What are the chances that Tuohy randomly adopts an inner-city Memphis kid and the kid ends up doing what Oher has done? Negligible, that's what they are. Only people who like Tuohy or Ole Miss would see it otherwise if they really examine the situation. This kid was brought to his attention, he started helping him (which I'd applaud Tuohy for if I knew he had no ulterior motive), decides to adopt him (knowing the kid can potentially benefit Ole Miss), and the rest is history right up until the draft last night.
Did you guys know Michael Oher was homeless?
- Thread starter Sutterkane
- Start date
- Status
So he pays tuition for needy kids at Briarcrest. Does he only adopt the ones with Division I athletic skills?
has the amazing ability to scrutinize untapped talent so well that he can prophesy which of the large-boned homeless fifteen-year-olds with little or no football experience will be starting SEC left tackles and first round draft picks?
There's no denying that he guided him to OM, but this is what passes for objectivity?</p>
There's no denying that he guided him to OM, but this is what passes for objectivity?</p>
Just ask Trey Moore.
Anyone who believes this story is a moron. Sean Touhy is an A-1 jackass who called Trey Moore a thug over the airwaves. Why doesn't anyone else remember that?
Anyone who believes this story is a moron. Sean Touhy is an A-1 jackass who called Trey Moore a thug over the airwaves. Why doesn't anyone else remember that?
I don't care how much potential a kid has in playing football, Im not adopting a kid with the goal of sending him to Ole Miss, and I don't care if he is Deuce's abandoned son.</p>
I mean, do you really care that much about sports to change your life that much?</p>
Also, the Tuohy's are rich, so I can't imagine they looked at it as a good financial decision? </p>
I totally understand the jokes, and if the Toughy's had adopeted him the January before signing day, and never really saw him again except for in the grove, then sure it is a joke. But to actually have the kid live in your home for almost two years? No way does anyone on this board let Damien Robinson live with them for two years just so he can sign with MSU.</p>
</p>
I mean, do you really care that much about sports to change your life that much?</p>
Also, the Tuohy's are rich, so I can't imagine they looked at it as a good financial decision? </p>
I totally understand the jokes, and if the Toughy's had adopeted him the January before signing day, and never really saw him again except for in the grove, then sure it is a joke. But to actually have the kid live in your home for almost two years? No way does anyone on this board let Damien Robinson live with them for two years just so he can sign with MSU.</p>
</p>
that a guy who would call a guy a thug while on the air as a basketball commentator would then turn around 5-6-7 years later and stop on the side of the road and pick up a homeless black kid on a whim is about as believable as the story of Xenu and Scientology. It is utterly ridiculous.
but look at the odds. Step outside of your affinity for Tuohy and Ole Miss and look at this. What are the odds of him "randomly" choosing a kid who goes on to Oher's achievement? I guess if Tuohy wanted to be beneficent, he sure hit the jackpot in unintended collateral benefits for himself and Ole Miss. To summarize, it is too good to be true. When something smells fishy, usually it is.
D
DestinBob
Guest
Ya'll need to get a clue!
Michael was a 6'2" 220 lb tenth grader when the Tuoys found him shivering in the cold wearing shorts in the snow.
He did not even go out for football until his jr. year (a year after the Tuoys adopted him).
Do you really think they had a crystal ball that told them he'd grow so much and later become a great football player?
Are you really that stupid??
MSU people are the only ones on the planet who don't think this is a very heart warming story. They are making a movie about Michael and the Tuoys..
So don't be so bitter about it!
Michael was a 6'2" 220 lb tenth grader when the Tuoys found him shivering in the cold wearing shorts in the snow.
He did not even go out for football until his jr. year (a year after the Tuoys adopted him).
Do you really think they had a crystal ball that told them he'd grow so much and later become a great football player?
Are you really that stupid??
MSU people are the only ones on the planet who don't think this is a very heart warming story. They are making a movie about Michael and the Tuoys..
So don't be so bitter about it!
they say they couldn't get a 6 foot 2, 220 pounder into a 58 long jacket.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24football.html?ex=1316750400&en=e3741d62a638bb81&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
</p>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24football.html?ex=1316750400&en=e3741d62a638bb81&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
</p>
Because movies are always fact and never change things to make it a "feel good" story...[b said:
D
DestinBob
Guest
Vince.... He only adopted two. Neither of them were Division 1 quality when he adopted them. Michael grew a good bit and went out for football the following year for the first time.
Tuoy has paid the tuitions for many more.
You are trying to twist this into something it's not.
Thankfully the real world views this differently from the delusional people on this board.
Tuoy has paid the tuitions for many more.
You are trying to twist this into something it's not.
Thankfully the real world views this differently from the delusional people on this board.
in Remember the Titans was actually won by TC 27-0. Did you know Don Haskins had been at Texas Western for five years when they won the NCAA tourney, not in his first year like Glory Road showed? Did you know Syracuse first played North Carolina in 1993, not during the years Ernie Davis was there, as they showed in the Express?
But I'm sure this movie will be totally accurate.
