The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game - A Book Review

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game is the seventh novel by author, Michael Lewis. After his highly acclaimed debut, Liar's Poker, this is Lewis' at his best. The story weaves back and forth between the evolution of the NFL's Left Tackle position and the unbelievable story of Michael Oher.

The book opens with the disturbing recollection of New York Giants' linebacker Lawrence Taylor's destructive sack of Washington Redskins' Joe Theismann. Taylor's bull rush off the left side of the offensive line, the quarterback's blind side, resulted in a gruesome career ending compound fracture of Theismann's leg.

It was a sack, if you saw it live or on Monday Night Football back in November, 1985, you will never forget. I was a freshman in college and had gone bowling with some friends that night. The Monday Night Football game was playing on the adjacent monitor to where we were keeping our bowling scores manually. I didn't see the live play, but saw the replay when O.J. Simpson, Joe Namath and Frank Gifford were beside themselves announcing the event. The bowling alley went quiet. Balls stopped rolling and pins stood motionless. The aftermath of the collision was hard to witness and even harder to stomach. A collective gasp echoed down the silent lanes. The scene was surreal. The NFL and the left tackle position had changed forever.

While this recounting made for a good opening chapter, this book is about something much bigger...Michael Oher.

A child of dangerous intercity Memphis streets, Michael Oher wandered the streets from age seven and was fending for himself by the age of nine. Michael's absent father was eventually murdered during the boy's formative years and Michael's mother was addicted to crack cocaine. Michael repeated first and second grade and had attended eleven different schools by the time he was finishing middle school. During Michael's seventh grade year he missed more days of school than he attended. His GPA hovered around 0.90, but the system kept passing him off to the next grade. By the time Leigh Anne and Sean Touhy picked Michael off the street, he was a non-communicative dissociative illiterate and also a 6'3", 275 lb., 15 year old black kid with only one pair of shorts, two shirts and no physical address.

I will not spoil the story, but sufficed to say, Michael Lewis utilizes a sense of humor with sound prose and amazing metaphors to create a damn fine read. Check it out before Hollywood spins a different tale and screws it up.

Al, the Travel Valet
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