I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

The Prologue begins with an adult Michael Oher visiting the Department of Children’s Services in Memphis, Tennessee, to meet his caseworker from childhood. He has not seen her since and is nervous to meet the person he once considered a “bounty hunter” for trying to take him and his 11 siblings away from their mother. He hopes to learn more about his youth for the sake of his book, to remember things he long tried to forget.

Oher’s life has already been depicted in two books and a movie, but he explains that he wants to do what they couldn’t: to recount details as only he knows them. He also wants to shed light on other children in America’s foster care system—who number nearly half a million—and provide them with hope for the future.

The odds were against a young Oher to escape his situation and find a better life, but he did. He provides statistics to show just how disadvantaged foster children are: They age out of the system when they turn 18, and more than half experience homelessness in less than two years. Oher had a vision for the future and worked hard to achieve it, something he’d like others in foster care to learn to do.