But I'm sure this movie will be totally accurate.
Or that MOJO lost to Dallas Clark in the semi finals and not the state championship like they do on Friday Night Lights.HD6 said:
Never underestimate the power of an Ole Miss alumnus/fan/booster with a chance to go out of their way and plug the university on an epic scale. Overhyped commercialism, I tell ya!
D
DestinBob
Guest
99% of the world believes this story, because it's true. The other 1% are bulldogs, because they're in denial mode.
Do you really think they would spend millions making a major movie out of it without checking it all out?
Only a few bigots on this board don't see that this is a heart warming story!
Do you really think they would spend millions making a major movie out of it without checking it all out?
Only a few bigots on this board don't see that this is a heart warming story!
Me, who thinks the story is preposterous because people just don't pick up homeless people on the side of the road and adopt them, no matter what color any of them are, or Sean Touhy, who called a black basketball player a thug over the airwaves?
and am not interested in defending his actions. Ole Miss, certainly I am biased.
The "jackpot odds" you mention should also be applied to any fifteen-year-old prospect's of being a first round pick, especially one who has played as little football as Oher had. What do you think those are? Ten or so (I didn't watch the draft) out of how many thousand linemen that played high school football? Those are long odds for Tuohy to play, don't you think?
"What are the odds of him 'randomly' choosing a kid who goes on to Oher's achievement?"
Based on the above statement, I would dare to say that my bias is operating a little less than yours. Do I think Tuohy's generosity was in the service of helping Ole Miss? Sure, I can buy that. Nor did I contend that Oher was selected "randomly." But you think Oher's destiny was assured and that those odds were short; I think the odds of it working out the way it did were quite long, and my opinion is based in sheer percentages. But if what you say is true, Tuohy must be the most untapped talent himself, doing what most college recruiters can't do: identify a bust-proof prospect based on--not film or scouting or coach's recommendations--simply how he looks in his clothes. And to think, he's limiting himself to owning Taco Bells and calling games on regional radio. Hell, he could be an NFL GM with those kind of analytical ninja skills.
The "jackpot odds" you mention should also be applied to any fifteen-year-old prospect's of being a first round pick, especially one who has played as little football as Oher had. What do you think those are? Ten or so (I didn't watch the draft) out of how many thousand linemen that played high school football? Those are long odds for Tuohy to play, don't you think?
"What are the odds of him 'randomly' choosing a kid who goes on to Oher's achievement?"
Based on the above statement, I would dare to say that my bias is operating a little less than yours. Do I think Tuohy's generosity was in the service of helping Ole Miss? Sure, I can buy that. Nor did I contend that Oher was selected "randomly." But you think Oher's destiny was assured and that those odds were short; I think the odds of it working out the way it did were quite long, and my opinion is based in sheer percentages. But if what you say is true, Tuohy must be the most untapped talent himself, doing what most college recruiters can't do: identify a bust-proof prospect based on--not film or scouting or coach's recommendations--simply how he looks in his clothes. And to think, he's limiting himself to owning Taco Bells and calling games on regional radio. Hell, he could be an NFL GM with those kind of analytical ninja skills.
I find it amusing that one of the radio announcers would find it in his heart to adopt a kid that had the chance to be a potential star LT and then it works out and he writes all these books and talks about what a great heart he has.
It's comical.
Especially knowing that if someone for State had done it, there would have been all kinds of NCAA people and a committee led by Khayat to stop it.
And then even funnier is when people call a spade a spade, you have all of these Ole Miss fans talking about "Why can't you see what a great story this is?"
And as far as identifying talent in high school kids- of course no one knows how they are going to turn out when they get to college. However, if you see a 16 year old who is 6'4" 280 and let's say you watch him shooting hoops and you can tell that he is moving pretty well for someone his size, well I would definately say that he has a better shot at becoming a NFL LT than a 6'2" 220 pound kid that's tripping over his own feet.
And I will say it's not foolproof- Xenareb adopted Micheal Antonescu who was an o-line prospect from Ridgeland HS, who ended up at Memphis. I guess she is another pillar of the community as well. Hell, she probably would have adopted Chris Spencer if Oher was a few years younger.
It's comical.
Especially knowing that if someone for State had done it, there would have been all kinds of NCAA people and a committee led by Khayat to stop it.
And then even funnier is when people call a spade a spade, you have all of these Ole Miss fans talking about "Why can't you see what a great story this is?"
And as far as identifying talent in high school kids- of course no one knows how they are going to turn out when they get to college. However, if you see a 16 year old who is 6'4" 280 and let's say you watch him shooting hoops and you can tell that he is moving pretty well for someone his size, well I would definately say that he has a better shot at becoming a NFL LT than a 6'2" 220 pound kid that's tripping over his own feet.
And I will say it's not foolproof- Xenareb adopted Micheal Antonescu who was an o-line prospect from Ridgeland HS, who ended up at Memphis. I guess she is another pillar of the community as well. Hell, she probably would have adopted Chris Spencer if Oher was a few years younger.
was he a tenth grader or an eighth grader as you said here....
http://sixpackspeak.yuku.com/sreply/75327
Good for Michael Oher - I am actually glad he made it off the streets of Memphis.
