Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Unavailable
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Unavailable
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Audiobook11 hours

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

Written by Michael Lewis

Narrated by Stephen Hoye

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.
When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.
What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself.
In THE BLIND SIDE, Lewis shows us a largely unanalyzed but inexorable trend in football working its way down from the pros to the high school game, where it collides with the life of a single young man to produce a narrative of great and surprising power.


From the Compact Disc edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 17, 2006
ISBN9781415933053
Unavailable
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Author

Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is the host of the podcast Against the Rules. He has published many New York Times bestselling books, including Liar's Poker, The Fifth Risk, Flash Boys, and The Big Short. Movie versions of The Big Short, Moneyball, and The Blind Side were all nominated for Academy Awards. He grew up in New Orleans and remains deeply interested and involved in the city but now lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their children.

More audiobooks from Michael Lewis

Related to The Blind Side

Related audiobooks

Sports & Recreation For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for The Blind Side

Rating: 3.9805755286330933 out of 5 stars
4/5

695 ratings62 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Blindside took me by surprise. I was expecting a book documenting the life of Michael Oher, but instead I got a 300 page description of how football has changed-- with Oher's experience to enhance it.

    Lewis uses the facts of Oher's life parallel with notable changes in the National Football League (NFL). Though these events did not occur simultaneously, Lewis connects them as if they were meant to go hand in hand. And in some ways, maybe they were.

    For anybody who has seen the movie portrayal of the book and has an interest in football, I would deem this book a "must read". I got much more out of it than I did from the movie. You get a better sense of who these people really were. But, I would also say if you're not too interested in the dynamics of the game this book is likely going to prove boring and a disappointment.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting study of Michael Orr as he moves from a destitute child in Memphis to a premiere college football athlete. Much different than the movie by the same name.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There were two parts to this story. The first part was about the evolution of the offensive lineman in football. The other part of the story was about Michael Oher and his path toward the NFL. Both storylines were very interesting, but I didn't like how Lewis skipped back and forth in time between both stories. He would switch narratives abruptly and it was confusing at times because I was listening to the audiobook. But I was very interested in finishing the book. I was a graduate student at LSU when Nick Saban attempted to recruit Michael Oher and I remember the stories surrounding the recruitment and the NCAA. Coach O (who ended up with Oher at Ole Miss) is now our head football coach. The personal connections made the story more interesting. The best part of the whole book however was listening to the narrator attempt Coach O's speech and accent and then have to translate it. Priceless.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Blindside took me by surprise. I was expecting a book documenting the life of Michael Oher, but instead I got a 300 page description of how football has changed-- with Oher's experience to enhance it.

    Lewis uses the facts of Oher's life parallel with notable changes in the National Football League (NFL). Though these events did not occur simultaneously, Lewis connects them as if they were meant to go hand in hand. And in some ways, maybe they were.

    For anybody who has seen the movie portrayal of the book and has an interest in football, I would deem this book a "must read". I got much more out of it than I did from the movie. You get a better sense of who these people really were. But, I would also say if you're not too interested in the dynamics of the game this book is likely going to prove boring and a disappointment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Totally fascinating.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "The Blind Side," another true story written by Michael Lewis, describes a man named Michael Oher's life. Michael had an everything but normal childhood, as his mother was a drug addict, his father left him when he was only a boy, and has many brothers and sisters. Michael lives in a part of Memphis where everyone is black, and there is a lot of violence, poverty, and drug use. There is another unusual thing about Michael's life: he is 6 foot 4 and 315 pounds. Not only that, but Michael is very athletic for his size, which is a great combination to becoming a starting offensive lineman in the NFL. The most important position of the line is the left tackle, as that player is responsible for protecting his quarterbacks blindside. Michael is adopted into a white families home, named the Tuohy's, and they provide him with a place of shelter, food, and love. They also pay for Michael's education, and introduce him to football. Soon, Michael becomes a great player at left tackle, and is recruited to play at the University of Mississippi. After graduating from college, Oher is selected in the first round of the NFL draft, and owes it all to the loving, Christian family that adopted him.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The first half is a feel good story. The second half gets into the complexities of the situation.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I feel slightly misled by this one: I thought it was going to be a biography of a kid that comes from nothing and becomes a big sports star. And it was sort of. I just wasn't expecting the mounds of information about American football. As an Australian and not at all sports orientated I did skip through at least four (probably more) chapters that were totally irrelevant and mind bogglingly dull (for me). Which I'm sure anyone with interest in the game would get something out of. Having said that the parts of the book I read we're well written and I came away with a good sense of the people and place involved. The social and religious issues the story raised will be relevant for many years to come sadly.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The only thing about this book that wasn't to my taste was the few chapters that were purely about football and the history of football. Even though I care way less about sports than I did while growing up, I still do enjoy learning new things, so these chapters weren't entirely bad to get through.

