READ THIS: THE BLIND SIDE Evolution of a Game BY MICHAEL LEWIS

Many years ago when Peachy worked in another field, one of her mentors suggested she read Liar's Poker as she has many personal qualities of the character The Human Piranha.  Ever since, we have had an extraordinary appreciation for Michael Lewis, especially as he is a writer who once worked in the trenches of Wall Street.

His genius in The Blind Side is just as good as in Liar's Poker.  Of course, it has gained wider attention recently due to the movie starring Sandra Bullock who won Best Actress for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in it.  It is the story of so many aspects of life that are admirable: achievement, overcoming adversity, compassion and kindness, and most of all, the story of the emergence of the value of the left tackle on the football field.  We think of the left tackle as insurance for the quarterback...

We may know a lot about beauty products (we have reviewed almost 600) but we have been writing about football for many, many more years.  For those of you not so familiar, most quarterbacks are right-handed, therefore, in the passing game, when they throw the ball they of course are looking to see who's open to catch the ball, but don't have eyes in the back of their head to see who may come up behind them, on the left side, to sack them.

When the sack statistic was developed, the left tackle became a big part of the defense and was paid accordingly.  On page 39 Lewis states that after Matt Hasselback, quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks and one of Peachy's first interviews at BC, the second highest paid player in the 2006 superbowl was the man who protected Hasselbeck's blind side, the left tackle.

Not only is The Blind Side about football, it is about life progress and helping others. It also goes to show you that although size certainly matters on the football field, small people like Leigh Anne can make a big difference.  Her heart must be the biggest part of her body.  Her sheer determination, tenacity and stick-with-it attitude combined with her "I don't take no for an answer" mindset make her successful as a person, and in helping Michael Oher.  We love her as a character.


Oher's story is one of so many versions of the American dream.  Oher truly overcame the most adverse circumstances imaginable to catapult into his position today on the Baltimore Ravens.  From having a poor academic record to not having enough regular human interaction to know what to take literally and what not to (excessive blocking!), Michael Oher progressed to have real impact both physically on the football field and personally with those around him, as his adoptive parents felt God made a [child just for them: he was athletic and even was meticulous enough to pick up after himself!]


Though he may have scored low on many standardized tests, Michael Oher did get in the 90th percentile in "Protective Instincts."  How left tackle!  In addition to Oher's determination and work ethic, his loyalty is one of the strongest qualities the book illustrates you'll see as you read The Blind Side.

Early on in The Blind Side, even Dan Henning is mentioned...Peachy herself interviewed Henning when she was a sportswriter at Boston College, and she's met Doug Flutie too who's mentioned so this book hits home on many levels.

If you want to be inspired by a well-written story of substance, read The Blind Side.
Whom You Know highly recommends The Blind Side by Michael Lewis!  It is an absolute must read, even if you have seen the movie.

 ***

A few short years ago—three, in fact—Michael Oher didn’t seem like anyone who would soon become rich and popular, with an earning potential of tens of millions of dollars per year. Sixteen years old and 344 pounds, he rarely looked anyone in the eye, didn’t say more than two words if he could help it, and wore the exact same thing every day. He’d been raised, haphazardly, by a mother addicted to crack cocaine; he’d tested at an IQ of 80 and had a grade point average of 0.6. Yet through a most unusual set of circumstances, this poor, shy, uneducated black teenager landed at an exclusive Christian school, was adopted by a loving – and wealthy –  family, and soon became the object of a nearly unprecedented feeding frenzy among the head coaches of the nation’s top college football powerhouses—all of whom wanted desperately for him to come and play left tackle for them. And here’s the weird part: Up until the fall of 2004, Michael Oher had barely even touched a football . . . and had never played left tackle in his life.

 

Oher’s incredible story—and the confluence of factors that caused him to rocket from being just another kid lost in the system to an elite college football player who may someday become one of the NFL’s most highly paid athletes—is the subject of Michael Lewis’s fantastically entertaining new book, THE BLIND SIDE: EVOLUTION OF A GAME [W. W. Norton & Company; October 2, 2006; $24.95 hardcover].

In his 2003 betstseller Moneyball, Lewis got the baseball world talking, arguing, and thinking anew about the way the game had long been played and perceived. Now, with THE BLIND SIDE, he promises to do the same for America’s other favorite pastime: football, a sport in which the most valuable players on the field may get the least public recognition, but are increasingly being sought after, and celebrated, like precious winning tickets in a Powerball lottery.

As Lewis explains, the game of professional football was altered inexorably by pass rushers like Lawrence Taylor, the terrifying New York Giants linebacker who, in a 1985 sack that spawned a thousand sickening replays, snapped Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann’s shin in half and ended his playing career. Coaches became ever more anxious to protect their quarterbacks and their dominant passing games from huge players such as Taylor, and their attention focused on the left offensive tackle, the lineman whose job it is to protect, at all costs, the side of the quarterback where he cannot see—his blind side. When free agency came to the NFL in 1994, teams began throwing ridiculous sums of money at left tackles, sometimes even more than they were already paying their star quarterbacks. But the ideal left tackle wasn’t always easy to find. He had to be very big, very fast, and deceptively quick on his feet. Michael Oher fit that description, and went way beyond it.

The trouble was, nobody would have known it if a neighbor hadn’t brought his son and Oher to the Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, asking the administrators to give the kid a chance. Even though he had horrendous grades, an education that could only politely be referred to as “spotty,” and zero social skills, the football coach took one look at the girth on this guy and figured he could use him on the team.

When Sean Tuohy, a self-made businessman and volunteer Briarcrest coach, took an interest in the boy with seemingly nowhere to go, Michael Oher’s life truly changed. Before long, the almost painfully reserved Oher found himself opening up to, and then living with, Tuohy, his wife, Leigh Anne, and their two children. The rich, white, Evangelical Tuohys and the poor black kid from the projects seemed an unlikely match, and at first the Tuohys seemed as surprised by the situation as anyone. But Oher thrived with the support of his fiercely protective new family. He studied hard. He started talking (a little). He was allowed to play football. He had no idea what he was doing, but he played. And in what seemed like the blink of an eye—a glowing mention in Tom Lemming’s All-American scouting report, a spring practice attended by several college coaches, and one quick flattening of a 270-pound lineman later—the entire NCAA football world was beating a path to the door of the massive, freakishly talented Michael Oher, whose size and agility now made him the most sought-after potential left tackle in years.

Michael Lewis’s own skills as a storyteller are unmatched, and through his riveting narrative you have a ringside seat to it all: from Oher’s neglected childhood on the streets to his gradual blossoming under the Tuohy’s care, from his spectacular mauling of hapless high-school opponents to the hilarious scenes in which the head coaches from LSU, Tennessee, and Ole Miss come trooping to the Tuohys’ door to sweet-talk their new son into playing for the respective schools. Whether you’re a football fan or not, you'll devour Lewis’ wonderful new book THE BLIND SIDE—because not only is it a ripping good story about a kid who plays ball, it’s also the story of how everything and anything can change, whether it's a person, a sport, or an attitude. It all depends on how you look at it. 

TITLE: THE BLIND SIDE: Evolution of a Game    AUTHOR: Michael Lewis

PUBLICATION DATE: October 2, 2006  PRICE: $24.95 hardcover

ISBN: 0-393-06123-X