However, I have to think that someone in sports would have seen this kid soon and helped him as well.
First mistake Touhy made - scouting this kid out, even if it was filled with half good intentions. He saw a story. He saw a young man. He saw himself in the story and he capitalized on it.
Second mistake Touhy made - having Oher attend Ole Miss. He gains social status for this, and that is what this man is all about. Yes I know him and have met him.
Third mistake Touhy made - he wrote a freaking book. Made money of it. More social status from it.
Questionable mistake of adopting an All American college football prospect as a sophomore. That is more like scouting than anything else.
Oher got a good deal - and so did Touhy. This is not a feel good Lifetime movie of the week. Anyone who thinks differently is sadly oblivious to what true good will is. Thats the worst part of all of this.
However, I have to think that someone in sports would have seen this kid soon and helped him as well.
First mistake Touhy made - scouting this kid out, even if it was filled with half good intentions. He saw a story. He saw a young man. He saw himself in the story and he capitalized on it.
Second mistake Touhy made - having Oher attend Ole Miss. He gains social status for this, and that is what this man is all about. Yes I know him and have met him.
Third mistake Touhy made - he wrote a freaking book. Made money of it. More social status from it.
Questionable mistake of adopting an All American college football prospect as a sophomore. That is more like scouting than anything else.
Oher got a good deal - and so did Touhy. This is not a feel good Lifetime movie of the week. Anyone who thinks differently is sadly oblivious to what true good will is. Thats the worst part of all of this.
He also talks about being childhood friends with Touhy at the end in the acknowledgments.
Has anyone else on here actually read it? There's way more in there than just the adoption angle. The development of the modern (west-coast offense dominated) game, college recruiting, Memphis social strata, all sorts of stuff is in there. Despite any misgivings about the Touhy's intentions or Lewis's objectivity, it's worth reading.
Has anyone else on here actually read it? There's way more in there than just the adoption angle. The development of the modern (west-coast offense dominated) game, college recruiting, Memphis social strata, all sorts of stuff is in there. Despite any misgivings about the Touhy's intentions or Lewis's objectivity, it's worth reading.
but we will have to agree to disagree. Tuohy picked out an athlete to adopt. I'm sure that's not the only reason, but I have little doubt it played a major role. He steered him to Ole Miss. That's it. The odds of the one kid he decides to adopt just happening to do what Oher has are remote. Remote. I believe there was a design from day one. And the worst part is the PR spin placed on this by Tuohy and Ole Miss cronies. If a State alum/booster/former player did this, you guys would be having a fit.
For the record:
According to the book, "Blind Side", the Touhys saw Oher get off a bus in shorts during Thanksgiving weekend 2002. And it was supposedly snowing, so Mrs. Touhy took him to buy him some new clothes.
Except there was no snow in Memphis that week. http://www.farmersalmanac...her/time_machine_results
Thanksgiving 2002 was on November 25th. In Memphis, on November 24th,, the high was 64.9 degrees, and there was no precipitation. On November 25th, the high was also 64.9 degrees, and there was 0.1 inches of fog, rain/drizzle. On November 26th, the high was 42.1 degrees and the low was 37.4 and .08" of fog, rain/drizzle. On November 27th, the high was 43 and the low was 30, but 0 precipitation. On 11/28 the high was 48 and the low 25, but 0 precipitation. On 11/29 the high was 62 and 0 precipitation. So it did get cold, but it never was snowing. So that's one fabrication in the story right there.
From the book:
Coach Freeze recalls the moment he realized that Big Mike was not any ordinary giant: a football practice at which this new boy, who had just been admitted on academic probation, had no purpose. Big Mike just wandered onto the field, picked up a huge tackling dummy - the thing weighed at least 50 pounds - and took off with it at high speed. "Did you see that - did you see the way that kid moved?" Freeze asked another coach. "He ran with that dummy like it weighed nothing." Freeze's next thought was that he had misjudged the boy's mass. No human being who moved that quickly could possibly weigh as much as 300 pounds. "That's when I had them weigh him," Freeze says. "One of the coaches took him into the gym and put him on the scale, but he overloaded the scale." The team doctor drove him away and put him on what the Briarcrest coaches were later told was a cattle scale: 344 pounds, it read. On the light side, for a cow - delightfully beefy for a high-school sophomore. Especially one who could run. "I didn't know whether he could play," Freeze says now. "But I knew this: we didn't have anyone like him on campus."
Also from the book: "If there was a less promising academic record, Simpson hadn't seen it. Simpson guessed, rightly, that the Briarcrest Christian School hadn't seen anything like Michael Oher either. Simpson and others in the Briarcrest community would eventually learn that Michael's father had been shot and killed and tossed off a bridge, that his mother was addicted to crack cocaine and that his life experience was so narrow that he might as well have spent his first 16 years inside a closet. yet here was his application, in the summer of 2002, courtesy of the Briarcrest football coach, Hugh Freeze..."