    The rest of the book was the story of Michael Oher's life and his transition from extreme rags (Michael grew up in one of the poorest zip codes in the US) to extreme riches (He moved in with a family who owned a private jet) - it's the major reason I wanted to read this book in the first place. I think it was told pretty well. I kept wanting to know more about Michael and his life before the Tuohys took him in, but he was a mystery to everyone who knew him. You finally do learn more about his past at the end of the book though.

    My other reason for reading is that the events of this story took place just a few years ago in the city I live in. I've never been to Michael's original neighborhood, and I'm glad I got to visit it through a book rather than actually going there.

    It's worth reading if you're a football fan, of course, but it's also worth a read if you're interested in reading about major cultural transitions just by moving a few miles.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The passing game has developed, increasing the value of the quarterback, thus also increasing the value of the left tackle, who protects the qb, who is usually right-handed. Then the story of Michael Oher, a kid with a troubled life, but who is perfect for the left tackle position because he is huge, fast and with big hands. It is striking that in American football having experience and training seems much less important than in football, as kids who have the right build can be hailed as future stars despite never having played much.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The book The Blind Side by Michael Lewis is a true story about a boy who was found walking on the street being picked up by a wealthy family who had then started to take care of him. This was hard for me to understand because I do not understand football that well. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy football and have a really good understanding about it, because at the very start of the book he starts talking about a football game and all the details about it which confused me because it was a long time into the book until it seemed the story had began.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have no interest in football. So the ability of this author to keep my interest sustained, even when he spends whole chapters explaining various aspects of the game, is remarkable. The way he does that is through making it personal. The main focus is of course on Michael Oher and the Touhy family. I love stories of individuals beating the odds to survive and thrive, and this one certainly fits the bill. The author does spend a bit too much time talking about the technical aspects of football (he didn't make it all interesting for me), but other than that it's a great read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Blind Side was a very inspiratational book and it's glad to know that things like this really do happen
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was written for an adult audience, but it's great for 8th grade football fans. Lewis analyzes how football strategy has changed and evolved, straight to the fact that the left tackle has become the most highly paid position on the offensive line. This is because that player protects the quarterback's "blind side" and prevents sacks. Lewis takes that and gives us the story of Michael Oher, a sometimes homeless Memphis teen who became a left tackle prodigy at the Christian high school he attended. He was taken in by a wealthy white family, and was tracked and courted by every major college coach in the nation because of his enormous size and natural talents for playing football. Oher backed out of the NFL draft this year to play one more year of football for Ole Miss, but keep an eye out for him next spring when it's draft time! This is an amazing story, but definitely 8th grade and up due to language issues and descriptions of the projects that Michael's mother lived in.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is very much a football book. It's about game strategy, how a change affected pro ball and thus the price of athletes and, secondarily, about the supporting industry of college football. So if you're more interested in the story of Michael Oher, child welfare services in Memphis or Tennessee, the degree of awfulness of Tennessee or Memphis public schools, as I was ... well, there's some information but probably not enough. However, you'll learn how much the movie left out. I wish in particular that the movie had revealed something about the background of Sean, the father. You discover that he has more in common with Michael than the movie suggested. Sean had a loving coach father but he was a scholarship boy all through grade school and high school (where I bet Michael Lewis was not a scholarship boy). When his father became severely ill in high school, Sean often didn't have lunch or lunch money. So it's perfectly logical for him to look out for the poor kids at his own kids' private school. He also went to Ole Miss courtesy of his basketball skills; he loved basketball but hated his college coach. Yet there was no way he could stop playing basketball because that was paying his tuition (though, really, couldn't he have gone back to a state school in La? Tuition would have been trifling in those days, I'd suspect.) I still don't understand why the Tuohys didn't consider having