I Beat the Odds_ From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond - Michael Oher [53]
Everyone seemed to think that the football field was the place for me, but I wasn't so sure at first. I loved the game, but as I started practicing for the season my junior year, I discovered that I didn't love to play it in such a structured way. At Briarcrest, the game was more mental, while at Westwood, Manassas, and the empty lots around Hurt Village, the game was much more physical. With Coach Hugh Freeze at Briarcrest, we didn't spend nearly as much time doing weight training as I had with Coach Johnson at Westwood. At first I was a little frustrated, but then I realized that most of my new teammates weren't going to college to play sports. If they were given an opportunity to play in college, they'd take it, but these were pretty much all kids who were going to college for academics. Their scholarships were going to be for their grades more than for their sports statistics. A guy like me, for whom athletics was going to be my ticket to school, who would have to fight to get the grades to even be considered by a college--I was a new type of player, and I don't think the coaches at Briarcrest really knew just what to do with me at first.
One thing I definitely understood, though, was how the game worked. In the movie The Blind Side, you see S.J. teaching me different plays using ketchup bottles and spices. I know stuff like that makes for a good story on screen, but in reality, I already knew the game of football inside and out. Like I said before, I didn't just watch it as a kid--I studied it, learning the plays and what each position did. When I was struggling with homework at school, studying sports was a subject where I could have been an honors student. I didn't just learn the rules, but I studied every play and every position, trying to understand strategy and technique. Yeah, it might have taken a little while for me to get used to a new way of playing at Briarcrest, but it wasn't because I didn't know what was going on; it was because understanding the how and whys of something is a lot different from doing it in real life.
Learning to play with a lot of structure and a coach who was demanding in a different kind of way was very important, though. What I came to realize is that I would have to be able to do that in order to get to college and to survive there. You can be the best player in the world, but if you are un-coachable because of your attitude, you'll never get anywhere. Talent will only take you so far. You've also got to be willing to work with your team and respect your coach.
In my case, I knew I was good, but I also knew I had a lot more to learn about putting everything I understood about the game into my body and making it totally natural when I played. I also was frustrated a lot because we couldn't seem to find the right place for me on the team. Everyone said I was a natural-born football player, but no one seemed sure where to play me.
We had to try a bunch of different positions on the defensive line until we finally found the best fit. It was easy to see that right or left tackle was a good place for me, and I could play either one, but once Coach Freeze put me in at left tackle, everything changed. I started to love the game in a way I never knew I could before because I wasn't just playing a game. I had a responsibility, a job. I was protecting the quarterback, but I also had to watch everyone else in the lineup and guess as to how the charge to the line would play out. I think that after quarterback, of course, left tackle is the biggest intellectual challenge in the entire game.
Some people may think after watching the movie that I'm