"...But this was only Simpson's second year at Briarcrest, and its football coach, Freeze, had phoned Simpson's boss, the school president, a football fan, and made his pitch: This wasn't a thing you did for the Briarcrest football team, Freeze said; this was a thing you did because it was right! Briarcrest was this kid's last chance! The president in turn phoned Simpson and told him that if he felt right with it, he could admit the kid....."
>>>>Yeah, no one knew Oher could play football. And Freeze was hired by Ole Miss.
More: "Tom Lemming's private scouting report was sent to nearly all the head coaches of Division I college football programs, and so more than 100 head college football coaches learned that this kid in Memphis, whom no one had ever heard of, was the most striking left-tackle talent since Orlando Pace. And Pace was now earning more than $6 million a year playing left tackle for the St. Louis Rams. It was only a week or so after Lemming's report went out that the Briarcrest Saints football team met for two weeks of spring practice. Hugh Freeze was there, of course, since he was the head coach and ran the practices. Tim Long was there, too, because he coached the offensive line. Like several of the coaches, Long was a Briarcrest parent, but he was also a 6-foot-5, 300-pound former left tackle at the University of Memphis, and he had been a third-round draft pick of the Minnesota Vikings. Long was awed by Michael Oher's raw ability immediately. "When I first saw him," he says, "I thought, This guy is going to make us all famous." But then he coached him in the final games of his junior year, after Michael was moved to right tackle on the offensive line, and Long wondered why he wasn't a better player. One game, he pulled Michael out and sat him on the bench because he thought the team was better off playing another guy.
The only other coach at the Briarcrest spring practices with any experience of college or pro sports was Sean Tuohy. Hugh Freeze had asked Sean to help out as an assistant coach - which meant his usual role as coach to the coach and unofficial life counselor to the players. When Sean told Leigh Anne he planned to coach football, she laughed at the idea of it: her husband didn't know a reverse from a play-action pass. The first thing Sean learned about coaching football was that you shouldn't do it in a BMW. He came home the first day and told Leigh Anne: "I need to buy a pickup truck. I'm the only one without a pickup truck." A few days later, he bought one.
That first afternoon of spring practice, Sean rolled up in his new truck to find the players lined up and stretching. The other coaches were there already. But there was this other, highly unusual cluster of identically dressed men: college football coaches who had turned up to watch practice. They stood to one side, but you could tell them by their identical dark slacks and coaching shirts with their school's emblem emblazoned on the chest: University of Michigan, Clemson University, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Tennessee, Florida State University. These weren't head coaches, just assistants. But still. College coaches of any sort weren't in the habit of visiting Briarcrest. The Briarcrest football field was in the middle of nowhere. Few of the players had any idea, at first, why these men were present. The Briarcrest coaches knew why, because Freeze had just told them, but they were still as surprised as the players. "I don't know why they were there," Tim Long says. "I guess his size just got him noticed."
The most complicated set of social rules on the planet - the rules that govern the interaction of college football coaches and high-school prospects - forbid the coaches to speak directly to a high-school junior until the July before his senior year. In the spring of his junior year, they are allowed to visit his school twice and watch him from a distance. So the coaches made a point of not saying anything directly; they just kept off to the side and stared. "I'll never forget it," Long says. "We did calisthenics and agility. Then board drill, right away. We're 10 minutes into it. Michael's first up."
The board drill - so named for the thin six-foot-long board on the ground that it's conducted on - is among the most violent drills in football. The offensive lineman straddles one end of the board and faces the defensive lineman. At the sound of the whistle, they do whatever they must to drive the other fellow off the end of the board. Facing off against Michael Oher during a football game was one thing: he was often unsure where to go, and you more than likely had help from teammates - if you didn't, there was plenty of room to run and hide. Getting onto the board across from him, for a fight to the death, was something else. No one on the team wanted to do it.
After a while, out stepped Joseph Crone, the team's biggest and most powerful defensive lineman. He was 6-foot-2, maybe 270 pounds, and a candidate to attend college on a football scholarship. To him, this new mission, going helmet to helmet with Big Mike, had the flavor of heroism. "The reason I stepped up," Crone says, "is that I didn't think anyone else wanted to go up against him. Because he was such a big guy."
Crone still didn't think of Michael Oher as an exceptional football player. But if he hadn't been a force on the field, Crone thought, it was only because he had no idea what he was supposed to do there. And Crone noticed that he had improved the past season and by the final game looked very good indeed. "He was figuring it out," Crone says. "How to move his feet, where to put his hands. How to get onto people so they couldn't get away." But even if Big Mike had no idea what he was doing on a football field, Crone found him an awesome physical specimen. He had a picture in his mind of the few opposing players who had made the mistake of being fallen upon by Big Mike. "They looked like pressed pennies," he says. "They'd get up, and their backs would be one giant grass stain. I couldn't imagine being on the other side of the ball going against Mike." Now, by default, he was.
