The Blind Side

The chapter begins with an interview about Michael Oher between Joyce Thompson and Sean Tuohy. Thompson asks Sean if he knows much about Michael’s childhood, and Sean is forced to answer that he doesn’t. Thompson suggests that Sean “doesn’t care” about Michael’s past, but Sean insists that he and Leigh Anne are in “no hurry” to learn about Michael: “We got a long time.”

When Michael Oher’s mother, Denise, was a young girl, her father was murdered. Her mother was an alcoholic, and eventually Denise was taken to an orphanage. She skipped school, and got into drugs. Later, when she was twenty, she gave birth to a child, followed by four more.

Denise’s brother, Robert Oher, murdered his wife after his wife told him she wanted a divorce. In jail, Robert met a man named Michael Jerome Williams; later on, Williams, newly freed, served as a messenger, sending Denise letters from Robert, who was still in jail. Michael impregnated Denise, and Denise named the child after him: Michael Jerome Williams. Then, shortly after Denise gave birth, Williams disappeared—after that, Denise began calling the baby Michael Oher, after her own family name. In the next four years, Denise gave birth to four more children.

Michael Oher and his brothers lived in squalor: every month, the government would send Denise a check, and afterwards, she’d disappear to spend the money on crack cocaine. Michael and his brothers had to find whatever food and clothing they could on the streets or in churches. On April 14, 1994, a court registered Michael Oher’s existence, and recommended that Michael be sent to a foster home to ensure his survival. Shortly afterwards, police cars pulled up to Denise’s house. Michael and his brothers ran away from the police.

Even as a young child, Michael Oher wanted to be a basketball star. He’d seen basketball games on TV, and wanted to be the next Michael Jordan. On the day the police arrived at his mother’s house, he ran after his older brothers and avoided the police. Later, however, the police caught up with Michael while he was in school. The police took Michael to live with an unkind woman named Velma Jones, who made Michael do unpleasant chores, and punished him by sitting on him. Two nights after being sent to Velma, Michael ran away to Denise, who took him back to Velma. Michael ran away many more times in the next two years.

When he was ten, Michael ran away from Velma Jones; this time, the police took him to a floor of St. Joseph’s Hospital designed for “bad kids.” Michael liked being in St. Joseph’s better than he’d liked living with Velma. He still missed his mother, in spite of her neglectfulness. Michael escaped from St. Joseph’s and found Denise again, this time living in a housing project called Hurt Village. By 1996, Hurt Village was one of the most miserable places in Memphis: gangs were powerful, drug addiction was rampant, and the average education level was between fourth and fifth grade. For a year and a half, Michael played “hide and seek” with the Department of Children’s Services: he never attended school, for fear that he’d be taken away from his mother again. By the time he’d turned twelve, he’d become adept at finding food for himself.

Michael didn’t have many close emotional relationships in Hurt Village. One exception was a boy named Craig Vail, who Michael later described as “the one person in the whole world he fully trusted.” Another exception was a man in his early twenties named Zachary Bright, who looked remarkably like Michael. Zachary was a great athlete, who’d gotten football scholarships to many elite colleges. But, largely because of the encouragement of his peers in Hurt Village, Zachary quit the football team and didn’t even finish high school.

Around the time that Zachary Bright was turning down his football scholarships, Michael Oher had acquired the nickname “Big Mike.” Michael hated his nickname—his still wanted to be a great basketball player, so he didn’t want to be big at all. He continued playing basketball, and retained much of his agility and flexibility. Sometimes he attended school, but he didn’t learn much. Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, Michael met Big Tony, who’d grown up in Hurt Village, and who’d previously coached Zachary. Big Tony decided that he’d take care of Michael—Michael seemed not to have close friends. Thanks to Big Tony, Michael played at a basketball camp at a local high school. There, coaches had told Michael that he wasn’t going to be a perimeter player, and Michael quickly became overwhelmed by the other, more competitive players.

Shortly after Michael attended the basketball camp, Big Tony’s mother died, and made Tony promise to enroll his son, Steven, in a good Christian school. Tony decided to enroll Michael Oher as well.

In Michael Oher’s earliest weeks at Briarcrest, he was treated as a “freak of nature.” The other kids, virtually all of whom were white, struck Michael as being bizarre—totally unlike the kids he’d spent most of his time with. The white kids at Briarcrest, Michael later wrote in an essay senior year, were overly friendly, and needed constant medical attention for the most minor problems. Michael also noticed that it was easy to steal things from his white classmates. Big Tony found out that Michael and Steven were stealing things; he impressed upon them that they couldn’t “steal, or fight, or get into trouble of any sort.”