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.