Michael Oher

Michael Jerome Oher (né Williams Jr.; born May 28, 1986) is an American former football tackle who played in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons.

Coached by Freeze and Tim Long, Briarcrest's offensive line coach, Oher was named Division II (2A) Lineman of the Year in 2003, and First-team Tennessee All-State.

Scout.com rated Oher a five-star recruit and the No. 5 offensive lineman prospect in the country.

Before that season and for his prior 20 months at Briarcrest, Oher had been living with several foster families.

In 2004, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a couple with a daughter and son attending Briarcrest, allowed Oher to live with them.

Oher would later allege in 2023 that they tricked him into signing a document making them conservators while telling Oher that it was the same as adoption.

The family began tending to his needs after becoming familiar with his difficult childhood.

They also hired a tutor for him, who worked with him for 20 hours per week.

Oher earned two letters each in track and basketball.

He averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds a game, earning All-State honors by helping lead the basketball team to a 27–6 record, winning the district championship as a senior.

Oher was also a state runner-up in the discus as a senior.

Oher's initial low grades were a barrier to his acceptance to an NCAA program.

He raised his 0.76 grade point average (GPA) to a 2.52 GPA by the end of his senior year so he could attend a Division I school, by enrolling in some 10-day online courses from Brigham Young University.

Taking and passing the online courses allowed him to replace Ds and Fs earned in earlier school classes, such as English, with As earned via the Internet.

This finally raised his graduating GPA above the required minimum.

At the conclusion of his senior season, Oher participated in the 2005 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

Though he received scholarship offers from Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, and South Carolina, Oher ultimately decided to play for Ed Orgeron at the University of Mississippi, the alma mater of his guardians, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy.

His decision to play for the Ole Miss Rebels football team sparked an investigation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

The first issue was that Oher's grade-point average (GPA) was still too low to meet the requirements for a Division I scholarship at the time of the offer from Ole Miss.

That difficulty was corrected by graduation, when Oher completed online classes through Brigham Young University.

The second issue was the Tuohys' preexisting relationship with the school and the fact that Ole Miss hired Freeze twenty days after Oher signed his letter of intent.

Freeze asserted that his position with Ole Miss was not an example of quid pro quo for encouraging Oher to attend the school, but rather the result of his preexisting relationship with Ole Miss offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone.

The NCAA did not close its case on its suspicions of collusion.

However, it ruled that Ole Miss had committed no NCAA violations in its recruitment of Oher.

Freeze was found guilty of secondary violations for contacting other Memphis-area recruits before joining the Ole Miss staff.

Oher's life through his final year of high school and first year of college is one of the subjects of Michael Lewis' 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and was dramatized in the 2009 film adaptation.

Oher was born in Memphis, Tennessee; he was one of 12 children of Denise Oher.

His mother suffered from alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction, and his father, Michael Jerome Williams, was frequently in prison.

He received little attention or discipline during his childhood.

He repeated first and second grades, and attended eleven schools during his first nine years as a student.

He was placed in foster care at age seven, and alternated between living in various foster homes and periods of homelessness.

Oher's father was murdered in prison when Oher was a senior in high school.

Oher played football during his freshman year at a public high school in Memphis.

He applied for admission to Briarcrest Christian School at the suggestion of Tony Henderson, an auto mechanic with whom he was living temporarily.

Henderson was enrolling his son at the school to fulfill the dying wish of the boy's grandmother and thought Oher might enroll as well.

The school's football coach, Hugh Freeze, submitted Oher's school application to the headmaster, who agreed to accept him if Oher could complete a home study program first.

He did not finish the program, but was admitted when the headmaster realized that his requirement had removed Oher from the public education system.

He played college football at the University of Mississippi, where he earned unanimous All-American honors as a senior, and was selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft.

Oher spent his first five seasons with the Ravens and was a member of the team that won Super Bowl XLVII.

He later played one season for the Tennessee Titans and his final two for the Carolina Panthers.