I Beat the Odds:
From Homelessness to “The Blind Side” and Beyond
by Michael Oher
with Don Yaeger
Gotham Books
Hardcover, $26.00
280 pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 978-1-592-40612-8
Book Review by Kam Williams
“I didn’t write this book just to revisit The Blind
Side… I want to help separate fact from fiction. After the movie came
out, there were a lot of people asking me if my life was exactly how it
was shown on screen.
Obviously, the moviemakers have to make artistic
choices to tell the story…but some of the details… just aren’t true. I
hope that I can help to make a little more sense of it all.
My second goal with this book, and the much more
important one, is that I want to talk about—and to—the nearly 500,000
children in America… in foster care. Many people probably know my name
from The Blind Side... What no one knows is exactly what happened to me
during my years in the foster care system, the years before The Blind
Side picked up my story.
The ending of my story is unique, but the beginning
of my story is, sadly, far too common…It is my goal with this book not
only to tell my story in my own words, but to encourage anyone who is a
part of the system or who wants to be a part of helping children out of
it.”
-- Excerpted from the Introduction (pgs. xiii-xviii)
Michael Oher became famous a year ago when his inspirational
story was made into a heartwarming Hollywood movie. That
overcoming-the-odds sports saga recounted how a traumatized, black
teenager went from homeless to National Football League star with the
help of the a well-to-do family who rescued him from the streets of
Memphis. Sandra Bullock even won an Oscar for her endearing
portrayal of matriarch Leigh Anne Tuohy, a compassionate Christian who
altruistically invited the gentle giant to move into her house.
But the film also took some liberties with the facts, such as
suggesting that Michael only learned to play football in high school and
that he was walking around wearing shorts in the middle of a frigid day
in November. Furthermore, because the picture basically began with his
rescue, it failed to convey exactly how much of a harrowing nightmare
his childhood had been previously, when he and his siblings had been
shuttled from foster home to foster home on account of their mother’s
crack addiction.
For these reasons Michael decided to write I Beat the Odds:
From Homelessness to “The Blind Side” and Beyond,
a poignant memoir from the perspective of an intrepid survivor who is
not too proud to admit how scared, trapped and helpless he felt before
finally finding a way out of the cycle of poverty. Given his humblest of
origins, it’s nothing short of remarkable that he now plays offensive
tackle for the Baltimore Colts, a tribute not only to the intervention
of the Tuohys, but to his own amalgam of ambition, dedication and
persistence.
Besides relating his personal tale of courage, Michael designed his
autobiography to serve as a charitable organization guide for folks
motivated to get involved, as well as a how-to primer for children
presently stuck in the foster care system. Along the way, he shares some
practical advice with kids about the importance of finding role models,
daring to dream, setting goals and developing a good work ethic.
In the process, Michael Oher drives home his salient point that “You
don’t have to get adopted by a rich family to make it.” Thereby, his
elusive, sugarcoated Hollywood fantasy is augmented by the more
readily-accessible reality that “You just have to have it set in your
brain that you are going to make a better life for yourself and you have
to be committed to making that happen.”
To order a copy of I Beat the Odds, visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592406122/ref=nosim/thslfofire-20
Read Kam's interview with Michael Oher
here
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Lloyd
Kam Williams 