LAQ: The Blindside: Evolution of a Gameby Michael Lewis

1) This story is a true story about an African American teenager named Michael Oher. He struggled in everything in life from his family situation to school. He was finally taken in by a man in the community that saw his athletic ability. After being placed in high school and being taken in by a white family, he began playing football and was quickly noticed by everyone around the country. The story shows that anyone can become successful with support from others.

2) This story was written by Lewis in different ways. Part of it was to tell the amazing story of a teen that was saved by the community, other parts questions if this chance would have happened if Michael wasn't as athletically gifted, and how the way Oher played the offensive line revolutionized the game of football that would later be know as protecting the quarterback's "blindside".

3) Once again, this is another novel that has been produced as a movie as well as a novel. I'm into the sports novels because they are much more appealing to me than anything else and watching the movie made me want to read the book as well. What's appealing is that in a way, it relates to our course. These people saw potential and gave Oher the chance to make something for himself and mentored him along the way.

4) I find this book realistic because you heard of things like this happening all the time where there's a kid that has a hard life but is very talented and all they need is for someone to come help them. I know of two situations where this is true and the kids are very talented athletes and have people helping them out and watching out for them. One of them is someone I watch out for because it became more of a brotherly thing that developed when we became teammates.


1) In this case, it is true that the author does make the characters as he believes fit when he observes the story. Because it wasn't a first had account and if it wasn't first had, that's how stories normally get there own twists to them. What you really do pull from this is the question of what happens for kids like Michael is really fare. It's more in the fact of will people give this chance to someone who isn't gifted in someway? Because the stories of these kids getting support usually happen when people see that they are gifted in some way.

2) There's the main protagonist, Michael Oher, who is considered to be a freak of nature. He is a giant compared to everyone else and is partly the main reason he was noticed for the potential he could become. Coming from a hard life, he doesn't really know much about life other than what he has learned from living on the streets.
Then there's Oher's adoptive mom Leigh Anne Tuohy. She has two children and her family is wealthy. She invests a lot of time into Michael to help him realize his potential. She supports Michael as her own but doesn't just hand things over to help him realize that you need to work for success.

3) Like I said before, the story reminds me of our course we take now. People assume the worst about people and don't give chances because of this. Although everyone saw Michael's potential in football because of his size, people looked past him because he was a homeless African American teen that teachers thought couldn't be taught. It wasn't till one of his teachers realized that Michael learn much better verbally than written. It just goes to show to reach people, there's always a different way to go about it and not to judge people by appearances or stereotypes.

S'wonderful

Well it may sound stupid but the powder puff game is next week and we are so excited for it. Me am other friends from the football team are coaching again and we get really competitive and serious. It's so much fun to just step back from being a player to actually trying to teach someone what to do because you can see the best of both worlds. The coaches and players are having a great time and we plan on beating the juniors pretty badly next Friday night.

Resource of the day: When should you stretch?

So we've all heard that stretching is very important to do before any physical activity to avoid injury, but have you ever felt that stretching doesn't help right away? I've noticed that doing a bike ride or jogging for a little it gets me limber and afterwards, I feel like the stretching I do actually helps me. All people are different so find out what works best for you. Hears a source on when the best time is to stretch.

http://www.fitnessforlife.org/updates/updates/when-is-the-best-time-to-do-stretching-exercises-to-improve-flexibility

Preview of Upcoming Attractions

Well after talking with students in my class, I heard a wide variety on how to present our projects. Each idea works with some but not with everyones. Like hearing people say they would do a photo album or presentation seemed cool for them but I'm not sure thats best for my project.

Resource of the Day: What provides better support for ankle sprains?

In almost every sport, athletes experience side to side movement like in tennis, basketball, soccer, football, etc. To prevent this, the earliest methods of supporting ankles was through taping them very tightly so that it would restrict movement in the ankles. Now we actually have reusable tie on braces that are said to have better support than tape. From experience, I've always like tape better just because its easier to put my cleats on with and its more comfortable but the tape does loosen as the game goes on. Braces are a bit bulkier but they sure do provide a lot of support and they are always adjustable. Some people argue over what is better but studies have show the brace to be superior over tape.
http://www.oaph.com/patient-center/where-it-hurts/ankle-taping-or-ankle-braces-%e2%80%93-which-more-effective-prevention-injurie

Raising Digital Awareness

So I've been using this open source learning now for almost two years and now we are finally seeing something more valuable to it than before. I understand that it was an online binder for the world to see but I didn't feel like anyone really payed attention to my work. Then we started doing these "resources and I didn't really see the value because I felt as if they were just me telling people hey come check out what this guy said. Todays talk was probably the first time this resource stuff actually made sense because now I see that it's not just another assignment or hey look what I know, it's to find people like you with the same ideas that want to work together. So this blog is important for reaching out to those people that are interested in what I want to do. Have I been putting enough resources? No, I don't post them regularly but I see that it is how I'm going to get traffic into what I want to do. These tools like social media are made readily available for everyone and whats the limit to it? We should use these tools to be more productive with what we do but also not rely on them so much as the only means of getting out there. Being on a computer to reach out is good and all but it's always nice to know that person who has the same ideas for real.

My expert

In every athletic trainers room and sports rehab clinics across the country, you will see one piece of technology in common. The stimulus machine is used by athletic trainers and therapist all over to relieve pain in designated areas by this machine which puts an electrical current into the muscles of wherever it's attached. This method of treatment has been around for ages but the man credited with the modern invention of this device is Dr. C Norman Shealy.