The Blind Side
October 29, 2019
The Blind Side
by Michael Lewis
I watched the movie based on this book on a plane trip earlier this year, and I loved it. I was glad to find that the facts of the movie are mostly true, including Michael Oher’s being tested in the 90th percentile for “protective instincts” (although I think the movie makes this number 98, not 90).
Who is this kid?
A story that wasn’t in the movie: Early on (p. 63, at the end of chapter 3), Leigh Anne contacts one of her interior design clients, Patrick Ramsay of the Washington Redskins, as a possible source of large clothes that Michael could wear.
She called Ramsay, who said he was more than happy to dun his teammates for their old clothing. She gave him Michael's measurements, and Patrick Ramsay took them down.
A few days later, he called back. "You've got these measurements wrong." ... He read them back to her -- 20-inch neck, 40-inch sleeve, 50-inch waist 58-inch chest, etc. -- nope, he had them right.
"There's no one on our team as big as he is," Ramsay said.
She thought he was kidding.
"Leigh Anne, we only have one player on this team who is even close... Who is this kid?"
Private standards of performance - p. 16
More than his impressive size and speed, what made Lawrence Taylor special was his "peculiar energy and mind: relentless, manic, with grandiose ambitions and private standards of performance. [Bill] Parcels believed that even in the NFL a lot of players were more concerned with *seeming to want to win* than with actually winning, and that many of them did not know the difference. What they wanted, deep down, was to keep their jobs, make their money, and go home. Lawrence Taylor wanted to win. He expected more from himself on the field than a coach would dare ask of any player."
Tom Lemming
Ch. 2 - I really like Tom Lemming’s business. In the 1978, when he was 23, he just started driving all over, interviewing high school football players, and evaluating them. As he gained success, he had more money and could drive farther and interview more players (eventually driving 50-60k miles yer year). And he was able to improve his evaluations. I understand that this is basically scouting, but I don’t know how he made money from it – just by selling his book of the 400 best players at the end of the year? To who? How did he market that?