Finished (E-Reader) - "I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond" - Michael Oher

After reading "the Blind Side" by Michael Lewis, I found "I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond" by Michael Oher, who is the football player on which the movie (and most of the book) "the Blind Side" was based.

I understand where Mr. Oher is coming from - a book or movie tends to take a fully-dimensional life and distil it down to 2 or 3 dimensions - much nuance is missed.  He feels that he was treated as an underperformer academically in both the movie and book, and feels that his performance is most likely explained not by personal characteristics ("smarts") but by situational ones (poor environment).  He is undoubtedly correct that the environment he grew up in is a substantial barrier to even a fraction of the success he's had.

However, his book ("I Beat the Odds") comes across as ignoring the freaky benefits he's had, and seems to put a lot of weight on his "drive" to get out of the ghetto.  I have trouble believing that that drive doesn't exist in a very large portion of the folks in these impoverished areas, but most don't manage to have 6'4" frames at a muscular 300+lbs., along with quickness and agility of a much smaller body.

Mr. Oher's early experience with schools don't support his "drive hypothesis" - he admittedly skipped school, often only attending for free lunch and sports practice.  If his success is due to innate drive, and his avenue of escape is "college to the pros", wouldn't that have been demonstrated by stellar attendance in high school to make the appropriate connections/skills to try his escape route?  Without extraordinary help from many folks, who provided home, food, clothing, and immense tutoring, along with entry in a school where his academic record would never reasonably have allowed entry, his "drive" would have been DOA.

I do find the "Blind Side" story incredible, and inspiring, both for the skills and drive of Mr. Oher and the generosity of the families he found peace and stability in.  However, if Mr. Oher ended up 6'0" and 200 lbs. I doubt his drive would have been enough for the career he ended up with, and the "Blind Side" would have been an entirely fictional story.

I will give credit to Mr. Oher for taking the 11th hour reprieve (e.g. working his tail off to upgrade his marks to allow for the High School to College escape route to be viable) and giving it all it was worth - at this point, I'll concede that 6'4" and 300lbs. had to take a back seat to drive and determination.