Blind-Sided
One of the fun, but supposedly true life stories made into a movie in the past few years was the story of Michael Oher, the former NFL offensive lineman who was taken in during high school by the Tuohy family of Memphis. The movie, called The Blind Side, based on the book by the same name written by Michael Lewis (strangely enough a writer mostly of financial stories), refers to the offensive line position Oher finally came to play when it was realized that he had a propensity in his personality for protection. He was spotted during his high school years by Leigh Anne Tuohy, who is played in the movie by Sandra Bullock, and she shows concern for his lack of a home and offers him first temporary Chester and then permanent residence with the well-to-do family. She goes on to take an interest in both his education, getting him tutoring, and his sports, helping him in his development as a football player for the family’s high school team. When its time for college, Oher had developed into an accomplished player and Tuohy helped to get him a scholarship to Ole Miss, the family’s Alma Mater, even though he was recruited by many other schools including The University of Tennessee, apparently an arch-rival to Ole Miss, at least in the Tuohy family.
This is told as a real life heartwarming story about a woman and family of white Southern privilege, who extend themselves to help a black youth far less fortunate than themselves. It is clear, even in the retelling of the story in the movie, that the familial bias towards Ole Miss plays a part in the whole football career advancement that they undertake on his behalf, but it is shown as a fun quirk of the family, not some deep dark predilection. Oher goes on from a successful college football career to a coveted spot in the NFL draft for the Baltimore Ravens and the movie ends with him hugging Leigh Anne Tuohy and the rest of the Tuohy family, thanking them for all they have done for him. That all culminated fourteen years ago and since then, Oher has played for three NFL teams over eight years, including a stint with the Tennessee Titans.
But that’s where the story turns and has now upended the nice story that the movie portrayed about the relationship of Oher and Tuohy family. It seems that since Oher left the NFL in 2017, there have been a growing array of cracks in that Oher/Tuohy relationship, and as always seems to happen, the basis for the cracks rests mostly in the financial realm. This all stems from a very situation not dissimilar from that of Britney Spears and her father, but still fundamentally very different. Spears had her affairs placed into a conservatorship because she was being committed to a psychiatric facility on an involuntary basis. It is fair to suggest that she was not fully compos mentis. But nothing like someone taking control and potential advantage of some star’s financial affairs gets people revved up. In the case of Michael Oher, his financial fairs were put into a conservatorship controlled by the Tuohy’s when he turned 18. They way that was described in the movie was that the Tuohy family adopted him, but that was not the case. As a person who reached the age of majority, there was no reason to adopt him, but there seemed to be a perfectly good reason to take control of his finances. Unfortunately, the only reasons that are valid under most state laws, and certainly the laws of Tennessee, are that the person is someone who has “disability who lacks the capacity to make decisions in one or more important areas.” The Tuohy family admission that the conservatorship was made in part to insure that Oher chose to play for their college Alma Mater, Ole Miss, implying that the financial considerations were purely incidental. To me that seems like an admission that you raped someone, but that you didn’t do it to hurt them.
The fact of the matter is that what is probably most at issue here is what is called his NIL or name, image and likeness. That means that the Tuohy family made use of the The Blind Side story and the ultimate success of Oher as an NFL offensive lineman to create value that should have somehow been conserved under the conservatorship, but was apparently not, at least in a manner that benefitted Oher. How ironic that Oher was blind-sided by the Tuohy family because of the popularity of The Blind Side.
Michael Oher earned an estimated $34 million over his eight years in the NFL. Even after payment of agent fees and other hangers-on, that’s a hefty sum. It seems that Oher is now claiming that the Tuohy family owes him $15 million from his conservatorship, from which he feels they benefitted greatly at his expense. It is said that the family made about $1 million from the Michale Lewis book The Blind Side and the resultant movie. Sandra Bullock was paid $5million alone for portraying Leigh Anne Tuohy in the movie. But clearly, there were many other opportunities like endorsements and such, for the NIL of Michael Oher to get monetized. Since the Tuohy family has a purported net worth of $100 million, and they own an impressive 11 Taco Bell franchises, it may be hard to say how much of that is directly due to their affiliation with Oher, but the order of magnitude of $15 million does not seem so far out of whack.
It certainly is somewhat suspicious that this Oher/Tuohy rift only occurred after Oher stopped getting the big checks from the NFL. They say that success has many parents, but that failure is an orphan. In this case, I would say that when good times are rolling there is less to complain about, but when the music stops people’s natural instincts for self-preservation and greed start to come through. It is not hard to imagine that Oher would start to question the motives of the Tuohy family once his wallet started to thin out.
We will probably never know for sure what the intentions were of all the parties in the fracas at the different points in time, but what we do know is that the Tuohy family helped Oher to get on a path of success and that they also both lied about adopting him and set up an inappropriate conservatorship that they did not willingly dissolve when it was clear that he was on a successful career path at least. To me that puts them far more of the defensive and, as was Oher’s occupation for so long in the NFL, he seems more on the offensive line, this time protecting his own rights versus those of the Tuohy family, who seem to be able to afford getting tackled on this one.