The two players dropped into their stances with the eyes of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, Conference USA and the Atlantic Coast Conference upon them. Joseph Crone's mind was working overtime, he says: "I'm sitting there thinking: Man, this guy is huge. I got to get low on him. I got to drive my feet."
"Best on best!" shouted Coach Freeze and blew his whistle.
When it was over - and it was over in a flash - the five college coaches broke formation and made what appeared to be urgent private phone calls. The Briarcrest athletic director, Carly Powers, turned to his left and found that one of them, in his bid to separate himself from the others, had wandered up beside him. "He was whispering into his phone, 'My God, you've got to see this!"' Powers says. The Clemson coach, Brad Scott (who was the former head football coach at the University of South Carolina), actually ran out onto the field, handed his card to Freeze and said, "I've seen all I need to see." If Michael Oher wanted a full scholarship to Clemson, it was his. "Then," Tim Long says, "the Clemson guy got in his car and drove eight or nine hours back home."
Freeze was as impressed and surprised as anyone: it could have been a training film. Big Mike had picked up 270 pounds and dealt with them as he might have dealt with thin air. In the middle of spring practice his junior year, Michael Oher became a preseason First-Team High School All-American. From that moment on, Freeze had to give up pretty much everything he was doing and retire to his office to deal with the long line of college football coaches who wanted to spend quality time at the Briarcrest Christian School. In the frenzy, Freeze learned exactly what he had on his hands. Not just a big old lineman. Not some cement block, interchangeable with other cement blocks of similar dimensions. A future N.F.L. left tackle."
More from the book: " That fall, in 2003, Michael spent his nights with at least five different Briarcrest families - including the Tuohys - but most nights he spent with Quinterio Franklin, a teammate at Briarcrest. One night after a track meet, Michael was left without a ride home, and Leigh Anne offered to take him wherever he wanted to go. "Terio's," he said, and off they went. . .30 miles into Mississippi. "It was a trailer," she says. She couldn't believe there was room enough inside the place for him. She insisted on following him in to see where he slept. He showed her his old air mattress on the floor. It was flat as a pancake. "I blow it up every night," he said. "But it runs out of air around midnight."
>>>>>> Oher was not homeless and wasn't taken in by the Touhy's until "after a track meet", which would have been Spring 2004. Since Briarcrest's track season runs from Mid March to Mid May, he was likely taken in after the above event with Lemming and the other college coaches. And obviously any official guardianship would have come after his abilities were proven and several college coaches wanted him.
>>>>But given all of those inconsistencies, the part that is the worst (or the least fair) has little to do with the adoption. It was getting him qualified to go to OM:
"He had had a truly bizarre academic career: nothing but D's and F's until the end of his junior year, when all of a sudden he became a reliable member of Briarcrest's honor roll. He was going to finish with a grade-point average of 2.05. Amazing as that was, however, it wasn't enough to get him past the N.C.A.A. He needed a 2.65. And with no more classes to take, he obviously would not get it.
Now it was Sean's turn to intervene.
From a friend, Sean learned about the Internet courses offered by Brigham Young University. The B.Y.U. courses had magical properties: a grade took a mere 10 days to obtain and could be used to replace a grade from an entire semester on a high-school transcript. Pick the courses shrewdly and work quickly, and the most tawdry academic record could be renovated in a single summer. Sean scanned the B.Y.U. catalog and found a promising series. It was called "Character Education." All you had to do in such a "character course" was to read a few brief passages from famous works - a speech by Lou Gehrig here, a letter by Abraham Lincoln there - and then answer five questions about it. How hard could it be? The A's earned from character courses could be used to replace F's earned in high-school English classes. And Michael never needed to leave the house!
Thus began the great Mormon grade-grab. Mainly it involved Sue Mitchell grinding through the character courses with Michael. Every week or so, they replaced a Memphis public school F with an A from B.Y.U. Every assignment needed to be read aloud and decoded. Here he was, late in his senior year in high school, and he had never heard of a right angle or the Civil War or "I Love Lucy." But getting the grades was far easier than generating in Michael any sort of pleasure in learning."
>>>>>State and many other schools have had promising recruits that did not get these advantages and didn't qualify. Many of them are now out of football. What about helping them "change their lives through football and college"? If they are going to let Oher and Powe into college then they might as well do away with eligibility requirements and let everyone in.
More: "The N.C.A.A. still needed its proof of Michael's new and improved grade-point average by Aug. 1. Ole Miss was willing to admit Michael Oher as a student, but the N.C.A.A. stood between them in a couple of ways. First, it had opened an investigation and voiced the suspicion that the Tuohys had become Michael's guardians and put him into their wills as an equal of their own children only so that he might play left tackle for their alma mater. Next, the N.C.A.A. said his grade-point average was just a tad too low for him to play college football. On July 29, Michael took his final B.Y.U. test - another character course. Sean sent the test to Utah by Federal Express, and the B.Y.U. people promised to have the grade ready by 2 o'clock the following afternoon. "The Mormons may be going to hell," Sean says. "But they really are nice people." With Michael's final A in hand, Sean rushed the full package to the N.C.A.A.'s offices in Iowa. The N.C.A.A promptly lost it. Sean threatened to fly up on his plane with another copy and sit in the lobby until it was processed - which led the N.C.A.A. to find Michael's file. While it remained suspicious and didn't close its investigation, the N.C.A.A. on Aug. 1, 2005, informed Michael Oher that he was going to be allowed to go to college and play football."
