Michael Oher and The Blindside

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Yep, that’s how a monopoly works. If a player wants a chance at using his abilities in the NFL, he pretty much has to play under the NCAA. This creates situations like that of Michael Oher where he had to rely on the goodwill (whether charitable or selfish) of people like the Tuohys.

Oher thinks this situation was exploitative, manipulative and humiliating. But most posters on this thread apparently feel he is ungrateful because the Ohers were the ones who had the inside knowledge and money to get him access to this monopoly.

I’m advocating for the monopoly to be broken. Let outstanding young players have another option – an actual minor league. If the unpaid student-athlete gig is as good of a deal as everyone assures me it is, the players will choose that instead, no?

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But it’s not unpaid anymore. Multiple colleges now give their football players free trucks paid for with NIL money. Some stars in less remunerative sports make more in college than they might do turning pro (certainly the case for some gymnasts and IIRC rumored to be the case for Caitlin Clark).

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Why would a star high school athlete go to minor league of football? No exposure, few fans, and the grind of sub-par training facilities, hotels, and etc. Michael Oher was at a top college football program, received excellent athletic training/coaching, was on the radar for the NFL, had thousands of fans cheering him every weekend, the opportunity to get a degree in case the football thing did not work out. Why do you think a minor league system would be preferable to a top college football program? I had a few friends who were minor league baseball players and it was not glamorous…

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Why do you continue to espouse this ‘unpaid’ belief? The quid (prior to NIL) for many D1 players that we are focused on in this thread was a completely free education plus free living expenses, like Michael Oher received. Now many D1 players are making significant money on top of not having any expenses while in college…all while playing the game they want to be playing.

What do you think the benefits to the players of a football minor league would be?

Let’s look at two existing minor league systems that we do have…In the MLB minor leagues, the per season salaries range from $26K to $36K under the new CBA, which basically doubled the prior numbers. That’s not much, certainly far less than a free education, which comes with better housing and tons of free food for those in college. And very limited opportunity for endorsement (NIL) money in the minor leagues. And the other downsides mentioned in the post above.

Hockey minor league minimum is $520/week, just for the season when they are playing. Doesn’t seem too appealing.

I’m not saying the current system doesn’t have issues….but money drives the college football engine. Money that the colleges are highly motivated by, which we have seen play out in spades the past few months with the implosion of one of the power 5 conferences. All money driven, every decision at every step of the way…with the blessing of the Boards and Presidents.

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So how would you have ranked Tom Brady? He was drafted 199th, and that was after 4 (5?)years of college in a top program.

Brock Perdy was Mr. Irrelevant (drafted last) and is now the starting QB for the 49ers. He went to Iowa State because he was hurt in high school (and then sick with mono) and didn’t get many offers from big programs. Should he have not had a chance to play pro?

Most college players WANT to be there, playing for as long as it lasts. They like it. That’s the same as other sports without a pro career head of them. They get to play, get an education, get some free pizza.

I went to a college basketball game earlier this week. Both teams had some skinny kids on them, just growing into their bodies. I went to a college football game today, and again most of them aren’t ready for the pros. Some don’t weigh 175 pounds. I really think they are all doing what they want to do, playing college sports and going to class.

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He has the right to feel that way, but if want the $15M he thinks he should have received from The Blind Side book and movie, then he will need to prove it. No one else got $15m for the book or movie but if he thinks that’s what he deserves, he’ll need to prove it.

He could earn nothing during the years 2004-2009 while he was at Ole Miss. (before NIL allowed players to earn anything). He couldn’t even take a bag of tacos from the coaches or any other booster. He admits in his books (I’ve read them both) that HE chose Ole Miss and the only way he could do that after taking money from the Tuohys (food, clothing, tutoring, transportation, a phone, insurance, college recruiting trips in private planes) was for them to set up the conservatorship or another arrangement the NCAA would accept. While he was in college, he continued to accept money and gifts from the Tuohys and that would have been a violation to accept that from a booster but the conservatorship was in place. He could have gone to Tennessee, maybe Memphis (Sean Tuohy had a connection with Memphis too, so maybe not), but he chose not to. Would the Tuohys have continued to support him if he had gone to Tennessee? I think they would have but if they didn’t, no one else would have and he would have been a very very poor college football player with no tacos, no extra clothing, no place to spend summer vacations, no beer money, no phone. Things were very different in 2004 than they are now with NIL. Even with NIL, it’s the QBs making the big money, not the linemen.

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Yes, and what I’m advocating for is that football players be given the same opportunity with their sport. They should have a minor league to evaluate. Then they can look at it and choose for themselves whether they would rather play at the minor league level or the college level, as baseball and hockey players already do. Why the effective monopoly in football?

