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.