Michael repeat a year of high school and acquire a better educational foundation but the book does clarify why the college football offers were so important; watching the movie I was thinking: "They're rich. They can pay tuition anywhere. Why does this kid need a scholarship?" Answer: he wouldn't want to go to college, or have the incentive to get there *unless he could play a sport* which is the means to reach the pro level. OK, so I've been sheltered I am from the rules of southern college football. I can't follow a football game, don't like the sport. The mantra of teachers, parents and and former athletic scholarship beneficiaries I've known has always been that the athletic prowess was a means to pay for a college degree: you might end up in the pros, but for sure you'd have a degree and a way to earn a living better than that of your parents. As for these guys like Michael at Ole Miss, if they don't go pro or last long as a pro, are they qualified to do anything? Lewis barely touches on that in the book but he does make something of a suggestion in an online interview with an annoying interviewer called Robert Birnbaum. I don't think it's to radically upgrade educational standards and admittance criteria at these football schools. He also explains what those BYU correspondence courses are about.Finally, you get very little sense of Michael's inner life, his birth family and how the heck this kid survived before his rescue. How did he find food? Was his mother ever a mother? Although Michael was still staying at his mother's home when he started Briarcrest and Leigh Ann encouraged him to continue to visit her, it seems that none of the Tuohys had met her or his brothers at the time of publication. I wonder if Lewis even tried. I understand Michael's desire to not to dwell on his hardships. It's a pretty natural response of people that have endured terrible trauma too. Adults in developing countries from poverty-stricken childhoods often have that attitude too. But now Michael has his own co-written memoir! He must have changed his mind. At any rate, it has to have more details than The Blind Side.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Better than Moneyball, not a patch on Liars Poker. Great on the analysis of the game and how the role of the left tackle has been transformed and transformed. The rest of its a bit twee.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read before the movie came out. Liked the personal side of story. Rest of book talks about the game of football, the growing importance of the left tackle position, and various coaches and their offensive approaches, such as Bill Walsh. Good book for sports guys.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What a great story! Here's one where the movie may actually be better than the book. There are so many sections in this book where the author just starts talking about football and doesn't stop. I skipped those because I didn't want to read about Joe Montana, other famous quarterbacks or left tackles. I was there for Michael Oher! There are some stories in the book that must be embarassing for the man--his original IQ, his lack of cultural knowledge and his grades. But as we all know by now, Oher is an overcomer and things do turn out for the best in the end. Over the weekend I actually started watching a Baltimore Ravens' game to see if I could spot Oher. That's amazing!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What makes the Blind Side interesting was not the race issues or not the poverty (There are endless books about that), but the genius of Bill Walsh and Bill Parcells and Lemmings and how the they totally changed the game enabling someone like Michael Oher to reach to reach his potential (with a lot of help).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book - it was a very inspirational story about survival, generosity and family. I'm glad that I read the book before I watched the movie version.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was a wonderful read. It gives you such an amazing feeling after reading this!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I think I'll start off by saying that I'm not a sports fan. At all. I get utterly bored out of my mind if I'm in the vicinity of any sports game and don't play because it's a horrible sight to see me play a sport. But oddly enough, I have an intense like of sports movies. Which is how I learned about The Blind Side in the first place. Well, that's only partly to blame. I'm also an unabashed Sandra Bullock fan and love most of her films, so of course I had to go see The Blind Side. Usually, I like to read a book before the movie comes out. Mostly, that's because when you see the movie first, the book is bound to get tainted with the movie. It's inevitable whether you loved it or hated it. In some rare instances where this happened I liked the movie more than the book. This happened with Practical Magic (another Sandra Bullock film) and The Blind Side. The book focused more on the game of football than I would've liked. But then again, it is also subtitled Evolution of a Game, so it's not like I was misled. There were some parts of the book where my mind wandered and I was just thinking "Get back to the family. That's why I'm reading." Then again, there were some football only parts that had me engrossed in the book. But, the story of Michael Oher was why I kept reading. Michael