The Blind Side - Michael Lewis - 2006

 

If this was basketball I would shoot a 3 cuz I need a heat check jajaja. Much better than moneyball. Not as good as the big short. He has another book called going infinite that is about crypto that I want to read but I cannot find it on Libby for some reason. 

The main thing I learned from this book is that who you know really matters and that having money really matters. These people got Michael out of the hood by accident and used their vast wealth and connections to help him make it to the nfl. Without their help he could have easily ended up dead or flipping burgers. 

This book was a bit mean at times. At one point it says Michael would likely never read a book for pleasure because he was not good at reading. lol 

I honestly believe the Tuohy family helped him without any malicious motives (however there is definitely some doubt, read the whole review). They thought he was going to play basketball and thought he was not very good at football. 

This book showed me that if you are a star athlete academics don’t matter. The way they got him eligible to play in college was a joke. They used some loophole with online courses from BYU that the head football coach knew about. In fairness Michael had a terrible education prior to the Briarcrest Christian School due to his difficult life circumstances. 

There is a good story of Nick Saban recruiting Michael. Apparently Saban is a great and charming fellow. 

So yeah I say this is worth reading. 

Michael was drafted by the Ravens in 2009 and won a Super Bowl with them. He stopped playing in 2016. 

He took the Tuohy family to court in 2023 because they had him sign a conservatorship when he was 18 which allowed them to control his assets. The book says they adopted him. Who knows how accurate these “true” stories actually are. On the one hand, the family got him to the league. On the other hand, a conservatorship is a bit suspicious (think Britney Spears). If they loved him so much why didn’t they just adopt him instead of doing the conservatorship which Michael clearly did not understand until recently. I don’t know what to think about this. The Tuohy family said they did this to help his eligibility for college, but I cannot see how a conservatorship would be better than adoption for college eligibility. Chat agrees that a conservatorship does not help with college eligibility.

I just discussed this with my mom and she reminded me that the Tuohy family was already rich before Michael Oher so the conservatorship perhaps was not for the money. Good point mom! But the question remains, why do it without explaining what it is to Michael? They could have adopted him or simply not taken any legal action and just provided financial and emotional support.

Final Take: The conservatorship was wrong, but he never makes it to college or the NFL (or makes tons of money) without them, so on the whole the Tuohys helped him. 

Also fun fact, when the Ravens won the Super Bowl, he was playing right tackle, not left tackle, so he was not protecting the qb’s blind side. This is ironic lol.

Here is a picture of the family with Michael Oher.