I Beat the Odds (22 page)

Several kids wrote that they felt empowered by my story in a way they never had before—like I was giving a voice to all of them, making people aware of the kinds of challenges we face and showing the world that foster kids are strong and talented and want a future as much as every other child in the world.

IF ONE WEEK, chosen at random, can bring in this many letters, imagine the need out there. Imagine how many children are hurting and looking for help. Imagine how many wonderful families are stepping up to meet the needs of people like “E” and Molly and Jyi and others—and how many more are still needed.

While I may quibble with how I was depicted in the movie, I am truly grateful that my story has been such an inspiration. I hope it continues to inspire people to step up to help—to tutor, to coach, to become a foster parent. And I hope struggling kids are inspired to make choices that will empower them in life. My story is their story. Let’s beat the odds together.

W
henever someone finds out who I am, the two questions I’m always asked are: 1) Is the movie true? and 2) Who did you look up to as a kid? I talked about the first question back in chapter 18, but the second one isn’t as easy to answer. The truth is, I didn’t really have any one person I could look up to when I was younger—but I did have someone I could look to for how
not
to live my life: my mother.

It is so important for young people to have role models. In neighborhoods like the one I grew up in, it can be hard to find people who behave responsibly, hold down a solid job, support their families, and generally live lives they can be proud of. I really can’t explain to someone who hasn’t lived in poverty what it’s like to struggle to find some kind of hope. I lived in a house where I had nobody to look up to, nobody going to work every day. Everyone in my neighborhood just seemed focused on trying to survive. And as well-meaning as they might be, many people who are trying to solve the problems of poverty haven’t actually lived it, making it hard for them to really understand the daily struggles.

That’s why I’m trying to get my message out there. In my case, and in the case of countless kids like me, what we see is the irresponsible choices our parents have made. And when that’s what you’re around day in and day out, when that’s your world, you start to think that’s the only way to live. I will always love my mother, but I never want to be like her. I decided back when I was still in school that I was not going to have her life. That’s the challenge I want to extend to every kid who might be reading this book: Make the decision today to commit yourself to something better. It’s going to take work and it’s going to be tough at times, but you’ve already taken the first step by thinking about wanting something different. Patterns of thinking are the toughest habits to break, and I want to applaud you on your courage and strength to go for something more.

That’s my goal with this chapter: to lay out the best advice I can offer to all the other Michael Ohers out there. Especially in my early years, I didn’t have anyone modeling the life I wanted. I had to learn a lot of these lessons the hard way. I’m not trying to lift myself as a perfect role model—my life hasn’t been perfect. But I am committed to stand up as a mentor for kids who are right where I was ten years ago.

Now that I have some time in the pros under my belt and the story of my life has suddenly become wildly interesting to everyone, I want to share the things that helped me to survive. It is my hope that this chapter will get photocopied and laid on many kids’ pillows at night by loving foster parents, or slipped into backpacks by caring teachers who recognize a kid who is trying to fight against the odds. I want to see this chapter in the hands of every foster child in America so they will know how to work to make their dreams become a reality.

Just because the statistics say we’re likely to fail doesn’t mean that it has to be true for us.

 

 

THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS you have to look out for. You have to keep an eye on your own conduct; you have to be careful about the friends you choose; you have to be on the lookout for mentors; you need to be ready to work hard; and you need to be smart about money. It may sound like a lot to juggle, but as we break it down, I think you’ll see how it all comes back to your determination to make smart choices.

First of all, take a look at your family and think about what you can celebrate there. There may be a whole lot of negative stuff going on at home, but think about who you love there, and what you have learned in your life. Personally, I know that I have been so blessed in my life because, while some people pray for just one family to love, I have been given two. The Tuohys made me a part of their home, but my biological siblings are a part of my life as well.

My sisters and younger brothers never did end up coming back home from foster care; one of my little sisters, who was born while I was in middle school, was adopted by her father’s family and enjoys a nice life with them now. But it is sad that our mother’s choices ended up tearing our family apart so that I barely know some of my own family now.

Denise has her own apartment and job, and I am really proud her. I hadn’t seen her since the day she was loaded into the car back in 1993, but we finally met up in 2009—it was great to see her after more than fifteen years. She is tall, like our mother and me, which for some reason made me really happy—I guess it’s just knowing that we share something.

We older Oher boys have remained in pretty close contact with one another, and I’ve been able to enjoy having them as part of my life. One or another of my brothers always tried to make it to my football games in high school, and some of them even made it to a couple of my college games. Marcus, as I mentioned, was with me on draft day, which was really special, too.

My junior year of college, Deljuan was killed when the car he was riding in with Marcus and Rico hit a pole. That was really tough to go through; I left classes for a few days to go home for the funeral and cry together as a family. It was so hard to lose someone who had been such a huge part of my life. I always kind of thought of my big brothers as one big unit that no one could hurt or break up, even if we were living in different places. Of course, as kids we had to fend for ourselves a lot, but their love was always important to me, and even now I am proud of how we tried to stick together. Now Carlos is a dad and Marcus, too—he’s married and has a little house in Memphis.

When I got my first paycheck from the Ravens, I gave each of my brothers a little bit of money—just enough to buy a reliable used car to get them to and from work. I wanted them to know that it was important to me that they have a way of supporting themselves. I also took them shopping to get some work clothes, but my mother got ahold of it all and sold whatever she could as soon as I was out of town.

