As [Denise] had no income except for whatever the government sent her on the first of each month, the children had no money for provisions. They had no food or clothing, except what they could scrounge from churches and the street. Surprisingly often, given the abundance of public housing in Memphis, they had no shelter. When asked what he recalls of his first six years, Michael said, “Going for days having to drink water to get full. Going to other people’s houses and asking for something to eat. Sleeping outside. The mosquitoes.”
Here, Lewis gives insight into the severity of Michael's poverty, showing how he was constantly uncertain about having the basic necessities of food and shelter. This description is made bleaker by Michael's recollection of the details of this period of his life, as it shows the vividness these struggles impressed on him. This summary also shows how different the world Michael grew up in was from where he ended up, and the traumatic impact this continual struggle to survive had on him.
There were tiny revelations that had Leigh Anne upset for days, for what they implied about his childhood. She took Michael with her and Sean Junior to a Barnes & Noble. As they walked through the store, Sean Junior spotted Where the Wild Things Are and said, “Look, Mom, you used to read that to me when I was little.” To which Michael replied, in the most detached tone, “I’ve never had anyone read me a book.”
This moment, and others like it, reveal both the love that Leigh Anne has for Michael and the pain that she feels in what he was not provided with. Her reaction indicates how strongly she cares for Michael and how much it hurts her to know he was neglected. This particular scene shows the basic absence of attention in Michael's life as a child. By focusing on the small act of reading a book to a child, Lewis is able to reveal how Michael was deprived of many of the basic experiences of being cared for as a kid. This feeling is augmented by the fact that Michael mentions this to her offhandedly, suggesting that he never even assumed it was something he should have.
You don’t think of fear as a factor in professional football. You assume that the sort of people who make it to the NFL are immune to the emotion. Perhaps they don’t mind being hit, or maybe they just don’t get scared; but the idea of pro football players sweating and shaking and staring at the ceiling at night worrying about the next day’s violence seems preposterous. The head coach of the Giants, Bill Parcells, didn’t think it preposterous, however. Parcells, whose passion is the football defense, believed that fear played a big role in the game. So did his players. They’d witnessed up close the response of opposing players to their own Lawrence Taylor.
This section from the first paragraph introduces the player Lawrence Taylor, depicting his reputation as a linebacker who inspired anxiety and worry in opposing players. Lewis focuses on the abnormal level of fear surrounding Taylor to explain his importance on the field and highlight how dramatically he changed the game with his presence. He writes about Taylor's effect on the other players in a way that underscores the force and brutality he brought to the game, and the strategic competition he, alone, spurred as a result.
Ayers, on the other hand, was a profile in toughness and pass-blocking technique. He was, for that one moment, the critical component of Bill Walsh’s passing attack, and hardly a soul in Candlestick Park noticed. He was a reminder that what sets football apart from other sports is that what you don’t see is often the most important thing. What John Ayers was doing seemed routine. But to the few who knew, and watched, it was a thing of beauty.
This quote about left tackle John Ayers highlights the qualities that made him good at his position while also demonstrating the thankless nature of his job. Lewis notes that his prowess was a "critical component" of coach Bill Walsh's entire field strategy, but still mentions that basically no one noticed his contribution to the game. In Lewis' portrayal, Ayers' essential contribution—finally providing a solid counter to Taylor's brutal assault on quarterbacks—escapes the notice of the audience, but is still "a thing of beauty."
A boy had collided with an event. The boy was in many ways unlikely. He had never thought of himself as a football player, and didn’t have the first idea what the fuss was all about. The event was a shift in football strategy that raised, dramatically, the value of the one role on the football field the boy was uniquely suited to play.
In this moment, Lewis ties the two threads of the book together, observing that Michael's strengths as a football player were being valued more highly as a result of a shift in the way the game was played. This passage is important to the book as a whole, as it shows how Michael's story fits into the larger narrative of football strategy shifting and changing, causing the left tackle position to be valued. The strangeness of this event is shown in the way that Michael was unaware of these changes occurring in the game at the professional level.
The technique Long taught Michael was called 'getting fit.' A lineman the size and power of Michel Oher needed only to get his hands on his defender to ruin his day. He was so strong, and his hands so big, that there was no opponent—certainly not in high school, probably not even in college—who, once hooked, could wriggle free. It was of course illegal for an offensive lineman to grab a defender broadly, sumo-style; the lineman had to master the art of grabbing narrowly, of keeping his hands in close, and seizing his opponent near the breastplate of his shoulder pads.
This quote depicts the initial development of Michael's strategy as a player. In earlier sections, Lewis describes how different coaches immediately saw Michael's athletic ability, but weren't sure if it would translate on the football field. This moment shows how Michael was quickly able to grab other players "narrowly" and not let them "wriggle free." It shows how little trouble Michael had picking up the technical elements of his position.
The summer before the start of the 2006 season was still his moment, and would remain his moment—until it wasn’t. Until he lost a step. Or got hurt. Or until the next Jonathan Ogden showed up and was maybe a step quicker, or fractionally more gifted, than the original. As he listened to the biography of Michael Oher, Dwight Freeney’s expression changed. He was no longer smiling.
“What’s his name again?” he asked.
“Michael Oher.”
“You tell Michael Oher I’ll be waiting for him,” he said, and walked into the locker room.
This final scene from the book shows how Michael was perceived as a major threat on the football field, as seasoned linebacker Dwight Feeney's confidence slowly fades. This moment mirrors the opening of the book, when Lewis describes the fearsome nature of Lawrence Taylor's reputation. Now, Michael is the one inspiring trepidation in his future opponents and, as his role as left tackle would suggest, is intimidating linebackers.
One night they came home with money that wasn’t theirs, and Big Tony found out and tried to explain to them a little bit about white people and how, lacking street smarts, they had established some rules to preserve their species and that, odd as those rules might seem, Steven and Michael needed to obey them. Rule number one was that a kid did not steal, or fight, or get into trouble of any sort; and what was a rule for white kids was an iron law for a black kid. Because a black kid who got into trouble in the white world was a black kid on his way out of that world.
This scene occurs at a pivotal moment in the book, as Lewis describes the lead-up to Michael's fight with another player. Big Tony's comments point to the force of white power structures, as he says that even though Michael and Steven have become part of a white social world, they must be certain never to break any of its rules, both spoken or unspoken, as those rules are "iron law" for Black children. This quote indicates that in spite of how fortunate Michael has been in this world, Tony wants him to understand how precarious his situation could (and eventually does) become in the event of a problem.
What never crossed Tom Lemming’s mind was that the player he would rank the number one offensive lineman in the nation, and perhaps the finest left tackle prospect since Orlando Pace, hadn’t the faintest idea who Lemming was or why he was asking him all these questions. For that matter, he didn’t even think of himself as a football player. And he’d never played left tackle in his life.
This early passage effectively sets up the mystery of Michael's early football career. Tom Lemming traveled out to talk with him after seeing a tape of him playing. Michael does not speak to him or answer any of his questions, and is baffled by his appearance. The scene indicates how Michael's skills as a football player did not, initially, keep pace with his perception of the recruitment process and culture surrounding it.
But there was one quality he possessed in an extreme form, and in whatever test the public school system had used to measure it, Michael Oher had scored in the 90th percentile. The quality was labeled 'Protective Instincts.'
While Lewis later notes how Michael's academic abilities dramatically improved with time, here he shows an essential aspect of Michael's character: his protectiveness. This description suits both his role as a player, protecting the quarterback from being "sacked," but also the care with which he treats his adopted siblings Collins and SJ. It shows that for all of his perceived toughness, Michael's greatest strength is the way he treats the people he loves.
