I Beat the Odds_ From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond - Michael Oher [52]
Sean and Leigh Anne wanted to make sure that my mother was a part of my football life as well. And that was a part of my life that was growing and taking off in ways that surprised even me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Finding Football
As I mentioned earlier, basketball was my first love. From the time I watched that Phoenix-Bulls game when I was seven, I was obsessed with it. Football would be my favorite sport during football season, but when that was over, I'd go back to basketball. That was where I saw myself when I pictured my future--on the basketball court, the scariest thing to ever block a shot but also totally graceful as I flew through the air taking the ball to the basket. And it wasn't a crazy dream, either. I was really good at basketball, and a whole lot quicker and more skilled than anyone expected out of someone my size.
I had made enough progress academically in my first few months at Briarcrest that I was eligible to play the last couple of games of the basketball season. First, I played the last five that the JV had scheduled, but, unfortunately, there wasn't a jersey that fit me. I ended up playing in an old practice T-shirt with the school's name across the front and the number written on the back in permanent marker. It wasn't exactly the most sophisticated-looking uniform, but it worked. The varsity season was a little bit longer, and I was able to play the last six games of their season; but by that point, someone had made me a better team shirt with the numbers actually ironed on instead of drawn.
We did very well the next two years and actually ended up as the runners-up to the state Division II title my senior season, and my high school stats were an average of 22 points per game and 10 rebounds; but sometimes I had a frustrating time on the court, since I was still having the same issues with fouling that had always haunted me when I played. The refs seemed to love to blow the whistle at me for fouling the other team even though I actually wasn't doing it very much at all. I just had so much body, being well over six feet and about three hundred pounds at the time, that it didn't seem like a fair match-up for whoever I was covering, or maybe they just weren't used to watching someone that big on the court and couldn't see around me all the time to recognize that I really wasn't committing any more fouls than anyone else. It finally got to the point that I could hardly step out on the court without the ref blowing his whistle at me. I was so frustrated that I didn't know what to do--it felt like the refs were competing to see who could call more fouls on me each game. The Briarcrest coaches, and even the fans, were getting fed up with it, too. They could all see that I wasn't being overly physical or aggressive with anyone, but the refs seemed to think I was an easy target to make calls against.
The situation finally got resolved when Leigh Anne came marching into the gym before a game one day carrying a video camera. She introduced herself to the referees, pointed me out to them as her son, and let them know that there had been some problems about a lot of unfair fouls being called against me in the past. She told the ref that she would be personally recording the game, and if there were any blatant calls against me that clearly were not accurate, she would be sending the tape to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association to make sure that the ref never called another game for Briarcrest. That did the trick. Any foul called after that was one I deserved.
The style of basketball they played there was totally different not just from the street-ball rules I had grown up with, but also