Yes, it sure does. Billions as you say. Billions that even now, the athletes see very little of. And what money (the few) athletes do see through NIL was fought for years by the NCAA.

And the ability of players to switch teams rather than be essentially owned by the team they signed with as 17 year olds–this the NCAA fought too. I try to imagine as a parent some entity telling me that my son is not allowed to transfer if he finds out the college he chose at 17 isn’t a good fit. That they plan to make transferring as difficult as possible. That if he does leave, he won’t be allowed to participate in his activities for a year. Wow, I would be enraged.

The NCAA kept saying they knew best, and that the freedom to transfer or do NIL was not in the best interest of athletes, and that athletes didn’t need it and didn’t deserve it because of how valuable the opportunity to go to college was.

Apparently athletes felt otherwise…

If Oher had had a minor league available, he could have chosen that rather than have to be at the mercy of the Tuohys pulling strings for him. And then this whole thread debating how “ungrateful” he is wouldn’t exist. I’m just advocating for there to be no more Oher situations in the future.

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What would the benefit of a football minor league be to the players? That’s the crux of the issue.

You have to make it a better choice (for at least some proportion of athletes), and then someone has to pay for it. How could it even get started when all the best players and coaches are in the college game? Those folks would have zero incentive to move from college to the minor leagues, because the good ones would receive far less money and/or things of value in the minor leagues than in college. To have a serious conversation about this you have to be realistic about what the advantages/disadvantages of college vs any proposed minor league system would be. I haven’t heard anything that addresses that based on the facts of where things actually stand today. And for MLB minors, far more of the 18-21 year olds with pro dreams are in college. For hockey players, many of the 18–21 year olds with pro dreams are in junior leagues, then they go to college after 3 years in juniors.

Maybe Oher would have chosen minor leagues, but that wasn’t an option. I expect he would have gone where the best coaching, players, and facilities were. It doesn’t sound to me like the Tuohys were involved at all with the negotiations of his various NFL or sponsor contracts, unless I missed something (and they evidently had the right to be involved in all of those negotiations). Big picture it’s a good thing that Oher has a college degree, but I know some people think that’s not important.

Good thing it’s not like this anymore. But it hasn’t come without it’s consequences…far fewer college options for high school seniors (fewer options for low SES kids to go to college), as well as the ability of a new coach to come in and basically fire a large proportion of the existing team (like Deion Sanders did) because he could get players to transfer in and play right away (rather than needing to wait a year). If the players that Deion let go didn’t get picked up in the portal they were done with college football. Some of those who didn’t get picked up were done with college because they had no way to pay. Those are two bad consequences of an unrestricted transfer portal. Maybe football could start with a D league like basketball. But guys sure don’t want to be there either.

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Low SES kids being able to go to college is a big goal of mine, too. I think it is unconscionable that being able to attend college is tied to the ability to play D1 sports! So few high school athletes can even make it to this level as you pointed out in a comment above. What a completely screwed up system. I am really happy to see things changing in my state, at least. Public college is now FREE for students coming from families who make $80K or less.

Yes, isn’t that sick and sad? This system of tying college funding to whether or not you work to make colleges billions of dollars should end.

I agree that people differ in the importance they place on a college degree. I feel comfortable leaving this decision up to the individual.

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He might have had a choice, but very little money. Players can go into minor league baseball but they don’t even make minimum wage. A co-worker’s son was playing basketball in Germany (after he played in college on a scholarship) and he was lucky to live with relatives. He made about $800/mo (this was in the 1990s) and had to pay all his own expenses including food. College players do better and this kid did (played at Hawaii).

People pay to go to their old college games, buy sweatshirts, donate extra money. How much do people spend on minor league baseball games? A few teams have a following, but not many teams make a profit and they get a lot of money from their major league owners. I’ve lived in cities with minor league baseball and gone to a few games for fun, but they didn’t get rich off me buying two or three $5 tickets a season.

Were other students on scholarship allowed to transfer freely to other schools? Could an Alabama student on a full NMS scholarship just pick up and transfer to Florida State, which had offered a similar scholarship? All 16-17 year olds are making commitments to colleges. I’d argue the student athletes have MORE information than the average student. They’ve toured, stayed overnight, eaten in the training dining room, participated in practices. Is it really going to be that different if they play at Michigan rather than Wisconsin, at Harvard rather than Yale? Did they get to pick their high schools or did they just play where assigned? In California you get one ‘free’ transfer and then you are locked into your high school for sports (with exceptions for parents moving, etc) There have been high school players locked out of playing because they transferred to a private school, left to play AAU basketball, and then tried to return to their first school. And no NIL money.

IMO, the transfer portal has a negative effect on college sports. It makes it very hard for a school to build a team. A few players get to move around and everyone else pays the price that another, maybe better, player is going to come in and bump you when you’ve committed to the coach/school/academics/community. Even in the NFL and NBA, the players can’t just leave and go play for another team. They get drafted and then the team ‘owns’ them for several years.

Michael Oher always needed someone to help him. A minor league football system wouldn’t have helped him. He had no money, no sponsors, no way to get to the place to play minor league footfall even if such a thing existed (could he get to Canada?).

Read his books. His books (which I’m sure he didn’t write on his own) tell his story and it is one of drugs (not for him), poverty, insecurity. Read the stories of other NFL players. Many came from poverty but very few got to college and then to the pros without help- a high school coach, a strong family supporting them, and a whole lotta luck.

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Also, before the transfer portal a player could transfer (nothing barring him from doing so) he just had to sit out a year. Really, not any different than non-compete agreements which are all over the working world.

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I agree that commitment of people in general has become very squishy. I think Michael Oher greatly benefitted by having structure the last couple of years in high school; And then more structure with four years at Ole Miss. Bouncing around to different programs does not benefit athletes. Each “move” they are having to readjust, and for most people it takes more than a few months to really learn a system and become comfortable. One of the reasons many freshman football players are red-shirted.

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I understand the reason for your comments. Unfortunately, any solution that keeps college football from being the stepping stone to the NFL is not feasible.

  1. A minor league football system will never have the size or the potential to provide similar benefits to its players that college football currently offers. A lot of people watch college football. Not only will they pay a lot of money to do so, but a lot of boosters will pay even more money so their schools have whatever it takes to win. In comparison, nobody watches or pays money to the minor league of any sport.
    Let’s use baseball’s minor league system as a comparison. There are 120 minor league baseball teams. Minor league baseball minimum salaries range from $19,800-$35,800. The average minor league baseball salary is $64K. How many minor teams would the NFL agree to start-up? How many would actually make a profit? In the NCAA, there are 133 D1 FBS teams that provide 85 full-ride scholarships as well as 128 D1 FCS teams that provide 63 full-ride scholarships. A full-ride scholarship is worth approximately $50K.

In addition, there is now the NIL market which this year was $1 billion, but is expected to reach $3-5 billion in 3-5 years. For example, a nonprofit NIL collective at Texas Tech called the Matador Club pays 85 scholarship players and 15 walk-ons $25,000 annually in a teamwide deal. Players are expected to perform community service and charitable work in exchange for the compensation. Most D1 football players now make around $10-$50K in NIL deals. The top 100 college football players NIL valuations currently range from $4.6 million for #1 (Shedeur Sanders) to $474K for #100. FYI. Shedeur recently bought a $400K Rolls-Royce which got booted by U Colorado campus police this week.

  1. The NFL does not want a minor league system because it doesn’t work for them.
    a. Projecting future professional careers in advance is very inaccurate and basically impossible
    ex: Justin Jefferson #1 WR in the NFL was a 2-star recruit in HS
    ex: Patrick Mahomes #1 QB in the NFL was a 3-star recruit in HS
    ex. Travis Kelce #1 TE in the NFL was a 2-star recruit in HS
    ex. Christian McCaffrey #1 RB in he NFL was a 4-star recruit in HS
    ex. “Sauce” Gardner #1 CB in the NFL was a 3-star recruit in HS
    ex. Trent Williams, #1 OT in the NFL was a 3-star recruit in HS

    There are approximately 1000 3-star & thousands of 2-star HS recruits each year. How big would the league have to be to accommodate a small fraction of them?

    b. Football players (especially the skilled positions) take a long time to develop
    ex. Almost 50% of recruited FBS college freshman redshirt their first year because they
    aren’t ready to play
    ex 2023 HS #1 ranked player in the country Archie Manning is taking a redshirt this year.
    ex: Joe Burrow #1 QB drafted 2019, took a redshirt his first year, was a backup QB his
    2nd and 3rd year, transferred to LSU his 4th year, became a great QB and Heisman
    trophy winner his 5th year.

    c. Among all college sports, football players have the highest risk of injury, especially serious injury. How will a minor league system be able to absorb salaries for the many players who will miss significant # of games or even the entire season because of injury?

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Although I will note this is changing. My field is one where non-competes were the norm. But in the last few years we have united to oppose them with great success. We are even advancing legislation to get rid of them! Non-competes were never in OUR best interests, just the interests of our employers. Now we can truly say “you don’t own us.”

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It’s now changed (for the most part) in college athletics. The players can enter the portal and change teams.

You may have united to oppose the non-competes, and the players did too, but they can’t hire agents or lawyers to negotiate terms of their next ‘contract’ so now these 18-22 year olds are on their own.

Michael Oher was going to leave school after 3 years, as soon as he was eligible, but decided to stay, get a degree, have another year of growth before entering the draft. IMO being friends with the Tuohys gave him that option. He wasn’t as dirt poor as some other players.

He didn’t seem to be disappointed in his college life or the Tuohys until long after he graduated, and even in his books he doesn’t say anything bad about Ole Miss or the Tuohys.

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Are athletes prohibited by LAW from hiring agents and lawyers or just by the NCAA’s own self-serving rules? If it’s the latter, I support the players in standing up to this. And if it’s the former I support them in trying to change the law. My belief is that Individuals ought to be able to negotiate in their own best interests – because you better believe the NCAA and schools already do. And to be clear, when I say “own best interests” I mean as determined by the athletes themselves, not by an outsider claiming to know best.

When you say “friends” are you referring to the conservatorship that the Tuohy’s had him sign? Because, at least in my state, a conservatorship mandates that the conservators “pay the reasonable charges for the support, maintenance, and education
of the protected person in a manner suitable to the protected person’s station in life.” It also requires that the conservators conduct the protected person’s financial matters in a fiduciary manner.

I am ok with people learning more and having this new understanding change their opinions of past events. This has certainly been the case at times in my own life.

I think this thread comes down to whether people see Oher as having been lucky to have the Tuohys, or whether they feel the Tuohys were lucky to have Oher. For me personally, the latter seems much more true.

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I agree. People can see the same situation differently, and our experiences at least partially inform how we perceive things.

Tuohys certainly didn’t need any money from movie or book deals (and it turns out they didn’t receive all that much)…Sean Tuohy sold his businesses for over $200M (post Blind Side), and those businesses were making plenty of money at the point they met Oher.

Tuohys also could have inserted themselves into Oher’s life for the past 15 years, including being involved in every single contract he signed (NFL contracts, sponsorship deals, houses, all because of the conservatorship)…it doesn’t seem like they were involved in any of that, but maybe I missed something?

Having worked with low SES athletes (most football, via a foundation) for the past six years or so, one realizes how incredibly difficult it is to launch these kids out of their circumstances even with the numerous resources the foundation provided for these kids. Some have seen great success (defined in a few ways, including playing in the NFL), while others couldn’t make the transition to college for a variety of reasons, and everything in between. No matter how talented Oher was in HS, he was a long long way from being successful in college and pro football, and life. None of us have any idea if the Tuohy’s changed the trajectory of his life or not, why pretend otherwise?

ETA: Here’s the dedication to the Tuohys in Oher’s book “I Beat the Odds”:
“To the Tuohy family, you are truly a blessing to me. Thank you for helping me to turn my dreams into reality.”

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I agree completely; it is about perspective and we all bring different experiences to the table.

In my case, my perspective comes from working in a very underfunded and segregated school where nearly all the students are low SES. Perhaps my opinions come off as cynical, but I can tell you that just about nobody gives a single crap about these kids unless and until they have recruitable sports potential. Basically, if they aren’t of use, they are invisible. But if they show potential to be of use, then all of a sudden people “care.”

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Yep…the deck is stacked against those kids. Even for the ones with ‘talent’ be it academic, musical, athletic, it’s often not enough to get out of their situations and socioeconomic level. More than a few of our foundation kids lost their lives before the age of 20.

But that is a different issue than those who are saying the Tuohys didn’t act in a fiduciary manner in their dealings with Oher, or that they had ulterior motives when they took him in when he was 16/17 because you know the book deal.

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I do recommend reading the books The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, and Oher’s two books. As I said above, most of the facts in the books are the same, whether it be about his having 11 siblings, being in foster care, the schools he ‘attended’, his first interactions with the Tuohys, and his time at the christian high school. What is different is how these fact are woven into his life.

Oher says his time in foster care was the best. Lewis says the time in foster care was rough, with Oher and his brothers being picked on, sleeping on the slats of the beds but no mattresses, having to work selling newspapers on the streets.

Lewis’ book also talks about the kids that didn’t make it, other athletes and Oher’s brothers. Oher was the 7th boy in his family. He didn’t really know his younger siblings as they went into foster care the first time he did (he was about age 7) and never were reunited with their mother. Some of his brothers are dead, others on drugs. I think one or two have jobs and families.

The odds just weren’t with him, his siblings, his peers.

The book points out that Sean Tuohy did help other low income students from the high school taking some to their athletic events (tennis, track and field).