I Beat the Odds Quotes

“People like to talk about "Cinderella stories," but Cinderella didn't get her happy ending without lifting a finger. She had to show up at the ball, be charming and smooth, and win over the prince. Of course she had help along the way, but ultimately it was up to her to make the fairy-tale ending happen.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Don't ever allow yourself to feel trapped by your choices. Take a look at yourself. You are a unique person created for a specific purpose. Your gifts matter. Your story matters. Your dreams matter. You matter.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“If you make the wrong decision, it's never too late to make the right one”
― Michael Oher, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Well we want to know... If you want to become part of the family."
"... Kinda thought I already was.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“It’s true that we can’t help the circumstances we’re born into and some of us start out in a much tougher place than other people. But just because we started there doesn’t mean we have to end there.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“no kid ever truly forgets when they’ve experienced neglect, abuse, and heartbreak.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Children who have been taken to live in the foster system are twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than are American military members returning from war zones.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Courage is a hard thing to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or mistake, but you're not supposed to question adults, or your coach or your teacher, because they make the rules. Maybe they know best, but maybe they don't. It all depends on who you are, where you come from. Didn't at least one of the six hundred guys think about giving up, and joining with the other side? I mean, valley of death that's pretty salty stuff. That's why courage it's tricky. Should you always do what others tell you to do? Sometimes you might not even know why you're doing something. I mean any fool can have courage. But honor, that's the real reason for you either do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good. I think that's what the writer was saying, that you should hope for courage and try for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some, too.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Just because the statistics say we’re likely to fail doesn’t mean that it has to be true for us.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“If you want to get out of the ghetto, you can’t keep living like the ghetto.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“I KNOW THAT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE PEOPLE who think that the extra courses I took to help raise my high school GPA were a lame excuse for making up classes I failed the first time around. There are other people who will always be convinced that I am just a dumb football player who only graduated from Briarcrest because I had a lot of people helping to pull me along because they wanted to get me into college. All I can say in response to that is, look at my academic record while at Ole Miss. I wasn’t just squeaking by with the minimum GPA—twice I made the dean’s list. It’s amazing how a life can turn around with some encouragement, some support, and someone willing to say, “I believe you CAN do what you’ve set your mind on doing.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“Instead of jumping into summer vacation like so many of my friends, I began work with a series of online courses offered through Brigham Young University that were approved by the NCAA for core course requirements for athletes trying to improve their GPAs. The grades earned there can be used to replace older, failing grades on the transcript, and it was an exciting series of courses for me. Subjects covered a wide range, including foreign languages, math, social studies, business, and English. It was a wonderful program for kids like me to go back and redo some of the courses we didn’t get right the first time.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

“The situation finally got resolved when Leigh Anne came marching into the gym before a game one day carrying a video camera. She introduced herself to the referees, pointed me out to them as her son, and let them know that there had been some problems about a lot of unfair fouls being called against me in the past. She told the ref that she would be personally recording the game, and if there were any blatant calls against me that clearly were not accurate, she would be sending the tape to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association to make sure that the ref never called another game tor Briarcrest. That did the trick. Any foul called after that was one I deserved.”
― Michael Oher, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond