Michael Oher is on the field at the Mercedes Superdome in New Orleans and look up under the huge roof. Oher, 1.93 meters tall, 143 pounds in weight has been impressed by the imposing nature of the arena, which will be held on Sunday the final of the world's largest sports, the Super Bowl. There, take the San Francisco 49ers to the Baltimore Ravens, for both teams it comes to their place in the history of sports.
The dream of a Super Bowl, many Footballer. For the 26-year Oher but he was from the beginning, just a utopia. Because where he grew up, no way led to a glorious future, and certainly not up to America's biggest sporting stage. When Michael Jerome Oher on 28 May was born in 1986 in Memphis was mapped out his path, it led him directly into poverty and homelessness. On the night of Sunday to Monday the defender is faced with the peak of his career. He says, "I am come a long way in order to have this opportunity."
Oher had eleven brothers and sisters. His first memories are those when he and his older brothers went along a highway in Memphis, in search of a place to stay and something to eat. Oher was two years old, the drug-addicted mother had locked the children again or had simply disappeared for several days. The father was, as so often in prison. Oher has it in his 2010 published book "I beat the odds" (I have defied the odds) written. With the work, Oher said in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he would inspire children who grow up in situations similar to those he used to be. "They should know that they can achieve anything with the right attitude -. Without a wealthy adoptive family"
Oher went to nine years to eleven different schools, lived in homes or families, of which he ran away again. He skipped the class, stole food at the supermarket – "just to survive" – ​​slept in the ghetto. The oldest picture of him come "from the time when I was about ten." It shows a smiling boy in a tentative to large, pale blue T-shirt and jeans. He'd like to see baby pictures of himself, he says, but there is simply no. "We have moved so many times, there are probably lost," said Oher. It is also possible that just never which were made.
Michael Oher is that despite these circumstances made it to the University of Mississippi, 2006 Michael Lewis wrote the book "The Blind Site – Evolution of a Game" inspired. Lewis is ohers development from high school to college describes. Applied to this book was the 2009 Hollywood movie "The Blind Site". Sandra Bullock appears in the role of ohers adoptive mother Leigh Anne Tuohy and it was awarded the 2010 Academy Award for "Best Actress".