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The Blind Side

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The Blind Side The Blind Side by Gwil Harris Page : 1 The Blind Side Contents Chapter 1 2 Chapter 2 2 Chapter 3 2 Chapter 4 3 Chapter 5 4 Page : 2 The Blind Side Chapter 1 Rough Beginnings 17-year-old Michael Oher has been in foster care with different families in Memphis, Tennessee, due to his mother's drug addiction. Every time he is placed in a new home, he runs away. His friend's father, on whose couch Mike has been sleeping, asks Burt Cotton, the coach of Wingate Christian School, to help enrol his son and Mike. Impressed by Mike's size and athleticism, Cotton gets him admitted despite a poor academic record. Michael walks out of school when he says hi to some children and they leave. Soon Michael is befriended by a boy named S.J. He suggests that Michael smiles at the children knowing that he is trying to be friendly to them. S.J.'s mother Leigh Anne Tuohy is a strong-minded interior designer and the wife of wealthy businessman Sean Tuohy. Leigh Anne notices Michael and asks S.J. who he is and is told he is Big Mike. Chapter 2 Misery After school staff tell Michael that his father passed away, leaving Michael homeless, Michael seeks shelter at a when she learns he intends to spend the night huddled outside laundrette. the school gym. When they drive away, Leigh Anne tells Sean to turn the car around and she sees and tells Michael that the gym Later, Leigh Anne, S.J. and Sean watch is closed. She asks why he is going to the gym and he responds their daughter, Collins playing volleyball. that it was warm. She asks if he has somewhere to live, Michael Later Sean notices Michael picking simply says yes, But Leigh asks Michael not to lie to her and up some leftover food at the bench. then offers him a place to stay and sleep at her house. Michael Michael, having no money for food, lives accepts and gets in the car. Arriving at the Tuohy house, Leigh by scrounging half-empty containers of Anne sets a blanket and pillow for use on the couch. Later, when snacks after school games, which Mr. going to sleep, Sean ask Leigh Anne if she is just going to let him Tuohy notices, after which he pays for a stay one night and Leigh Anne is unsure about it. meal ticket for Michael. The next morning, Leigh Anne notices that Michael is gone and sees Michael leaving. She asks him to spend the Thanksgiving Chapter 3 holiday with her family. Slowly, Michael becomes a member of A Bed For The Night the Tuohy family. Later that day, Leigh Anne drives Michael to One night, Leigh Anne notices Michael his mother's house. Leigh Anne is about to leave the car when walking on the road, shivering in the cold, Page : 3 The Blind Side Michael suddenly and urgently insists on he wasn't able to get the hang of the game and its rules, and he her to stay in the car. He heads to his wasn't able to understand what his role on the field was. mother's apartment, where all he finds is an eviction notice. He returns to the car when Leigh Anne asks a question to Chapter 4 Michael, but he remains silent. Leigh Inventing Michael Anne requests that Michael tell her one From that moment, Michael starts to play well and is useful to thing about himself, and he responds by his team. At the traditional Christmas card photograph of that saying that he does not like being called year, Leigh Anne invites him to appear in the family photo. Big Mike. Leigh Anne then decides that Leigh Anne's friends Beth, Elaine and Sherry meet regularly he will only be addressed as Michael. at a local expensive restaurant. The friends laugh about Leigh Later, Leigh Anne goes to buy clothes Anne's "project in the projects," but she cuts them off, saying for Michael. Michael picks the clothes he that if they don't respect what she does, she will stop seeing wants to wear and Leigh Anne purchases them. them for him. When Leigh Anne seeks to become Michael's legal guardian, she An opportunity arises for Michael to play at university level. learns he was separated from his drug- However, he needs his grades to improve, so the Tuohys hire addict mother when he was seven and a private tuition teacher, outspoken and kind Miss Sue, who that no one knows her whereabouts. She is determined to succeed, because she, like Mrs. Tuohy, wants is also told that, although he has scored him to play for Ole Miss. During their geography lesson, she low in a career aptitude test, he is in the makes a remark about the University of Tennessee burying 98th percentile in "protective instincts." the body parts of dead people under their football field, which Michael seems to believe blindly. While he had been leaning Leigh Anne uses that to explain to him toward Tennessee, this event leads him ultimately to sign on how to play football. Up to that moment, with Ole Miss. Page : 4 The Blind Side Chapter 5 Family There comes a moment when Leigh Anne Michael realizes that the Tuohys are now his family, and tells wants to have a face-to-face conversation Granger that that's the reason he has chosen Ole Miss. with Michael's mother Denise to enable her to adopt Michael. Although she Michael succeeds and becomes a professional NFL football seems unresponsive in the beginning, the playerplayer later on for Baltimore Ravens. mother finally wishes Michael the best. She says that social services had branded Michael "a runner," and she forecasts that Leigh Anne will find one day that he has run away for good without giving any previous notice. Leigh Anne also faces some tough guys from the projects who had made ugly insinuations about her before. They are left speechless when she threatens them and is not afraid of them at all. Many universities want Michael to play on their teams. Sean talks to the coaches, and leads the negotiations on Michael's behalf—and his own. When Michael gets his grades high enough, he must make a decision, and he does. He chooses the university for which Sean had played, and where Leigh Anne had been a cheerleader. That causes Investigator Granger (Sharon Morris) to look into the matter before Michael arrives there. She questions him as though she were holding interrogatory proceedings at a police station. She thinks that the Tuohys and Miss Sue are using Michael to benefit Ole Miss, their alma mater. Michael runs away before the interview is over, and goes to find his birth mother. The leader of the tough guys welcomes him back to Hurt Village, offers him a beer, and insinuates that Michael has had sexual relations with Leigh Anne or her daughter. This rouses Michael's protective instincts, as the gang leader threatens to go after the two ladies himself. Michael shoves him into a wall, knocking his gun aside. After thinking and questioning Leigh Ann on the matter, Page : 5 The Blind Side The Man Behind The Story The film the blind side is based on the book “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game”. The book was written by Michael Lewis and was realeased in 2006. The book features two dominant storylines. The first is an examination of how offensive football strategy has evolved over the past three decades in large part due to Lawrence Taylor’s arrival in the 1980s and how this evolution has placed an increased importance on the role of the left tackle. The second storyline features Michael Oher, the former left tackle for the Ole Miss football team, and later right tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. Lewis follows Oher from his impoverished upbringing through his years at Briarcrest Christian School, his adoption by Sean (Michael Lewis’s former schoolmate) and Leigh Anne Tuohy and on to his position as one of the most highly coveted prospects in college football. The Author Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include Liar’s Poker (1989), The New New Thing (2000), Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003), The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (2006), Panic (2008), Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood (2009), The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010), and Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (2011). He has also been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009. http://michaellewiswrites.com/index.html#top.
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