Book SummaryThe Blind Side, by Michael Lewis

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Blind Side

In the 1980s, a defensive lineman named Lawrence Taylor entered the NFL and changed the way coaches and players viewed the game. Taylor was a huge man, but he was fast like a sprinter and agile. He made it his mission to sack the quarterback, and he was so successful at it that in 1982, a year after his entry, the NFL created the sack statistic. Taylor had a knack for coming in on a right-handed quarterback’s left side, the blind side, and pummeling him to the ground. His strength and speed made him nearly unstoppable, and he created fear in the hearts of his opponents. Coaches knew they needed someone to be able to guard the blind side and stop Taylor, and the result was the birth of the left tackle specialist.

The left tackle had to be just as quick and dexterous as Taylor and just as big. A position that once belonged to 275-pound men built like brick walls now required a player of over 300 pounds who moved like a 165-pound running back. This combination of size, speed, and nimbleness was rare, and those who fit the prototype were suddenly a hot commodity.

The Birth of the Passing Game

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lawrence Taylor wouldn’t have been as much of a threat as he was. Teams in the NFL were more prone to run the ball, rather than pass it. But a man named Bill Walsh changed all of that because of a deficiency in talent. When Walsh joined the Cincinnati Bengals in 1965 as the offensive line coach, his quarterback could barely throw longer than 20 yards. This wasn’t a problem until his teams failed to make the first down and were required to pass the ball.

To address the issue, Walsh designed a system that became known as the “West Coast Offense,” in which the quarterback threw short, quick passes to specific spots on the field where running backs would be waiting. This tactic removed the need to step back and scan the field and reduced the number of turnovers because of the quick release. It also removed the danger of the sack to the quarterback, since the ball was now held for no longer than seconds.

Walsh was successful in his strategy and spent 15 years making less-talented quarterbacks seem like gods, including Joe Montana, considered one of the best quarterbacks ever. With the rise in the quarterback’s status came an increase in their salary, and teams started shelling out big bucks to acquire players with stable and consistent arms. But then Walsh came up against Taylor, whose speed was too great. He was able to dismantle the West Coast Offense in a way that had never happened before.

This intersection of Taylor’s threat to now highly paid quarterbacks increased the value of quick-footed left tackles. The left tackle position turned into the second-highest paid position on the field and the focus of recruiters down in the college and high school ranks. The hunt for these freaks of nature that could fulfill this role was on, and a boy named Michael Oher from Memphis was perfect in every way.

From the Projects to High Society

Micheal Oher lived in the worst housing projects in Memphis, known as Hurt Village. The community was riddled with drugs and gang violence. Michael had been in and out of foster care homes between the ages of 7 and 10. Although his mother, who struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, lived in the village, she was unable to care for him and his siblings. He was often left to his own devices, went hungry, and didn’t attend school.

As was the norm in many of the public schools in the inner city, Michael was passed up from grade to grade without learning anything. He had a dream of playing in the NBA, but his chances of making it were slim. With his lack of education or resources, the most likely future for Michael was as a member of the local gang.

But that all changed when he met Big Tony. Big Tony was a basketball and football coach who came back to Hurt Village often to recruit young players. He saw potential in this 15-year-old boy who weighed more than 300 pounds and stood at 6’5”. He could see the path Michael was going down and wanted to help. He took Michael in and let him sleep on his floor. Tony had a son named Steven, and he’d promised his dying mother he would take Steven across town to East Memphis where the wealthy Christian private schools were located to get a proper education. Since Michael was staying with him, he decided to take Michael, too.

Finding a Home

Steven and Michael enrolled in Briarcrest Christian School. Steven was an excellent student and had no trouble getting in, but Michael was different. He had an IQ of 80 and a GPA of 0.56. The only reason he was let in was that the football coach saw his size and the principal took pity on him. Michael was quiet and shy and struggled to communicate with others. He didn’t know how to learn in a normal way and had a hard time passing his classes. But the teachers could tell that he was not stupid and required allowances to help him learn. When he finally got his grades up from Fs to Ds and...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 1: A New Era for the NFL

Shortform Note

Michael Lewis's The Blind Side is mainly a biography of a young man’s journey to beat the odds and become successful. But within the book’s pages is another story, one regarding the history of the NFL that created a path for Michael Oher’s success. Only a portion of the book’s football history is included in the summary to provide an understanding of the diverging factors that helped Michael succeed. For football fans who want to learn more, there are other examples of games and players affected by the changes in the NFL in the book that don’t pertain to the main story.

We’ve organized the information into seven chapters to keep the summary focused on Michael’s journey.

The NFL’s Evolution

There’s a moment in the National Football League’s long history that many will never forget. The day was November 18, 1985, and the New York Giants were playing the Washington Redskins. The second quarter was just underway. The score was 7-7, and the Redskins had the ball.

Thirty-six-year-old Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann was a veteran with 163 games under his belt, including two Super Bowl appearances and one championship. He received the snap and looked...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 2: Discovering Michael Oher

In 1978, a 23-year-old football fan named Tom Lemming decided he would travel to all the high schools in America in search of the best football prospects. He’d interview the players, watch them play, and find out which colleges they were interested in attending. Then, he’d put his discoveries in a book that college coaches could use to recruit young talent.

With no real money or job, Lemming drove as many miles as he could afford across the country, sleeping in his car to save money. He drove close to 60,000 miles in one year and visited up to 2,000 players. He whittled the list down to the top 150 players and designated 25 as the best in the country.

