I Beat the Odds_ From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond - Michael Oher [38]
Maybe it sounds strange to have had mentors who were kids, but I admired the dedication and character of Steve and Craig and I know that having them around helped keep me out of some of the more serious trouble I could have found.
One great example was when I wanted to go to the same summer basketball camp as Steve. There are all kinds of clinics all over the city for hoops skills, and the one that Steve was going to was for eighth grade and under, so I was too old for it. But I knew that when I stuck with Steve, things were good. So Tony made a phone call to someone he knew working the camp and they let me in.
It was really a good thing they did because the week I was attending that clinic, the group of neighborhood guys I sometimes hung out with got caught for stealing a Cadillac from an old couple near the hospital, and they had several thousand dollars of stolen cash in the car, too. When the police were questioning them, someone said that I had been with them. But when the cops did a little digging, they found out that I'd been at the basketball camp and couldn't have been involved in the theft. I'd like to think I wouldn't have taken part anyway, but it was valuable to have people who could confirm that I had been running drills in the gym when the car was stolen.
But it wasn't just my company that I had to watch. My attitude needed some work, too. At one camp the next summer, right before my tenth-grade year, I got so fed up with the refs blowing the whistle on me when I was sure I hadn't fouled anyone that I finally snapped and started cursing up a storm, then I stormed out of the gym and started walking home. Unfortunately, the camp was about eight or nine miles from where I was living, but I didn't care. I was so steamed that I'd rather walk that far than spend any more time with those refs and coaches.
It was toward the end of the day and Big Tony had driven over to pick up Steve and me, but when he heard what happened, he got back in his car and drove down the route he figured I'd take to get home. Sure enough, he found me trudging down the sidewalk, still mad and still fed up with the world. "Get in the car, Mike," he ordered as he pulled over. "We have to talk."
The rest of the drive, he told me how I needed to get control over my language and my emotions if I was going to succeed in school and life. He told me that there would always be refs who would call fouls on me just because of my size, but I had to deal with that and just be a better player so that it would be harder for them to do that.
The more I thought about Tony's lecture, the more I realized he was right. It occurred to me that I'd been reacting the way I had always seen people react--explosive, angry, obscene. But I had to learn how to do better if I wanted to be better. I had tried hard to make smart decisions on my own, but I needed reminders to keep me on track. I started looking around me and I realized that every time I had a bad attitude or lost my temper, I was just living up--or down--to the level of expectation that people had for me.
When you're a poor kid from the inner city, most people already have their minds made up about who you are and what you can or can't do. Every time you slip up, lash out, slack off, or sulk, you're just playing into their hands by acting like the stereotype they've already decided you are. Too many people have already labeled you as a "bad kid" in their minds, and if you curse or pout or act up, you're just letting them think that's all there is to you--that you're just one-dimensional, that what they see on the surface is all there is to see.
Other coaches used to say to Big Tony, "Why do you even bother with that kid? He's just a waste of your time." Some even said things right to my face like, "You'll never amount to anything. Stop kidding yourself." I'm sure Ms. Spivey heard things like that more than once, too, from people who were too fed up to see past the challenges