For the record, Coldplay was the halftime act when Oher lost Super Bowl 50 with the Carolina Panthers, while Beyonce was the entertainment when Oher’s Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl 47. Spears performed with Aerosmith at Super Bowl 35.
Spears got out of her conservatorship in 2021, while reports show Oher’s is still ongoing. This is where the plot, as they say, thickens…
Oher, now 37, became known after the 2009 biographical film The Blind Side became a box-office smash hit. The film chronicled Oher being adopted by Tennessee couple Leigh Ann and Sean Touhy. Leigh Ann Touhy, portrayed in the film by Sandra Bullock, brought Oher from homelessness to wealth. Bullock won a Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award for her performance. The Tuohy’s earned $225,000 for their story, along with 2.5-percent of the net profits for the film. With the film grossing $309.2 million at the box office, this equated to nearly $7.73 million more.
While there is no telling how much more was accrued by home media or streaming profits, recent filings by Oher show that his conservatorship was never terminated, despite his last NFL game coming in 2016 for Carolina.
The Tuohy’s deny such reports, claiming Oher is attempting a “shakedown,” despite never having legally adopted Oher, per court records obtained by ESPN. In a statement on Tuesday, the Touhys claim Oher requested $15 million, or he would go public with his story.
Oher earned letters in track and basketball while attending Briarcrest Christian School in Eads, Tennessee. His offensive coordinator was future Mississippi head coach Hugh Freeze, who ran into multiple scandals during his tenure. After graduation from Briarcrest, Oher attended Mississippi, citing it was both Tuohy’s alma mater. Oher was a first-team All-Freshman offensive tackle in 2005, second-team All-SEC in 2006 and 2007, and a first-team All-American his senior season of 2008.
Oher was drafted 13th overall by the Ravens in the 2009 NFL Draft, and he was joined on stage by his entire “adoptive” family, which the actual footage was used at the very end of the film.
In his autobiography, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond, Oher wrote that he was displeased with how he was depicted as unintelligent in the film. While his grade point average was raised from 0.76 to 2.52 with the assistance of a tutor hired by the Touhy family, there is the old adage of there being a difference between brains and intellect.
Hugh Freeze resigned from Mississippi in 2016, amidst a range of scandals that included lack of institutional control, to using escort services while on school business trips. Freeze was using the university’s private jet during each of these trips, both recruiting and otherwise. Freeze and members of his staff were also found to be illegally, per NCAA rules, paying athletes. Keep in mind that the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal was not formally adopted by the NCAA until July of 2021.
As more reports come out between Oher, the Tuohy family, and the media, the questions will continue to mount. Why is Oher now looking to get out of a conservatorship that could have terminated as many as 12 years ago? Why was the lack of adoption not exposed earlier, as the film remains one of the more popular football movies on cable television?
Most of us think of Bullock and country music star Tim McGraw when we hear the name Tuohy. While the film still holds up, there has to be a section of the audience that may see the legacy of their roles tainted with future viewings, if there is any level of validity to Oher’s claims.
-JC24