Chapter 7

11/19/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 7 (pages 147-175) – The Pasta Coach

            After Michael Oher’s high school football team won the Tennessee state championship, his junior football season was over. This meant that college football scouts and coaches were able to visit Michael. He was also able to make a total of five official trips to colleges. Michael received an application to visit North Carolina State. He was also sent invitations from Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss and many other division I football colleges. However these coaches didn’t know what Michael’s grades looked like. He was 162^nd of a class of 163. He didn’t have the GPA high enough to be eligible to go to any division I football colleges.

            Michael was allowed three official visits to colleges. He decided to visit Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU. These schools could also send a representative and they usually send a scout or the head coach. Leigh Ann and Sean Tuohy both went to Ole Miss and they both wanted Michael to go to Ole Miss and play football. “With Michael’s official visit to Ole Miss coming up, she picked up the phone, called Ole Miss recruiter Kurt Roper, and said, ‘I am faxing you a list of what Michael likes and what he doesn’t like and you use it like a frickin’ road map.’”  Michael’s tutor, Miss Sue, also went to Ole Miss. She told Michael stories about Tennessee and LSU. Miss Sue said that Tennessee agreed with the FBI to let them use the football field to see how dead human flesh would decompose in the dirt. There were hands and feet buried under the field. This story may have scared Michael into not wanting to go to Tennessee. Michael also wanted the college that he chose to go to would feel more like home and he thought that Ole Miss felt like home because home felt like Ole Miss.

            I connected to this chapter because my sister is currently a high school senior and she has been searching for a college that she would like to go to since the beginning of her junior year. She has visited colleges in many different parts of the state but most of them are near our home. It is a hard decision which college that you go to because colleges offer different educations and experiences while there. I also connected to this chapter because I have heard of athletes getting full scholarships just to play a sport. I cannot believe that colleges want players that badly to offer them to almost anyone who can play their sport. However, in general college sporting events are very well contested and entertaining.

Chapter 6

11/15/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 6 (pages 115-146) – Inventing Michael

            The Briarcrest Christian High school football team won the 2004 Tennessee state championship thanks to their left tackle Michael Oher. There were more football scenes in this chapter describing how Hugh Freeze the Head football coach was convinced by an assistant coach to use only one play and they would be able to win the state championship. The one play was Gap and Tim Long an assistant coach got his inspiration from the movie Tin Cup. Gap was run between the left tackle and the left guard. Michael Oher played left tackle and the running back was able to slip through and score numerous touchdowns throughout their championship season.

Chapter six had even more back story on Michael Oher. Sean Tuohy was describing a certain play on the field when Michael pushed a defender sixty yards away from the line of scrimmage. This describes the play from Sean’s point of view, “She turned around to see twenty football players running down one side of the field, after the Briarcrest running back with the ball. On the other side of the field Briarcrest’s No. 74 was racing at speed in the opposite direction, with a defensive end in his arms.” This shows the push and devotion that Michael Oher. He doesn’t want to impress anyone he just wanted to take the opposing player and put him back on the bus because the defensive end was trash talking to Michael Oher. Even though trash talking is a major part of any sport, Michael didn’t enjoy listening and he knew was to get the players to stop. Like pushing them sixty yards into a chain link fence.

I connected to this chapter because Michael Oher’s football team made it to the 2004 Tennessee state championship football game in Memphis, Tennessee and I was a spectator at the 2012 Wisconsin state Track & Field championship in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It seems like there would be a huge difference but they were both state championships and both huge for the sport and the state for which it is held. The football game was between only two teams from Tennessee while the Track & Field championships have schools from all over the state competing. No matter what you are interested in these events are both exciting and you can witness some of the best athletes from your sport in action.

Chapter 5

11/7/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 5 (pages 91-114) – Death of a Lineman

            Thankfully, the title of the chapter didn’t refer to Michael Oher. Chapter 5 was mostly about Bill Walsh and his NFL invention of the West Coast Offense. The chapter also included Bill Parcells, head coach of the New York Giants making his defense with Lawrence Taylor even more explosive than before. Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers were trying to stop the Giants in the 1981 NFC Divisional playoff game. Bill Walsh’s offence was a pass heavy offense. He set up the deep pass with other short passes and occasional runs. His quarterback was the legendary Joe Montana. He became the best in the NFL at passing the ball because he had time in the pocket to pass. Montana had so much time because Walsh decided that he would have the left guard help the left tackle and they would both block LT. However this would open a whole in the center of the offensive line and if the defense sent a middle linebacker or safety on the blitz the quarterback would pay the price for Walsh’s ability to stop Taylor. Walsh also taught this offense to his assistant coaches and they spread it throughout the NFL.

            I found this quote about Lawrence Taylor on page 107. “At the end of the 1981 season Taylor was for Parcells still a shiny new toy with a complicated control panel that he was figuring out how to use. No matter what Parcells told his rookie linebacker to do, Taylor’s instinct was to find the quarterback and kill him.” This quote shows that Taylor was one of the best pass rushers and he had the ability to hit a quarterback in the back so that he would never play again. When teams played against the Giants, the coaches wanted to stop Lawrence Taylor. He was the only player that they feared at the time and the opposing coaches tried so hard to avoid this from happening that Bill Walsh went so far to creating a new offense. Even though Lawrence Taylor isn’t still playing, there still is an offensive strategy to stop him.

            I connected to this chapter because I play Madden NFL games. I mentioned in a previous blog that Madden is a video game simulation of American football. On Madden, I play defense and I enjoy blitzing. Blitzing is when you send more defenders than the offense is planning on or able to block. I feel as though blitzing is the best way to play defense because the rushers will either sack the quarterback or give up a huge play for a touchdown. I believe that I will take that risk and almost always sack the quarterback or stop the running back for a loss of yards. Therefore, I agree with what Bill Parcells is trying to do by rushing with an outside linebacker.

Chapter 4

10/31/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 4 (pages 65-90) – The Blank Slate

The Blind Side movie was based more on Michael Oher’s love for football. In this chapter, Michael’s basketball and track careers get started. In basketball, he played center and was also able to shoot three pointers. He also threw discus and shot put in track and field. Michael was never taught how to throw discus or shot put but then he saw how to do it and was able to throw them better than anyone else in the state. He was passing all of his classes with high Ds. This was caused by the teachers at Briarcrest figuring out that Michael tested better orally than he did writing down answers.

While I was reading this section, I found this quote on page 66. I believe that this quote shows the raw ability and strength of Michael Oher. “One afternoon he took a sack of footballs out to midfield. Standing on the fifty-yard line he threw them, one by one, through the goalposts at the back of the end zone. As a rule, a good college quarterback’s range was 60 yards-from midfield to the line across the back of the end zone. Here was this kid, sophomore in high school, shaped nothing like a quarterback, chucking the ball 70-75 yards. And making it look easy.” I choose this quote because it shows the athletic ability of Michael Oher. He was able to throw and ball seventy plus yards and he was a big man. Michael was six foot seven and over three hundred pounds. He also played basketball, but instead of dunking like a larger player would, he wanted to shoot a three-pointer. He didn’t like to be near the hoop because he wanted to score on shooting instead of easy layups.

I connected to this chapter because I run track. One day our coaches decided that we everyone who isn’t in a field event should be required to go to a practice and just workout as if we were to be in that field event. I chose pole vault and I was one of six people trying it because we had only three athletes doing it regularly. While I was one of few people pole vaulting, the majority of the team was trying discus. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone on the track team that is the size of Michael Oher and we had no chance of throwing it as far as him either. I still enjoyed reading this chapter because it showed that Michael Oher was in other sports than football.