The Blind Side Blog Post

The Blind Side Blog Post-  “ When people first saw Big Mike they immediately became afraid of him, but what they didn’t really know was that he was more afraid of them.”

So far I’ve only read five chapters in Michael Lewis’s true story, “The Blind Side”. But already I’ve learned a lot about the main character “Big Mike”, really Michael Oher, and his flaws. I also caught on to a theme in the book. Big Mike is not the average size of a high school student and his size gives him a reputation from people without them even hearing his voice! The Blind Side is not just about an amazing athlete but the person beneath all of that.

Michael Oher is a very unique person. Big Mike’s biggest traits include being huge, being very silent and very shy, and having a lack of intelligence. Big Mike’s silence is something it seems like he just can’t control. When Michael faced the best football scout in the country, Tom Lemming, this is what happened: “What happened next was the strangest encounter of Lemming’s twenty-seven-year football scouting career. Michael Oher sat down at the table across from him…and refused to speak. ‘He shook my hand and then didn’t say a word,’ said Lemming (‘His hands: they were huge!’) Lemming asked him the usual questions. ‘What colleges are you interested in?’… “What do you want to major in?’, and ‘where do you think you’ll be in ten years?’ They were met by silence.” This trait is visible everywhere. When Big Mike walks the halls of Briarcrest Christian School his completely silent and in the classroom he doesn’t speak. Now to the second big trait that Michael Oher has: his size. From his nickname, “Big Mike”, you now he’s big but just how big? Big Mike is exactly six-foot-five-inches and three hundred and forty four pounds and this is in the ninth grade. He’s described as a “giant” and a “wall”. When he first meets Hugh Freeze, the athlete director at the Briarcrest Christian School this is how the encounter goes down: “‘Big Mike! Come on in here!’ Hugh Freeze will never forget the next few seconds ‘He just peeks around the corner, with his head down.’ Hugh didn’t get a good first look—it was just a silver of him but suggested an improbably large whole. Then Michael Oher stepped around the corner and into his office. Good God! He’s a monster!”  Just one more example, when Leah Anne Tuohy, who would later adopt Big Mike with her husband Sean Tuohy, was shopping for Michael she called her husband to say, “Do you know how big a size fifty-eight long jacket is…too small.” In other words a size fifty-eight suit jacket did not fit Big Mike. A size fifty-eight long jacket is huge; the biggest person I personally know wears a fifty long jacket and that is huge. So there’s a comparison, I could only imagine wearing a fifty-eight jacket, I wear a forty-jacket. So, the last trait is that Big Mike is not very intelligent. The book says, “Still, when the file on Michael Oher from the Memphis City school system hit his desk, Simpson was frankly incredulous. The boy had a measured IQ of 80, which put him in mankind’s ninth-percentile. That means only nine percent of the world had an IQ lower than Big Mikes. It also says, “In his first nine years of school Michael Oher had been enrolled in eleven different institutions, and that included a hole of eighteen months, around the age of ten, when he apparently did not attend school at all.” This part was shocking to me; I was surprised that Big Mike missed so much school and changed schools so much. Finally, it says, “The grade point average the boy would bring with him to Briarcrest began with a zero: 0.6.” But these traits only make Big Mie special and unique in his own way.