She called me later and left a message on my voice mail calling me some really terrible names for taking them shopping and not her. I must have listened to that message a hundred times, and each listen hurt as much as the first one. When I tried to talk to her about it, she yelled at me, “You’ve got to answer to God.”

“No,
you’ve
got to answer to God,” I finally said to her. “I’m just trying to do right by my brothers.”

I will always love my family—my siblings and my mother—and we have been through a whole lot together. But that doesn’t mean that I need to keep negative people in my life. My biological mother has shown me time and again through her poor decisions that she values certain things more than she values her relationship with her children. I’ve tried to put her in rehab, I’ve tried to help her however I could, but I have finally realized the sad truth—that she and I really don’t have a relationship anymore. When I was sixteen, she started back into her old ways after being clean for a couple of years. I’ve talked to her since then, but I haven’t had a real
conversation
with her. We have nothing to talk about. The choices we have made are so different that it feels like we have nothing at all in common, and when I try to connect with her, she only acts resentful.

I just have to remember the good times—the way she was when she was off drugs and working—and decide for my own life what kind of parent I am going to be once I get married and start a family. All she did was give birth to us. She was never really a mother, not in any reliable way. I know that I am not going to do anything to bring children into this world until I can provide a good life for them with a solid family, and I’m going to make sure that I am grateful for them. I’m going to be a great father, do all the right things, and make sure I’m there for them. My mother’s failures do not have to be mine.

You need to make that same decision. If a family member is abusive or neglectful, you can always be grateful that person gave you life or shares your genes, but you also have the power to recognize that their life is not your life and their decisions do not have to be yours. It may be that you are able to separate yourself from that person, painful as it might feel, and refuse to allow their poisonous way of acting to influence your life anymore. Of course, it could be that you are not able to physically remove yourself from the situation. In that case, then, you just have to decide in your own mind who you are, what you want, and what it is going to take for you to get there. Keep that in the front of your mind at all times and never let that other person knock down your dreams or pull you off-course.

The same is true when it comes to choosing your friends. It can be really tough to find good people to hang around with, and it can be lonely sometimes. It’s impossible to stress how important it is that you choose the right friends, no matter who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a poor kid in the projects or someone in foster care bouncing around to different neighborhoods or a rich kid in a private school. The people you choose to hang out with are going to have a huge impact on the choices you make and the person you end up becoming. If you hang around people who are always negative, you’re going to start acting that way, too, because it will just seem normal. If you spend all your time with people who get into trouble, you’re going to end up getting into trouble, too. You have to keep your eyes open for the right kinds of friends if you want to go against the trends around you.

I was lucky enough to find Craig, and I am so glad that I did because I know his influence helped keep me out of serious trouble. I try to include him whenever I hang out with my brothers because he is just like a brother to me. I’m so proud of him for having a steady job and keeping such a clean life—no drugs, arrests, or any of that mess. He’s still a good guy and I love him for it.

Jamarca, who was such a good friend to me while we were in college together, is another guy who has his head on straight. We looked out for each other during college and we still stay close now that we’re both in the pros. He plays for the Vikings, but when he’s not in Minnesota, we rent a place together in Oxford to be near the Ole Miss campus for workouts. He’s someone I know I can trust to not pull me into trouble or try to get me involved in the wrong things.

It blows my mind when I look around and see those professional athletes who keep hanging around thugs and hustlers and other people who are just plain bad news. When the people in the entourage cause trouble, the athlete almost always gets into trouble, too. Look at Michael Vick. He is actually a nice guy and a talented player; but after he made it big, he kept hanging around with troublemakers from his old neighborhood, and that was how he ended up involved in the dog fighting ring that landed him in prison.

The friends you choose can make all the difference as to where you end up. If all of your friends cut school, don’t do any work, hang out with thugs, or are involved in bad activities, chances are good that you’ll end up doing the same thing. It’s crazy to think you can be surrounded by all that and not be tempted to join in. If you want to get out of the ghetto, you can’t keep living like the ghetto.

There is sometimes a sense of “They knew me when, so I owe them. Otherwise, I’m a sell-out and disloyal.” I appreciate the idea of not forgetting where you came from, but a true friend wants you to succeed for who you are and not for what you can give them. In my senior yearbook at Briarcrest, each of us was supposed to include a quote as our parting thought at graduation. I adapted a line from a rap song and from the movie
Hoop Dreams
: “People ask me if I ever reach the top will I forget about them? So I ask people if I don’t reach the top will y’all forget about me?” It’s unfortunate, but things change when you start succeeding, and I wanted to know who was going to stick with me even if I didn’t make it.

While you are coping with any negative influences in your family or from your friends, you should always be keeping your eyes open for positive influences. Try to find those mentors wherever you can, because they will become a new kind of family for you. In my case, they literally became family when the Tuohys took an interest in my life and helped me grow into everything I could be. But there were other mentors, too, who I’ve talked about in this book. They all helped me, in their own way, to see that there was something more than the way of life I knew, and they each gave me a little boost toward reaching it. It is so important to find someone who can show you how to make good life choices and how to live responsibly. That kind of wisdom is a gift whose value can’t be measured.