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By Michael Sokolove
Michael Sokolove is an editor who has written about the intersection of sports and culture. His last article for the magazine was about football coach Andy Reid.
‘That’s where Hurt VillageArray’ Michael Oher showed the site of a now-demolished housing estate where he lived with his drug-addicted mother and, at various times, up to seven of his 11 siblings. It was a cloudy Monday afternoon beyond what it should have been. April, and Oher, the former football player whose best school years were dramatized in the movie “The Blind Side,” taking me on a tour through an abandoned part of Memphis and past some of the milestones of his formative years . “And right there, there’s a store called Chism Trail. This is one of the places I would fly to. Real food, not candy. Pizza, hot dogs, bologna. One time, I had ham.
Oher played 8 seasons as a starting offensive player in the NFL and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens. He is now 38 years old and his well-trimmed beard has some gray spots. He is 6 feet five inches tall and says he weighs less than 31 and five pounds. We were in his GMC Denali pickup truck, a large pickup truck to accommodate his large chassis.
“This is where the sisters lived,” he said as we turned a corner, pointing to a rambling space with a picnic table in front. It was the home of the nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, an order founded through Mother Teresa. “We would pass by there and they would feed us. I never will, because this is the first time I’ve had lemon meringue pie.
We drove from what’s called Uptown Memphis to the more disgustingly wealthy East Side, and to a position Oher proudly pointed out: a place along a six-lane highway where, since the age of 7, he sold Sunday newspapers. “You couldn’t be lazy and just be in the cage like other kids would,” he told me. “We had to take a walk. You had to get up and shake the newspaper. Of all of them, I sold the most newspapers.
Our last obstacle is a majestic yellow house, framed by two giant oak trees. He prevented it in the middle of the corridor. ” This is where I lived with my family,” Oher said. He turned to me and, to make sure I understood the joke, added, “You know what I mean, don’t you?My family. “
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