Oher's story was inspirational. He made something of himself, even though he was plagued with obstacles. And the Tuohy's taking him and all that they did for him was heartwarming. This book was also had it's fair share of humor and I let out a chuckle here and there. But with the good also comes the bad. And the bad comes from me seeing the movie first. The characters were somewhat more likeable in the movie than in the book. Leanne Tuohy comes out more snobby and bitchy in the book. The coach, whom I loved in the movie, came out more as a snake and someone with ulterior motives. Another thing that bothered me in the book was how in some moments, it seemed like the Tuohy's did have a hidden agenda. I know that they didn't, but I understand how they would seem like boosters to the NCAA. Although, some of the characters came off a bit standoff-ish in the book, one character whom I loved in the book and the movie was Sean Tuohy. He was a major part of the book, yet he wasn't that much of a main character in the movie. I enjoyed his parts in the book. Also, already having seen the movie, I kept picturing Sean as Tim McGraw. Allow me to have my shallow moment and say that since good ol' Tim is all sorts of yummy, I didn't have not one problem with his expanded role in the book. Anyway, even though I thought the book was just okay, I absolutely loved the movie. I thought it was just amazing. It made me laugh and cry and then cry a bit more. Amazing true story, with an amazing film to back it up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was surprised to find this was as much about the evolution of professional football as it is about the personal story of Michael Oher. I was even more surprised that I really enjoyed the football narrative. Unless you've been living in a cave, you probably have some familiarity with the personal story even if you (like me) never got around to seeing the movie- it is interesting and compelling, but I must say crying out for an update. As is the narrative ends after Michael's freshman year at Ole Miss.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Half a history of modern football and half the story of Michael Oher’s rescue from poverty. I came away feeling less good about this family than I did when I went in. However, there is some really fascinating information about football tactics. Am I a bad person for liking the football history more than the family story? … Maybe. Am I concerned about this? ... No. Is it fall yet?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great book,just a little too technical about football for my taste. I actually liked the movie better than the book-that never happens. However, the technical details gave me an education on football-a sport I love.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am not much of a non-fiction book reader. I have read a handful of biographies in my lifetime but fantasy is usually my stock and trade in books. However, I am a football fan, and I did enjoy the movie this book is based on. Luckily, those two things motivated me to pick up The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. This book gives us two stories and lots of insight. The two stories are how the game of Football has changed from 1975 through/to the 1990s and how as a result of this change in football and by the generosity of one family a young man's life changes. Both stories are masterfully told and so enrapturing that I couldn't put the book down. I read the entire book in one day putting off the errands that I need to do until tomorrow just so I could finish.Plot: There are really two stories told in The Blind Side. One story is about how the game of Football changed once passing the football became a major offensive tool. The other story is about a young poor African-American boy name Michael. He is given a rare chance through some unusual circumstances to change his life. These stories intertwine because the change that happens in the game of football is one of the reasons that Michael is given his chance at a new and better life. The stories are told intertwined with one another as one depends on the other. Had the game of football not changed the way it did then perhaps Michael would never have been given the chance he was. The first tale is about how the passing game becomes more essential to the game of football, and how as the passing game becomes more important so do the quarterbacks. Therefore, if the quarterbacks are more important and you spend a lot of money on them, then it becomes important to protect them. Therefore, the protector of the quarterback becomes a key and eventually a high paid player especially the one on the blind side of the quarterback (that would be the left side since most quarterbacks are right handed). This position, the left side tackle, takes an unusual combination of bulk and athleticism that is seldom seen in one individual. Therefore, good and properly built left tackles are rare and now highly paid in the NFL. The Left tackle, the book explains, became particularly important with the introduction of players like Lawrence Taylor who would rush the blind side of quarterbacks to sack them. Lawrence Taylor was a particularly vicious player that injured many a quarterback and ended the career of Joe Theismann, quarterback for the Redskins. Players like Lawrence Taylor increased the importance for a team to have that unique left tackle capable of