The Blind Side - Michael Lewis

The subtitle of The Blind Side is 'Evolution of a Game'. This gives one the impression that Lewis will spend a large amount of the book delving into the development of the left tackle and how it affected football strategy over the past fifty years to the same depths in which he probed the changing strategies of baseball throughout Moneyball. Although there is somewhat of a discussion of these ideas, less than a quarter of the book is spent discussing football strategies and players while the rest is spent telling the (often saccharine) tale of a troubled young man named Michael Oher who fits the new prototype of the increasingly important left tackle. Moneyball was a fantastic book, and it had far reaching implications for the public's understanding of the new trends in baseball statistics. I was hopping that The Blind Side would do the same thing for football, more specifically offensive line play.

The impetus behind The Blind Side is the fact that as football has become more and more pass oriented and the quarterback became the most important position on the field, the man that protects the quarterback, and thus the entire game plan, has also become increasingly important. Traditionally offensive linemen were thought to be interchangeable and replaceable, and they were the lowest paid players on the team. The left tackle (the offensive lineman who lines up at the far left) was thought to be no different than the other 4 lineman. However as most quarterbacks are right-handed, when they drop back to pass the left tackle is the one protecting the quarterback's back and blind side. As defensive schemes were being developed to attack the nervous system of the passing game, it became increasingly obvious that the left tackle was not only another part of the line, but a 'skill position'.

The biggest misconception about football is that the players, more specifically the linemen, are just a bunch of big, dumb, fat men running into each other mindlessly. It is often thought that this takes no skill and that the only requirements to be a lineman is the size involved. While it is true that some linemen are pretty overweight, most of them, and especially the best ones, are incredible athletes. As the left tackle became increasingly important it could even be said that the best athlete is often found at that position. They are fast, nimble, strong, intelligent and unrelenting.

What The Blind Side does best is to educate the reader about these 'freaks of nature'. The few chapters that focus strictly on football, and many of the sections on Michael Oher, make it very clear the importance of and skill involved in playing left tackle. Michael Oher is described in highschool as a 300 pound six foot two athletic freak. He shoots and handles a basketball like a guard, and is able to dominate in many track events (that obviously involve throwing) on his first attempt. He's not just some big, dumb, strong jock. These things are hard to notice for outsiders because on television the camera just follows the ball. Even when you try to specifically pay attention to the line play it's hard to see what they're doing and I think it's important for fans of football to understand these positions on a deeper level. I know that line play is complicated and that it is often said that they are the most intelligent players on the field next to the quarterback, and I wish The Blind Side did a better job of explaining the intellectual aspect of the position.

Although the most interesting part of The Blind Side is when Lewis is discussing the position of the left tackle (and figures such as Bill Walsh and Lawrence Taylor that made it important) the largest chunk of the book is spent discussing Michael Oher and his life. The book was written when Oher was a tackle at Ole Miss and tells the story of how he came to find himself at an SEC University when he basically grew up homeless. Through some events that could attributed to chance, Michael was introduced to a christian high school in Memphis and later to the Tuohy family. Although he basically knew nothing of schooling, organized sports, or the rich white person lifestyle that he would soon inhabit, Michael was accepted into the school and eventually taken in by the Tuohys. The rest of the book tells this story and discusses how this poor black kid from the Memphis ghetto was able to overcome his deficits and make it in a private school and later in a major university. Often when his personal life is being discussed, The Blind Side turns into an overly sweet after school special that extols the virtues of dedication, loyalty and hope. It is heartwarming in a way, but often a little too touchy-feely for my taste.

The one aspect of Michael's personal story that was the most interesting to me was when he was preparing to enter college, and all the complications that go along with that decision. Many people know that I am highly critical of the institution known as college football, and this book just reaffirmed my positions. After Oher narrows his decisions down to just a couple, the head coaches at these schools come to visit the Oher family. Big names like Nick Saban (who comes off as the snake oil salesman he is) and Phillip Fulmer come to woo Oher and the whole process is disgusting. They pretty much offer him everything except the kictchen sink all the while telling lies about themselves and the rival schools. Michael eventually chooses Ole Miss, but this causes some issues seeing that Ole Miss is the Tuohy's alma mater. It's sickening that he has to be investigated for making this decision because of his adoptive parent's affiliation, and even more sickening because it's not completely ludicris that a southern family would take in a poor black kid just to get him to play for their school. The whole college football obsession is beyond me.

As much as I don't really get the college football culture, the thing that really upsets me is how the kids are treated. They are expected to be both students and athletes when they don't really have the time or skill to do both. Many people are skilled enough to play football at the college level and even the NFL, but at the same time not trained to attend college. Why should a prospective athlete be required to have academic skills when it has no connection to their chosen line of work? As a grad student I am not expected to be able to dunk a basketball, so why should a prospective athlete be required to learn how to write research papers? I love education and have thus far dedicated my life to it, but that doesn't mean that academia is right for everyone. And don't get me started on the fact that everyone associated with college football makes an assload of money off of the product except those producing it. The students are used up and then spit out with nothing to show for it except a degree built on classes they barely had time to attend.

This problem doesn't just start at the college level, many young people don't even make it that far. Even someone like Michael Oher who had the support system and the will to get the grades he needed couldn't do it without some trickery. His adoptive father had to pull some strings and find loopholes so that Michael could have the GPA to attend college. There are countless numbers of kids who are in terrible situations in the ghetto and elsewhere who don't have an education system or social structure that supports them in this way, and they are just left by the wayside. It's obviously not feasible for every poor kid from the ghetto to become a professional athlete, but there are plenty of them who don't get the opportunity because of the way the system is set up.

I obviously don't have a solution to this, and the fact that some students do make the best of their scholarship makes it even more of a difficult situation. I'm not sure if students should get paid, or not be required to actually be 'students', but I know the current situation isn't right. It works out great for the small handful that makes it to the NFL or who use their degree to pursue a career, but there is a large number of college athletes who don't even end up graduating and just leave school after their last game. Michael Oher is a spectacular success story, and it's too bad that the majority of people in his position don't have the slightest chance of following in his footsteps.