People give a false reputation to Big Mike because of his physical attributes and special traits and others even think too much of him. For example, “When Sean Tuohy first spotted Michael Oher sitting in the stands in the Briarcrest gym, staring at basketball practice, he saw a boy with nowhere to go but up. The question is how to take him there.” This was a very surprising line to me because you don’t usually and actually shouldn’t make an assumption about someone especially before you even met the person. I don’t disagree that Big Mike is very talented, in fact today he’s a NFL left tackle who just recently signed with the Minnesota Vikings, but I just don’t agree with the way people immediately make an opinion on a person before they meet them. I think this often troubled Big Mike; in fact he wasn’t even into football before people pushed him to play because of his size. Another example of this is, “Briarcrest offered a class in weightlifting, and Jennifer Graves had gotten him into it on an assumption it might offer him some relief from relentless failure. If there was one class Big Mike should have been able to ace, this was it. But the weightlifting teacher, Coach Mark Boggess, said that the boy was neglecting even to change into gym clothes.” This is a great example of a wide assumption that Jennifer Graves just made because of Big Mike’s size. I think it’s unfair that Big Mike was forced to take this elective class even when he never chose it and I actually agree with the way he responded he didn’t even want to be in the class in the firs place. A third great example of this same thing is, “ When people first saw Big Mike they immediately became afraid of him, but what they didn’t really know was that he was more afraid of them.” This is the perfect description of the point that I’m trying to make, just because of his size it doesn’t mean that Big Mike is a monster or something else that’s very scary. Again the track and field coach says, “From the moment he’d laid eyes on Michael Oher, Coach Boggess thought he might invite him onto the track team as a shot putter. He was shaped like a shot putter and also like the shot itself, round and heavy.  It hadn’t occurred to Boggess to ask Big Mike to throw anything else”. Again his size gives Big Mike a reputation all its own.  

But Big Mike proved all of these people wrong; in fact Big Mike is actually an athletic phenomenon who is bigger than a center in basketball and faster than the point guard. This guy is awesome. He’s not just a big, fat guy like many people thought he was. He also is just a unique person in the way he learns and in the way that he communicates. As I mentioned before today is an amazing left tackle and was recently signed with the Minnesota Vikings after leaving the Baltimore Ravens for free agency. Big Mike is actually just a kind and shy guy who lived a tough childhood but is definitely an amazing athlete. On page 77 it says, “When Coach Boggess led him out Briarcrest’s back door and onto the old grass field for the first meet, he sensed, rightly, that Michael Oher was witnessing track and field for the first time in his life.” Only seconds later was Big Mike throwing discusses like he was a professional and was doing things that couldn’t be taught. To show how impressive of an athlete Big Mie really was, “One afternoon he took a sack of footballs out to midfield. Standing on the fifty-yard line he threw them, one by one, though the goalposts at the back of the end zone. Here was a kid, a sophomore in high school, shaped nothing like a quarterback, chucking the ball 70-75 yards. And making it look easy.” Big Mike is one heck of an athlete and he did an amazing job of showing people who he really was and teaching them that they didn’t need to assume that he could do a certain thing or was a certain way for the way he looked.

Big Mike is one very unique person, he is huge and quiet and not very intelligent but is an amazing athlete. He’s shaped like a center in the NBA and is faster than a point guard in the game. But because of his physical appearance and special traits people often made false assumptions of Big Mike but he did a great job of proving those people wrong and showing who he really was.     

Hoop Dreams Literary Essay Revision

Hoop Dreams Literary Essay

“Hoop Dreams” by Ben Joravsky, tells the true story of two boys named William Gates and Arthur Agee who have a strong bond and seem to be destined very similar lives. They are both very talented basketball players. The story told in the book is their journeys from the playgrounds of Cabrini Green in Chicago to high school excitement and then furthermore to college competitiveness. The story takes place at a time in the eighty’s when Chicago was crime-ridden, with drug dealers on every corner and poverty was extremely common. They both lived different lives and had different personalities. They both end up being recruited by St. Joseph’s High School, the most prestigious high school for basketball in the Chicago area.  Both boys have dreams of making it to the NBA and they both face many advantages that get them there but with these come disadvantages and flaws. Ben Joravsky wrote about the story of William Gates and Arthur Agee to teach the reader that you can make your dreams a reality even with the disadvantages or flaws that you might face because although you might have many advantages with them comes many disadvantages.

