Michael Oher

Oher's life through his final year of high school and first year of college is one of the subjects of Michael Lewis' 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and was dramatized in the 2009 film adaptation.

Early life

Oher was born in Memphis, Tennessee; he was one of 12 children of Denise Oher. His mother suffered from alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction, and his father, Michael Jerome Williams, was frequently in prison. He received little attention or discipline during his childhood.^[2] He repeated first and second grades, and attended eleven schools during his first nine years as a student.^[2] He was placed in foster care at age seven, and alternated between living in various foster homes and periods of homelessness.^[2][3] Oher's father was murdered in prison when Oher was a senior in high school.^[2]


Oher played football during his freshman year at a public high school in Memphis. He applied for admission to Briarcrest Christian School at the suggestion of Tony Henderson, an auto mechanic with whom he was living temporarily. Henderson was enrolling his son at the school to fulfill the dying wish of the boy's grandmother and thought Oher might enroll as well.^[2] The school's football coach, Hugh Freeze, submitted Oher's school application to the headmaster, who agreed to accept him if Oher could complete a home study program first. He did not finish the program, but was admitted when the headmaster realized that his requirement had removed Oher from the public education system.^[2]


Coached by Freeze and Tim Long, Briarcrest's offensive line coach, Oher was named Division II (2A) Lineman of the Year in 2003, and First-team Tennessee All-State.^[2][4] Scout.com rated Oher a five-star recruit and the No. 5 offensive lineman prospect in the country.^[5] Before that season and for his prior 20 months at Briarcrest, Oher had been living with several foster families. In 2004, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a couple with a daughter and son attending Briarcrest, invited Oher to live with them. Oher would later allege in 2023 that they tricked him into signing a document making them conservators while telling him it was the same as adoption.^[6] When the family learned about his difficult childhood, they began to help him succeed academically and socially. They hired a tutor for him, who worked 20 hours per week with him.^[2]


Oher earned two letters each in track and basketball. He averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds per game, earning All-State honors by helping lead the basketball team to a 27–6 record and winning the district championship in Oher's senior year. Oher was also a state runner-up in the discus as a senior.^[7]


Oher's initial low grades were a barrier to his acceptance to an NCAA program. He raised his 0.76 grade point average (GPA) to a 2.52 GPA by the end of his senior year so he could attend a Division I school, by enrolling in 10-day online courses from Brigham Young University. Taking and passing the online courses allowed him to replace D's and F's earned in earlier school classes, such as English, with A's,^[8] raising his graduating GPA above the required minimum.^[2]


At the conclusion of his senior season, Oher participated in the 2005 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

Books

Oher is one of the subjects of Michael Lewis's 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Before the book was published, excerpts appeared in The New York Times Magazine as "The Ballad of Big Mike".^[2] His portion of the book was adapted for film and was directed by John Lee Hancock.^[39] The Blind Side was released in the United States on November 20, 2009. The movie stars Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher, alongside Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress for Bullock, and Bullock won the Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.


Oher wrote his autobiography, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond, in 2011.^[40]