Now it’s ‘Blind Side’ star’s turn to tell his story

Published 12:01 am Monday, February 14, 2011

Michael Oher’s earliest memory is of plodding beside a bustling Memphis, Tenn., road with his brothers hunting for a place to sleep.

Their mother, a crack addict, had locked them out of their apartment again, vanishing in search of a fix. She might be gone for hours, or days.

Michael was 2.

He vowed to grow up and make his escape.

Oher (pronounced “oar”) is now a 6-foot-4, 310-pound offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.

If you’ve heard about his past already, in the 2006 New York Times best-seller “The Blind Side” or the 2009 Oscar-winning blockbuster film, that wasn’t his call. He didn’t have much input in either.

So he decided to tell his story his way.

He has teamed with veteran journalist Don Yaeger to pen “I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond” ($26).

“You’re not poor if you know where your next meal is coming from,” his first chapter begins.

Oher, 24, keeps one of his three cars at the Memphis home of his adoptive family, the Tuohys. He said his bedroom there, and his first bed, remain as they were in his high school days.

So, when he steps inside, he is transported back to his teenage years when he first found a stable, nurturing family: “I’m home again.”

Oher still works out every day, even on trips home.

“Getting to the NFL and the situation I’m in was very tough to do,” Oher said. “I never wake up and say: ‘I belong here.’ I never take it for granted.”

In his book, Oher clears up what he considers misconceptions about his story, created mainly by the movie.

“I felt like it portrayed me as dumb, instead of as a kid who had never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it,” Oher writes.

He also cringed at scenes in which the Tuohys were shown teaching him football fundamentals.

“I’ve been studying, really studying, the game since I was a little kid,” Oher writes.

Leigh Anne Tuohy said Michael and her other two kids whined about minor inaccuracies in the movie that she attributed to artistic license.

“I sat all three of them down and said, ‘Get over it. Man up.’ The message of the movie is so powerful.”

Tuohy said she’s thrilled about Oher’s book, calling it another “tool that can be used for hope.”

Oher’s account also describes in detail how nearly every adult in his early life let him down.

He talks about how his potential languished before he found a series of people, including a loving coach from the inner city and the Tuohy family, who would help him reach his goals.

Oher says he dreaded dredging up long- suppressed childhood memories and researching his child-welfare case file to fill in blanks. But he felt compelled to respond to the thousands of letters he still receives from kids wanting to know how they can triumph as he did over their hardships.

“For me to get taken in by this wealthy, high-class family, the odds were stacked against me heavily,” he said.