stopping them and protecting the quarterback from injury. This is because if you lose your quarterback that can cost you the season because good quarterbacks are hard to replace and are often the keystone of an offensive line. It is this evolution of the game of football that opens up the chance or opportunity for Michael Oher to become a great and successful football player since he has that unique build of a great left tackle. Michael is a poor African-American boy who never knew his father and had a drug addict for a mother. He also had 13 siblings many of which he had no real contact with. In some version of charity, a man takes Michael to be enrolled in a rich, all white Christian private school along with his own son Steven. The coaches there see the potential for having Michael on their teams but his academics are a mess and everyone just assumes he is stupid because he doesn't talk much and won't fill out tests. Then by some miracle a rich family, the Tuohys, take Michael under their wing. Sean Tuohy see a lot of himself in the boy, he was also poor when he was young and is a self-made man through the help of sports (in his case basketball), and Leigh Anne just saw someone who needed helping so she helped him. They take him in, feed him, clothe him and help him get his grades up so he can play football in high school and in college. And the rest they say is history. We all know that Michael Oher ends up being a first round draft pick in the NFL. He is actually still playing for the Baltimore Ravens. What reading this novel shows you is what an extraordinary journey it was for Michael to get to where he is today. It is inspiring in both what he is able to accomplish and how Tuohys helped him. This book also explains why a lineman position is so important to the football and what makes Michael uniquely suited for that position in the game. It also reminds there are people out there that can succeed in life if only given a chance. And sometimes ordinary people like us can give them that chance. I think this book is very nicely written. The parts about the evolution of football are nicely intermixed with Michael's story so that neither drag nor bore the reader. Lewis's writing style is straight forward and easy to read. He is able to captivate the reader and pull them into the story he has to tell. I thought he did a very nice job explaining the job of the left tackle and the how and why that position has become so important in football. It was easy for me to understand and I found it a very fascinating history of how football has changed. I don't know all that much about the history of football. I am a fan of the NFL and watch it every year but I don't know anything about how the game has changed over the years and this book provided a nice starting point for my football history education in a nice, readable way. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it in one sitting. It moves very well and is an easy but educational read. If you enjoyed the movie or if you enjoy football then you should read this book. I don't think you will be sorry.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After seeing the movie, I was curious how much of the story was true. Now, having read the book, I can see that the movie adaptation was pretty true to the story as Michael Lewis wrote it. You can't help but feel for Michael Oher, as he somehow manages to find his way not only into a private Christian School, but eventually the NCAA and the NFL. This is a heart-warming story about the good in people; about the importance of believing in someone and seeing beyond the stereotypes. It is definitely a feel-good story, though at times, not being much a football fan, I found the writing got bogged down in technical details about the history and nature of the game of football. At those times, I just wanted to read more about Michael.Overall, I enjoyed this book. Insight into a world, of which I will never be a part, is always interesting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really think if this had been the exact same book, only about a kid who played baseball I would have unequivocally loved it. I enjoyed the sections that dealt with Michael and his relationship with the Tuohys, but I have very little interest in football, so the sections about the evolution of strategy and the left tackle were just a slog for me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I don't know anything about football and I skipped all the parts of the story about football and followed the storyline about the big kid, Michael Oher. I am interested to see how the story turns into a movie. One of the parts of the story that stuck with me long after I put the book down was the question of how important football was to Michael's rescue from poverty. Is it ethical to adopt a child for his football talents and what he can do for your team? Should he have stayed in school and put his literacy and education first, or was putting football first his opportunity or his exploitation?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great analysis of football and the importance of the left tackle. The title refers to the left tackle's importance in protecting the blind side of the quarterback. The importance of the position is mingled with the story of Micheal Oher and his rise as a high school star and college success at the position. (He was drafted in the first round of the NFL draft.)