>>>>>He was admitted but the NCAA had not closed its investigation. Hence the book, written by Michael Lewis. Who went to high school with Sean Touhy.
According to the book, "Blind Side", the Touhys saw Oher get off a bus in shorts during Thanksgiving weekend 2002. And it was supposedly snowing, so Mrs. Touhy took him to buy him some new clothes.
Except there was no snow in Memphis that week. http://www.farmersalmanac...her/time_machine_results
Thanksgiving 2002 was on November 25th. In Memphis, on November 24th,, the high was 64.9 degrees, and there was no precipitation. On November 25th, the high was also 64.9 degrees, and there was 0.1 inches of fog, rain/drizzle. On November 26th, the high was 42.1 degrees and the low was 37.4 and .08" of fog, rain/drizzle. On November 27th, the high was 43 and the low was 30, but 0 precipitation. On 11/28 the high was 48 and the low 25, but 0 precipitation. On 11/29 the high was 62 and 0 precipitation. So it did get cold, but it never was snowing. So that's one fabrication in the story right there.
From the book:
Coach Freeze recalls the moment he realized that Big Mike was not any ordinary giant: a football practice at which this new boy, who had just been admitted on academic probation, had no purpose. Big Mike just wandered onto the field, picked up a huge tackling dummy - the thing weighed at least 50 pounds - and took off with it at high speed. "Did you see that - did you see the way that kid moved?" Freeze asked another coach. "He ran with that dummy like it weighed nothing." Freeze's next thought was that he had misjudged the boy's mass. No human being who moved that quickly could possibly weigh as much as 300 pounds. "That's when I had them weigh him," Freeze says. "One of the coaches took him into the gym and put him on the scale, but he overloaded the scale." The team doctor drove him away and put him on what the Briarcrest coaches were later told was a cattle scale: 344 pounds, it read. On the light side, for a cow - delightfully beefy for a high-school sophomore. Especially one who could run. "I didn't know whether he could play," Freeze says now. "But I knew this: we didn't have anyone like him on campus."
Also from the book: "If there was a less promising academic record, Simpson hadn't seen it. Simpson guessed, rightly, that the Briarcrest Christian School hadn't seen anything like Michael Oher either. Simpson and others in the Briarcrest community would eventually learn that Michael's father had been shot and killed and tossed off a bridge, that his mother was addicted to crack cocaine and that his life experience was so narrow that he might as well have spent his first 16 years inside a closet. yet here was his application, in the summer of 2002, courtesy of the Briarcrest football coach, Hugh Freeze..."
"...But this was only Simpson's second year at Briarcrest, and its football coach, Freeze, had phoned Simpson's boss, the school president, a football fan, and made his pitch: This wasn't a thing you did for the Briarcrest football team, Freeze said; this was a thing you did because it was right! Briarcrest was this kid's last chance! The president in turn phoned Simpson and told him that if he felt right with it, he could admit the kid....."
>>>>Yeah, no one knew Oher could play football. And Freeze was hired by Ole Miss.
More: "Tom Lemming's private scouting report was sent to nearly all the head coaches of Division I college football programs, and so more than 100 head college football coaches learned that this kid in Memphis, whom no one had ever heard of, was the most striking left-tackle talent since Orlando Pace. And Pace was now earning more than $6 million a year playing left tackle for the St. Louis Rams. It was only a week or so after Lemming's report went out that the Briarcrest Saints football team met for two weeks of spring practice. Hugh Freeze was there, of course, since he was the head coach and ran the practices. Tim Long was there, too, because he coached the offensive line. Like several of the coaches, Long was a Briarcrest parent, but he was also a 6-foot-5, 300-pound former left tackle at the University of Memphis, and he had been a third-round draft pick of the Minnesota Vikings. Long was awed by Michael Oher's raw ability immediately. "When I first saw him," he says, "I thought, This guy is going to make us all famous." But then he coached him in the final games of his junior year, after Michael was moved to right tackle on the offensive line, and Long wondered why he wasn't a better player. One game, he pulled Michael out and sat him on the bench because he thought the team was better off playing another guy.
The only other coach at the Briarcrest spring practices with any experience of college or pro sports was Sean Tuohy. Hugh Freeze had asked Sean to help out as an assistant coach - which meant his usual role as coach to the coach and unofficial life counselor to the players. When Sean told Leigh Anne he planned to coach football, she laughed at the idea of it: her husband didn't know a reverse from a play-action pass. The first thing Sean learned about coaching football was that you shouldn't do it in a BMW. He came home the first day and told Leigh Anne: "I need to buy a pickup truck. I'm the only one without a pickup truck." A few days later, he bought one.