His newsletters were distributed through subscription to collegiate programs. After a few years, when his picks for top prospects had enough time to prove the keenness of his judgment, colleges started to trust him. More than that, high schools and parents started reaching out to him on behalf of players to try to make this list. It took seven years for Lemming’s business to be profitable, but he was already respected and heralded as the godfather of high school football.

What made Lemming’s work so valuable was that...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 3: The All-American

Everybody knew that Michael was big, but no one was aware of his other talents at first. John Harrington was the first to notice that Michael was more than just a giant. The first time Michael walked into the basketball gym to observe practice, John did what he always did when a new kid entered his practices—threw Michael the ball. John didn’t expect to see this 300-pound kid dribble between his legs, spin, and sink a three-pointer from the deep corner like he was a 6-foot point guard.

The track coach, Mark Boggess, wandered onto the football field one day, where Michael was by himself with a bag of footballs. One after the other, Michael stood at the 50-yard line and threw the balls between the endzone goalposts. Each throw was perfect and traveled around 70 yards, which was 10 yards farther than the average quarterback could throw.

Then, it was Coach Hugh Freeze’s turn to see Michael in action. During football practice, Michael wandered onto the field and picked up a 50-pound tackle dummy and ran with it at high speed like it was no more than a child’s doll. Hugh also couldn’t believe how fast Michael was for his size and had him weighed. After finding a scale that could...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 4: A New Future for Michael Oher

By the time football season started in 2004, Michael Oher was a household name among NCAA Division I football programs and just about anyone else who was paying attention. Michael’s realization that he might have a future in football was spawned by thousands of offer letters from various universities, many of which were full-ride offers. He attended summer training camps and received intensive coaching by both Hugh Freeze and the offensive line coach, Tim Long, a former left tackle in the NFL. But Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy both saw two obstacles in Michael’s path to football stardom.

The first was his lack of aggression. The time since his anger during the Myrtle Beach game was long gone, and their memories of his docile football performance from the previous year made them skeptical that he could perform the left tackle role the way he needed to. They settled in for a pre-season scrimmage (Leigh Anne in the stands and Sean on the sidelines as assistant coach) against a nearby town, Mumford, and waited to see what would happen.

Somehow, the Mumford players and fans hadn’t become aware of Michael’s rising status and only saw a giant blob of a player on the field. Right...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 5: College Bound

One of the biggest moments in a young college prospect’s life is when he sits behind a row of microphones in a hotel conference room and declares which program will be lucky enough to have him join their team. With Michael Oher currently serving as the best thing to hit high school football since electronic scoreboards, that moment loomed during the fall and winter of 2004. Now that Michael was a senior, he could be formally courted by college programs, but he wasn’t the only person the coaches had to charm. Just like in everything else in Michael’s life, Leigh Anne took a leadership role in Michael’s recruitment, as did Sean Jr., who’d become Michael’s best buddy and sidekick and wanted to make sure he had plenty of access to Michael.

Outside of Tennessee and Mississippi, where both she and Sean were alumni of Ole Miss, most of the coaches had no idea who Leigh Anne Tuohy was. Many of them were surprised to come up against her protective nature over Michael. They thought they were coming to visit a poor black kid and dazzle him with promises of financial rewards, shoes, tickets to elite sporting events, and other extravagances. What they found instead was a now-privileged...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 6: Big Man on Campus

Michael’s freshman year at Ole Miss was not what he or the Tuohys expected. Despite Coach O’s insistence that Michael would start at left tackle, the offensive lineman coach, George DeLeone, had different ideas. In his 36 years coaching at the collegiate level, he’d only started a freshman once. He believed Michael should red-shirt―when new players practice but don’t play or lose a year of eligibility―like all other freshmen and learn the ropes. He didn’t think he should be driving up to Memphis before the season to teach Michael the offensive plays using Leigh Anne’s dining chairs as props. But that’s what he did, and it seemed to be working. Michael’s lesson only stopped when Leigh Anne came home and was displeased to see her $2,000 chairs being run off the line by her giant son.

DeLeone still didn’t want to play Michael, but he did what his head coach asked with a small modification. Michael would not start at left tackle, but at right guard, which was flanked by other linemen who could help guide Michael on the field. The only problem was that the rest of the offensive line was made up of big, slow players who were just as confused by the plays as Michael was.

Many of...

The Blind Side Summary Chapter 7: Discovering Michael Oher

The bits and pieces of his history that Michael had shared with Leigh Anne and Sean, and the parts the Tuohys were able to piece together on their own, amounted to very little. It would be years before they learned the true history of this boy they’d taken in and given a home and why he was the way he was. But Michael’s history helped highlight why he reacted the way he did after the incident with Antonio and the little boy.

Michael’s Early Life

Michael’s mother Denise, or Dee Dee, didn’t start out as a person who was likely to grow up and lose her children. She had an uneventful childhood, but darkness was quick to come into her life, and it never left. When she was a child, her father was murdered in his bed. After that, her mother became an alcoholic and could no longer care for Dee Dee and her brother, Robert. The two children were removed from the home and placed in an orphanage, where they stayed until Dee Dee was 15.

When Dee Dee left the orphanage, she fell in with a group of wayward kids. She started doing drugs and drinking, and five years later, she had her first child with a man named Odell Watkins. Over the next six years, she and Odell had four more...

Shortform Exercise: Find Your Place in the World

Part of what makes Michael Oher’s story so remarkable is the way the NFL changed to create an environment perfect for someone like him. How can his story help your life?

What aspects of Michael’s life resonate with your own? Did you overcome the odds to achieve success? Did you struggle to do well in school?