I Beat the Odds (review)

Welcome guest blogger Sandi Latimer!  Sandi reviews Micheal Oher's recently released I beat the Odds, the story behind the story The Blind Side.

I became acquainted with Michael Oher when I watched the movie The Blind Side, adapted from a book of the same name. I know that under these circumstances, there is usually more to the story than what I see on the big screen. 

While looking for the book The Blind Side, I came across another book, written by Michael Oher himself. I figured that would give me a lot more information.  What the movie didn't depict and often times can't depict was how did this child feel? Michael was one of about a dozen children of a woman on drugs. What do children do when their mother is using drugs and they have no place to sleep, no food in the house? What attitudes do they develop? Who is their role model? In I Beat the Odds, Oher describes how he hung out with friends at meal times or late in the day so the family would ask him to stay for a meal or spend the night. At school, his attendance and his grades suffered. When Children's Services became involved and whisked the children off to different homes, he also moved from school to school.  

In fact, he was in so many schools that he had a difficult time finding his records when he applied to Briarcrest School, the private school the Tuohy children attended. At Briacrest, Oher met the family that eventually adopted him. The movie depicts quite a bit about the emotional and legal process the Touohy family went through to make Oher a part of their family. I Beat the Odds tells the story from Micheal's point of view.

In his book, Oher writes that as early as seven years of age, he knew he wanted to be a professional athlete and began a study of the sports. He thought he would go into basketball; instead, he became an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens football team. 

But it wasn't until Oher and writer Don Yaeger were doing research for I Beat the Odds when Michael met with a woman from Children's Services and began to understand that what she had done a decade earlier was in the child's best interest, even though it required separating him from his mother and siblings. 

Oher encourages children in the situation he was in to steer away from the bad elements and set goals. Not only does he speak directly to children in the later chapters about how to live their lives, Oher also lists several places where adults can start to give assistance to these less fortunate children and help them have a better life.  

Oher is fortunate to have two families who share their love, only in different ways. He says he honors his mother and will always love her, but never did and never will condone her lifestyle.
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I Beat the Odds was published in 2011 by Gotham Books, a part of Penguin Group. DonYaeger is a former associate editor for Sports Illustrated and the author of 13 books.


Guest blogger Sandi Latimer is a long-time reader and journalist. She is a staff writer for a weekly newspaper in Columbus, Ohio, and volunteer coordinator at Green Lawn Park, Ohio's second-largest cemetery. She has been a member of Ohio Professional Writers (OPW) for more than 30 years and now serves as president of the organization. She recently published her first book, Poodle Mistress.