Ben Joravsky writes of the many advantages that both boys were given, these advantages make the reader feel that the boys obviously don’t have anything to worry about because their lives seem to be set for them. This is how William, Arthur and many others also felt. So by including the advantages they have Joravsky puts the reader in the character’s shoes. Some of the advantages he included started from the first moments of the story, when a recruiter from St. Josephs High School approaches both boys. This excerpt shows what the boys had in store, “Recently Big Earl had been having doubts about scouting playground talent. He was starting to think these boys should search out other dreams. But he was in no mood to challenge the status quo, at least not today…. And he still had faith in the dream… Big Earl liked to be pragmatic, and had a built-in immunity against inflating talent. He could see right away, though, that Arthur Agee was special. He had speed and he could jump, but it was a combination of talents and traits that caught Earl’s trained eye,”(15).  Similarly Big Earl recruited William and this is exactly the start of the boy’s journey, their talents were recognized and their future was set, or was it? By including this section of the story Joravsky shows the reader that Arthur and William have basketball talent that is way beyond anybody their age. Another example comes when they enter high school, where there are many advantages for both boys. They both end up attending St. Joseph’s High School. So of course this makes the reader immediately think that nothing could go wrong. Another advantage that the boys faced was that St. Joseph’s is linked and always will be to a great basketball legend, Isiah Thomas. Isiah was a symbol of success, leadership, the NBA and fame. With St. Joseph and their talent, the boys seemed to be headed upwards. Another big advantage that the boys had over others with their same dream was that they got fame. While playing at a freshman game, “‘I think I may have seen the next Isiah Thomas,’ Gleason said. ‘St. Joe of Westchester has a kid named William Gates who is starting as a freshman’,”(60), a famous ESPN announcer says, this is a huge step, once your name is televised, everyone hears it and recognizes you. This is the way college coaches bring their attention towards the country’s finest basketball players. But this wasn’t the end of positive steps for William, who throughout the book has a slight advantage over Arthur of these. An example that Joravsky kept bringing up was, William moves on to a point where he has a luggage worth of letters from colleges, offering him full scholarships to attend their school. Arthur also gets many letters and is often placed in the newspaper for his highlight games; in fact his wall is full of clippings from newspapers with his name in them. Another advantage  is when William plays in the Nike Summer Camp, the biggest of all basketball camps that puts the spotlight on the nation’s best 120 high school basketball players, college coaches attend to see who their highest prospects are and without a doubt all eyes were on William. Both William and Arthur have fine basketball coaches that mentor them to being the best that they possibly can. With so many advantages on their back the road of possibilities seems endless. This is exactly the way Ben Joravsky wanted them to seem because after including the advantages that the boys had, he can include the disadvantages they faced and show how they affected each character. This way he can teach the reader that you can reach a high point in life but small problems will getting in your way day by day and you have to work them out the right way.

But after making the reader think that everything was going well for the two teenagers, Ben Joravsky starts hitting the reader with the disadvantages as well as major and minor flaws that William and Arthur faced. Arthur Agee faced many disadvantages in his everyday life on his road to success. These included problems that were small and big. For Arthur his dreams started to slowly deteriorate without him knowing it. For example, not far after his freshman year at St. Joseph’s High School, Arthur was kicked out of the school after his family falls behind on payments. This is where a minor flaw kicks in; a little envy begins to build in Arthur, he says, “How come William wasn’t kicked out, his family ain’t richer than mine,”(87). Jealousy can play mental tricks on your brain; Arthur won’t get far thinking that William is luckier than him. What he should have done as a response was to push harder to make his dreams. This connects to the lesson to be taught by the story, when you have dreams and you face advantages you have to push harder to achieve those dreams. Another disadvantage is that financial problems don’t end there. For example, Arthur’s mom runs from food stamp office to food stamp office waiting in line for hours with the intention of feeding her children and paying her bills while on a low income from work. Also, Arthur’s family was on the verge of complete poverty. This is what got Arthur out of St. Joseph’s and at any time in his life can stop him from moving forward with his dreams. For them to come true he had to prove to all of the college coaches that he deserved a full scholarship, he deserved to have a chance to showcase his talent, but poverty that left him in a public school would hold him back. Another flaw that Arthur shows is slacking on practicing; talent can’t just make it happen. Because of the advantages that he did have, he was forced to think that he was headed to the NBA and that he was the next Isiah Thomas but in reality he needed to work hard if he wanted these dreams to be achieved. Coach Bedford repeatedly told him, “Don’t think that you’re more than what you really are, be Arthur Agee,”(143), in other words live your own dreams and be who you are, you don’t have to dribble behind your back just because Isiah Thomas did, work hard for people to know you as Arthur Agee not the next Isiah Thomas. Another disadvantage that Arthur faced was that his father is also a drug addict, not having him home and him being a bad example to follow all add up to being big disadvantages for Arthur. But although Arthur faced these disadvantages he used them to his advantage. He tried hard to help his family get back on their feet, he became friends with his father and ultimately steered him off of drugs, and at the same time he worked hard on the basketball court. Arthur really took matters into his own hands when nobody else could help him, Ben Joravsky made sure to include these parts because he wanted the reader to follow by these examples.

