Sports Culture
While the book is a chronicle of Micheal Oher's life, it also provides an in-depth look at the culture surrounding American football, critiquing how players are treated by coaches, scouts, and fans. While showing how Michael benefited from his athletic ability, Lewis also reveals some of the sport's problems relating to the recruitment process and team support. In particular, he shows how college coaches relentlessly pursue players after learning about their performance on the field, but often make little effort to make them feel at ease in the greater student population. Likewise, he shows how the athletes bring in a great deal of money to the universities where they play, but do not receive any form of payment—despite the fact that the time commitment of games and practices significantly cuts into their academics. Lewis acknowledges the way in which football changed Michael's life, but still has pointed observations about how the system does not seem to be designed to support its most important (and, in his view, vulnerable) individuals.
Family
Family is another major theme of the book. Michael grows up in tumultuous and difficult circumstances. His father is not in the picture and his mother suffers from a serious drug addiction. As a young child, he spends most of his time alone, not receiving much in the way of attention, care or love. After he moves in with the Tuohys, he becomes a member of their family and is treated as a son by Leigh Anne and Sean, no different from their two other children, SJ and Collins. While some of the Tuohys' relatives balk at this decision, often in a way that Lewis plainly shows is inflected by racial prejudice, the Tuohys stand firm in their choice to welcome Michael into their lives. Michael begins to open up, particularly with Leigh Anne, and share more about himself than he had ever before. In a realistic manner, Lewis is able to effectively examine how the Tuohys become Michael's family of choice, providing him with a tenderness and support that he had not experienced before. In this way, he breaks down a more traditional idea of family being rooted in biological relationships and shows how it can be much more rooted in love and care.
Racism
While Michael's story is framed as an uplifting one, Lewis does not shy away from the painful realities of structural racism that inform it and so many others like it. In depicting the parallel world of Hurt Village, the housing project where Michael grew up, Lewis effectively portrays the rampant poverty and resulting segregation that plagues Memphis. Furthermore, by showing white southerners' complete lack of interaction with this world, he shows how these power structures remain in place, unchallenged or acknowledged by a massive segment of the population. Lewis also highlights this divide in the sections about college athletics, showing how rival fans would shout racial slurs at the players. In a similar, though more subdued manner, he also describes how many of the Black athletes at the University of Mississippi never really become a part of the social world of the white students. The book captures the way racism shaped Michael's life. While the book celebrates Michael's success, it does not avoid showing how the odds were stacked against him and how many other children were not given the same opportunity to escape poverty. Towards the end of the book, Leigh Anne sees a news story about a young former athlete who was horrifically murdered. She remarks to Sean that so many of the details of his life story completely overlap with Michael's. She expresses a desire to do more and help other underprivileged students of color. While her sentiment is kind, it also acknowledges the systemic nature of this racial divide.
Innovation of Roles in Football
Concurrently with Michael's story, the book charts the evolution of American football as a game, focusing particularly on the shifting importance of different positions. Lewis describes how the left tackle became a particularly important and well-paid position, as coaches scrambled to find a way to counter fearsome linebacker Lawrence Taylor. At the same time, Lewis underlines the thankless, invisible quality of this role. When writing about noted left tackle John Ayers, he highlights how Ayers' protection of quarterback Joe Montana was vital to the 49ers' success that season (and was duly appreciated by Montana and coach Bill Walsh) but was essentially invisible to the viewers of the game. In this way, he shows how this shift was so meaningful to the strategic part of the game, but was not widely noticed by the game's audience.
Care
Another major theme of the book is care and its complexity. Initially, Sean and Leigh Anne are charitable to Michael. Sean pays for Michael's meals from school and Leigh Anne takes him shopping for clothes. These acts of generosity are done at a distance. When the Tuohys adopt Michael, they treat him like a son. They show him love and kindness but are also honest with him when he falters in school or on the field. In this process, they also experience certain difficulties in getting him to open up. In a similar way, he momentarily questions the genuineness of their motivation when an NCAA investigation is opened up about the Tuohys potentially trying to act as "boosters" for the University of Mississippi, adopting Michael as a means of getting him to play for their alma mater. These moments reveal how much more complicated (and deep) these acts of care become when Michael becomes more enmeshed in their lives.
The Aftermath of Poverty and Trauma
When Michael moves in with the Tuohys, they are initially confused by some of his actions. They notice that he frequently avoids personal questions, always orders an extra meal, and is afraid of the doctor. What they learn subsequently is that many of these seemingly strange decisions are rooted in survival mechanisms he adopted during his difficult childhood. He, for instance, asked for additional food because previously he wanted to store meals in case his next meal was uncertain. The book hints at Michael's painful upbringing and in one of the final chapters gives the reader a sense of the scope of the shocking neglect he experienced from a young age. Lewis is able to demonstrate, with considerable nuance, the lingering impact that Michael's childhood had on his adult life.
Fear
Another major thematic thread in the book is fear. While Michael is almost never physically intimidated, the book details a number of instances in which he is frightened by the loss or injury of the people he cares about. The first of these instances occurs when he is in a car accident with SJ. When he speaks with Leigh Anne, he is in a complete panic, feeling wracked with guilt. A similar thing happens when Michael gets into a fight with one of his teammates over a remark the latter made about Leigh Anne and Collins. Michael inadvertently injures a young child and flees the scene in the aftermath. Michael's fear is revealing, in that all of his athletic strength does not shield him from worrying about losing the people he loves or breaking one of the unspoken rules of this world.