That first afternoon of spring practice, Sean rolled up in his new truck to find the players lined up and stretching. The other coaches were there already. But there was this other, highly unusual cluster of identically dressed men: college football coaches who had turned up to watch practice. They stood to one side, but you could tell them by their identical dark slacks and coaching shirts with their school's emblem emblazoned on the chest: University of Michigan, Clemson University, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Tennessee, Florida State University. These weren't head coaches, just assistants. But still. College coaches of any sort weren't in the habit of visiting Briarcrest. The Briarcrest football field was in the middle of nowhere. Few of the players had any idea, at first, why these men were present. The Briarcrest coaches knew why, because Freeze had just told them, but they were still as surprised as the players. "I don't know why they were there," Tim Long says. "I guess his size just got him noticed."
The most complicated set of social rules on the planet - the rules that govern the interaction of college football coaches and high-school prospects - forbid the coaches to speak directly to a high-school junior until the July before his senior year. In the spring of his junior year, they are allowed to visit his school twice and watch him from a distance. So the coaches made a point of not saying anything directly; they just kept off to the side and stared. "I'll never forget it," Long says. "We did calisthenics and agility. Then board drill, right away. We're 10 minutes into it. Michael's first up."
The board drill - so named for the thin six-foot-long board on the ground that it's conducted on - is among the most violent drills in football. The offensive lineman straddles one end of the board and faces the defensive lineman. At the sound of the whistle, they do whatever they must to drive the other fellow off the end of the board. Facing off against Michael Oher during a football game was one thing: he was often unsure where to go, and you more than likely had help from teammates - if you didn't, there was plenty of room to run and hide. Getting onto the board across from him, for a fight to the death, was something else. No one on the team wanted to do it.
After a while, out stepped Joseph Crone, the team's biggest and most powerful defensive lineman. He was 6-foot-2, maybe 270 pounds, and a candidate to attend college on a football scholarship. To him, this new mission, going helmet to helmet with Big Mike, had the flavor of heroism. "The reason I stepped up," Crone says, "is that I didn't think anyone else wanted to go up against him. Because he was such a big guy."
Crone still didn't think of Michael Oher as an exceptional football player. But if he hadn't been a force on the field, Crone thought, it was only because he had no idea what he was supposed to do there. And Crone noticed that he had improved the past season and by the final game looked very good indeed. "He was figuring it out," Crone says. "How to move his feet, where to put his hands. How to get onto people so they couldn't get away." But even if Big Mike had no idea what he was doing on a football field, Crone found him an awesome physical specimen. He had a picture in his mind of the few opposing players who had made the mistake of being fallen upon by Big Mike. "They looked like pressed pennies," he says. "They'd get up, and their backs would be one giant grass stain. I couldn't imagine being on the other side of the ball going against Mike." Now, by default, he was.
The two players dropped into their stances with the eyes of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, Conference USA and the Atlantic Coast Conference upon them. Joseph Crone's mind was working overtime, he says: "I'm sitting there thinking: Man, this guy is huge. I got to get low on him. I got to drive my feet."
"Best on best!" shouted Coach Freeze and blew his whistle.
When it was over - and it was over in a flash - the five college coaches broke formation and made what appeared to be urgent private phone calls. The Briarcrest athletic director, Carly Powers, turned to his left and found that one of them, in his bid to separate himself from the others, had wandered up beside him. "He was whispering into his phone, 'My God, you've got to see this!"' Powers says. The Clemson coach, Brad Scott (who was the former head football coach at the University of South Carolina), actually ran out onto the field, handed his card to Freeze and said, "I've seen all I need to see." If Michael Oher wanted a full scholarship to Clemson, it was his. "Then," Tim Long says, "the Clemson guy got in his car and drove eight or nine hours back home."
Freeze was as impressed and surprised as anyone: it could have been a training film. Big Mike had picked up 270 pounds and dealt with them as he might have dealt with thin air. In the middle of spring practice his junior year, Michael Oher became a preseason First-Team High School All-American. From that moment on, Freeze had to give up pretty much everything he was doing and retire to his office to deal with the long line of college football coaches who wanted to spend quality time at the Briarcrest Christian School. In the frenzy, Freeze learned exactly what he had on his hands. Not just a big old lineman. Not some cement block, interchangeable with other cement blocks of similar dimensions. A future N.F.L. left tackle."
More from the book: " That fall, in 2003, Michael spent his nights with at least five different Briarcrest families - including the Tuohys - but most nights he spent with Quinterio Franklin, a teammate at Briarcrest. One night after a track meet, Michael was left without a ride home, and Leigh Anne offered to take him wherever he wanted to go. "Terio's," he said, and off they went. . .30 miles into Mississippi. "It was a trailer," she says. She couldn't believe there was room enough inside the place for him. She insisted on following him in to see where he slept. He showed her his old air mattress on the floor. It was flat as a pancake. "I blow it up every night," he said. "But it runs out of air around midnight."
