was not pretty. Born one of 12 children of a crack cocaine mother, Michael and his brother were put in foster care until age 11 when he went back to live with her, but her drug use made and continues to make her an unreliable mother. A serendipitous meeting with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, a wealthy Memphis couple who take Oher under their wing, adopt him and put him on the fast track to a football scholarship and on to NFL fame. Michael Oher’s story emphasizes the point that we are not necessarily a product of our environment. Every day I see people who live in relative luxury complaining about their lot in life. Take a page from Beat the Odds and see what you can do with the talents you’ve been given.
http://www.baltimorebeatdown.com/2011/2/8/1981864/ravens-michael-oher-on-abcs-good-morning-america
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