Ben Joravsky also includes the disadvantages as well as his personal flaws faced by William Gates to show that both boys had troubles. Life wasn't easy for William. The first challenge that he faced was when his girlfriend Catherine gave birth to their baby girl Alicia, when William was in his junior year. As if he hadn't had enough pressure on him from basketball, he now had a baby to nurture. Another disadvantage is that in his junior year, he underwent a serious surgery in his knee that removed his cartilage, when doctors told him that his knee would bother him and he’d have arthritis in fifteen years he says, “What’s fifteen years! Man, who cares about fifteen years. I wanna to play now,”(160). This is a flaw that both William and even Arthur had, thinking that their future was fine, and that everything was set for them. Here is an example, “As a freshman William thought his days of high school basketball would never end, and now they were over,”(257). Another flaw that William has is staying concentrated. At a crucial moment in a high school game that would keep the season going or end it William gets distracted and needs to remind himself to focus, “I should be focusing on the game,”(237). If he can’t think properly at crucial moments, he can ruin his dreams within a split second. Another flaw is that, William also has a very bad temper and both William and Arthur begin to fall back on their grades in their senior year, if they can’t keep their grades up, their positions on the basketball team and at graduation were at risk, no matter how good they are or how ever many colleges are willing to pay their full scholarships. But every time Ben Joravsky shows the reader a disadvantage or flaw in William he made sure to include how William used it to his advantage. William used all of his flaws and disadvantages to make him work harder. When his grades dropped he studied harder, he also practiced harder when he lost a game, he focused better and didn’t let small things distract him and when his daughter was born he really attempted to be a great father always visiting her and nurturing her.

Ben Joravsky wanted the story of William Gates and Arthur Agee to influence his readers who might have dreams of their own. He wanted to teach the reader that life has its ups and downs and with both your dreams can be achieved as long as you have the right mindset and use the downs in life as ups. He wants to teach that you can’t give up on a dream because you have a certain disadvantage or a certain flaw; instead use this to push you even harder. For example, when William’s girlfriend gave birth to William’s baby girl he was in the middle of his young basketball career but he didn’t give up on either one. William became a good young father at such a young age and he used his daughter as a way to motivate him to push harder in school and on the basketball court. Ben Joravsky wants to teach that, dreams are beautiful; everything is simple in them because they are literally what you want. But no dream can be achieved without a struggle, a push of energy that is needed to get you to achieving your dream. Achieving your dreams is like being a car on a hill; it has its ups and its downs. You’ll be faced by so many opportunities on your path but there will also be so many struggles like rocks on the road that you need to pass to get to where you want. Joravsky wants to convince the reader that like William and Arthur you have to use these rocks to push you to go farther rather than stop.  Your dreams aren't fully set they’re just pictures in your mind, they’re ideas and to make them reality you must work. The true meaning of achieving is working hard and is struggling to get to where you want. All dreams are fragile, a small flaw can either make you stop or help you to move forward. You have to practice to be better, no matter how good you are at something or how much others may think you are you can always get better just like William and Arthur. The flaws that William and Arthur had often linked to their attitudes; they saw their dreams a few steps away but really to get to where they wanted to be they needed to work harder. By doing these things, Ben Joravsky used William and Arthur to express the lessons he wanted to teach to his readers

In conclusion, Hoop Dreams by Ben Joravsky is the motivating story of two boys who had a dream and seemed to be headed on the perfect road but along the way faced many struggles that they needed to get through. The story is a true one about William Gates and Arthur Agee and the author, Ben Joravsky chose to write about these two teenagers because he wants their story to inspire many other young people. He wants to teach the reader to push forward in their dreams and to really preserve through any of the problems they may face on the way.     

Link to Original Post: http://yazeedmuallasblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/hoop-dreams-response.html