>>>>>> Oher was not homeless and wasn't taken in by the Touhy's until "after a track meet", which would have been Spring 2004. Since Briarcrest's track season runs from Mid March to Mid May, he was likely taken in after the above event with Lemming and the other college coaches. And obviously any official guardianship would have come after his abilities were proven and several college coaches wanted him.
>>>>But given all of those inconsistencies, the part that is the worst (or the least fair) has little to do with the adoption. It was getting him qualified to go to OM:
"He had had a truly bizarre academic career: nothing but D's and F's until the end of his junior year, when all of a sudden he became a reliable member of Briarcrest's honor roll. He was going to finish with a grade-point average of 2.05. Amazing as that was, however, it wasn't enough to get him past the N.C.A.A. He needed a 2.65. And with no more classes to take, he obviously would not get it.
Now it was Sean's turn to intervene.
From a friend, Sean learned about the Internet courses offered by Brigham Young University. The B.Y.U. courses had magical properties: a grade took a mere 10 days to obtain and could be used to replace a grade from an entire semester on a high-school transcript. Pick the courses shrewdly and work quickly, and the most tawdry academic record could be renovated in a single summer. Sean scanned the B.Y.U. catalog and found a promising series. It was called "Character Education." All you had to do in such a "character course" was to read a few brief passages from famous works - a speech by Lou Gehrig here, a letter by Abraham Lincoln there - and then answer five questions about it. How hard could it be? The A's earned from character courses could be used to replace F's earned in high-school English classes. And Michael never needed to leave the house!
Thus began the great Mormon grade-grab. Mainly it involved Sue Mitchell grinding through the character courses with Michael. Every week or so, they replaced a Memphis public school F with an A from B.Y.U. Every assignment needed to be read aloud and decoded. Here he was, late in his senior year in high school, and he had never heard of a right angle or the Civil War or "I Love Lucy." But getting the grades was far easier than generating in Michael any sort of pleasure in learning."
>>>>>State and many other schools have had promising recruits that did not get these advantages and didn't qualify. Many of them are now out of football. What about helping them "change their lives through football and college"? If they are going to let Oher and Powe into college then they might as well do away with eligibility requirements and let everyone in.
More: "The N.C.A.A. still needed its proof of Michael's new and improved grade-point average by Aug. 1. Ole Miss was willing to admit Michael Oher as a student, but the N.C.A.A. stood between them in a couple of ways. First, it had opened an investigation and voiced the suspicion that the Tuohys had become Michael's guardians and put him into their wills as an equal of their own children only so that he might play left tackle for their alma mater. Next, the N.C.A.A. said his grade-point average was just a tad too low for him to play college football. On July 29, Michael took his final B.Y.U. test - another character course. Sean sent the test to Utah by Federal Express, and the B.Y.U. people promised to have the grade ready by 2 o'clock the following afternoon. "The Mormons may be going to hell," Sean says. "But they really are nice people." With Michael's final A in hand, Sean rushed the full package to the N.C.A.A.'s offices in Iowa. The N.C.A.A promptly lost it. Sean threatened to fly up on his plane with another copy and sit in the lobby until it was processed - which led the N.C.A.A. to find Michael's file. While it remained suspicious and didn't close its investigation, the N.C.A.A. on Aug. 1, 2005, informed Michael Oher that he was going to be allowed to go to college and play football."
>>>>>He was admitted but the NCAA had not closed its investigation. Hence the book, written by Michael Lewis. Who went to high school with Sean Touhy.
OMlawdog said:
People also ignore the fact that Oher wasn't playing football when the Tuohy's started helping him. I played football in high school with 2 black kids that were 6'-5 and 320+ pounds. Neither one of them ever played a snap at the D-1 level because they just weren't good enough football players. Looking at them in street clothes, you wouldn't be able to know whether they had future NFL ability or future hamburger flipper ability.
There are a lot of people with that size that never set foot on a college football field. The odds of picking one off the street and having him turn out to be a first round NFL talent are slim to none.
So, even if you think they picked him up with the idea of helping our football program out, they were taking a huge gamble considering he wasn't even playing football, and he definitely wasn't even being recruited when they started helping him out.
If Tuohy is that good of a talent evaluator, then Houston Nutt needs to get him on staff yesterday.
And again, even if their motivation was solely for helping our football program, the end result is that Oher is a millionaire today instead of on a dead end path in Memphis. If nothing else, you should be able to be happy for the difference it has made in Oher's life.
don't know if it's the Oregon board thing, the fact you pay so much attention, the second post thing, or maybe the 8 edits at this point.
the Touhy's and Ole Miss continue to shine the light upon themselves with this movie. Congratulations on landing Oher however you got him. Making a movie about how you got him just doesn't make sense. I think it will continue to raise questions until somebody finds what they are looking for.
Original48 said:
Yep, that Ole Miss movie production house fast at work. You do realize that Michael Lewis is not an Ole Miss alum, and Ole Miss did not ask for the book to be written, right? And you do realize that Ole Miss didn't ask for the movie to be made, right? Or is it all Kublai Khayat pulling the strings again?
- Status