The Blind Side( Michael Oher)

Sports are so glorified in some areas that schools will put athletics in front of academics. This is exactly what happened the book Friday Night Lights by H.G Bissinger. BIssinger explains that the town of Odessa houses the school Permian where everyone grows up on football. The school and the town give so much praise to the football team that some football players couldn 't care less about class and eventually the teachers don’t care how those players do in class. Mount Vernon is a place where the students are expected to do well in class first and everything else is second. The school has extracurriculars, but knows the school’s main job is to give students an education. Permian and Mount Vernon are opposites on the scale of sports and

Abstract: High school football in the state of Texas has become out of control. The sport is no longer played for the sake of the school but rather has become a Friday night ritual to these small towns in Texas. The players are no longer just high school kids inter acting in school sports but have now become heroes to these small town communities. Communities simply no longer support their local high school team but rally in pride of their hometown rivalry against another team. School administrators and coaches no longer are teachers and mentors for the kids but are the equivalent to what in professional football are team owners and "real coaches". Parents have become agents and sacrifice their jobs and homes so that their child

As parents, we are staunch believers of the educational value high school presents, and the excitements youth sports bring us. However, most of us are to blame, behind the bright basketball court lights lie an ugly underbelly, a monstrous façade called politics. During the championship seasons, we’ve heard and even seen tales of

The world is far from a uniform system. Each and every individual is placed in a different situation depending on everything from location, race, beliefs, and economic status. Psychology looks at how individuals come out of these specific environments and how they transform into an adult through the trials and tribulations of their growth. In The Blind Side, director John Lee Hancock focuses on an athletically skilled African-American teen, Michael Oher, who is transformed from a homeless orphan from the projects into a highly sought after college football prospect through a positive change in family, school, and supportive surroundings.

     Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? Recent newspaper headlines include such items as coaches abusing student athletes; fathers of athletes murdering coaches, and mother’s disabilitating cheerleading candidates to assure their daughters make the cheerleading team. In Odessa, Texas high school football is a major contributor to the society of a small town in Texas society. Every Friday night, 50,000 people fill the stadium to see high school students put their lives on the line to win a football game. H. G. Bissinger writes a novel called Friday Night Lights, about a year in 1988 where High School players prepare and play on the High School team, and what an impact they have

The Blind Side depicts the story of Michael Oher, a seventeen year old African American homeless boy from a broken home, taken in by Leigh Anne Tuohy, a wife and mom of two living in a well to-do neighborhood. Repeatedly running away from the group home after group home, he was placed in after he was taken from him drug addicted mother, he happens to run into the exceedingly accepting family. Only after the catholic high school football coach sees his size and agility he is accepted to the privet school, despite a 0.7 GPA and lack of a place to sleep Leigh Anne Touhy, along with only one of his teachers, take a special interest in him. The families give him

“‘Athletics last for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don’t apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it’s over and the harsh reality sets in, that’s the real joke we play on people’” (Bissinger xiv). “Friday Night Lights” shows the darker side of high school football. Players are taught to play games to win, and thats all that matters. Football players are put under a tremendous amount of pressure, almost enough to be considered unfair. Even though football is a “team sport”, pressure on individual players is unnecessary. Some players have the burden of the team, the city, their family, and their future, resting on their shoulders. These players

In H.G. Bissinger’s novel Friday Night Lights he goes in-depth describing the world surrounding high school football in Texas. There is nothing like high school football in Texas, it is the best thing to happen to many of the people that live there. Winning a high school state championship in Texas can make someone a hero for the rest of their lives. This being said, it causes a lot of difficulties once this peak in their life is over at such a young age. Many of these people do not know how to live with themselves after their days of football are over. They grow up and live through their kids. Sports and academics are two of the areas of life where parents attempt to live their dreams and ambitions through their children.

Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? I’ve learned that the book is more sociological, which means that it focused on our human society of racial issues and also emphasizes the economy and the divide between the wealthy residents of one city versus the more working-class denizens of another are all subjects that are given an in-depth examination. This is more of the main or focal point of the whole book and in not so much in the movie. Although Bissinger's story is a true-life recounting of the 1988 football season of the Permian High School team, it reads like fiction and even though I believe his book is superior, the theatrical adaptation still stands apart as one of the great

Amanda Ripley, in an article for The Atlantic, “The Case Against High-School Sports” (2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group), claims that high-school athletics are encroaching upon students’ education, questions the effect that the sports have on academic progress in the United States, and “wonder[s] about the trade-offs we make.” Ripley supports her thesis with multiple points of argument, including international academic ranking statistics that reveal the United States’ inadequacies, relevant stories and history illustrating athletics’ effect on students, and a paragraph in which she implores the reader to “[i]magine, for a moment, if Americans transferred our obsessive intensity about high-school sports...to high school academics.” The author’s

H.G. Bissinger tells the story of the obsessive town of Odessa, Texas in his book, Friday Night Lights. This town has a toxic obsession with high school football and wastes away life until Friday nights. The expectations held for the athletes of Odessa are suicidal and the preparation for life outside of high school is almost non existent. The town of Mount Vernon, Iowa also lives for Friday nights, however they have a healthy balance between these exciting events and ordinary life. Mount Vernon athletes are held to reasonable standards and are thoroughly being prepared for a successful future.

Supporting high school athletics are critical to the development of adolescence. Anyone can be book smart, but street smart comes from sports. Academics are important, but to become a well-rounded student sports are critical. Instead of getting rid of something that is expensive, schools should be putting more effort into fundraising for it. “Rather than reducing funds, schools should be considering ways to increase student participation in what could be one of the most essential aspects of student’s education: sports” (Kalamazoo Gazette Staff). For an example, athletics keep many men in school, especially ‘borderline gang-bangers.’ Coaches serve as an important role model for boys who do not have a father figure in their lives. Jerelene Wells, principal of Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, observed and stated, “Minority young people…. particularly

After trading their first and fifth round draft picks to the New England Patriots in exchange for the 23rd overall pick, the Baltimore Ravens’ front office was buzzing with excitement. They knew what they needed, and they knew who they wanted: a 6’5 322 pound force on the offensive line. Earning First Team Freshman All-America honors and First Team Freshman All-SEC, playing in all 11 games and paving way for Ole Miss RB Mico McSwain to establish the freshman rushing record, left tackle Michael Oher was a force to be reckoned with. His talent and size were unmatched and unheard of on his path to greatness. His success on the field, however, doesn’t truly reflect his struggled upbringing and scarred past. The story of Michael Oher is a true rags to riches story.

Oskar Schindler once said, “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” In the movie The Blind Side, a simple act of kindness changes one man’s life forever. Michael Oher experienced a troubled childhood, in which he was abandoned at a young age. Michael ran away from several foster care families and being homeless, until a woman named Leigh Anne Touhy took him in. Throughout this life changing event, the Touhy family and Michael

Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the course of less than a decade, the country raised students’ test scores from significantly below average for the developed world to significantly above it; Polish kids now outscore American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up in Wroclaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind. This example is a good illustration that education and sports don’t work together. Yes, Tom is a high school student and not elementary school student, but if sport was damaging for education in high school why it should be beneficial in elementary