I Beat the Odds

by Michael Oher

  If you’re good at writing, you have to commit to keep growing. Read good books, magazines, or newspapers so that you can learn what to do to keep improving. If you’re good at art, keep practicing it so that you can get new skills and learn new techniques that will open you up to new opportunities. If you are a talented musician, spend your spare time practicing or join a music club after school at the YMCA or Boys and Girls Club.

  Your talents are a gift. Are you just going to drop them, hoping that someone will give you your dream job and a fat salary just for being you? Or are you going to take responsibility for what you’ve got and really push yourself to do something great with those gifts? You have to believe in yourself enough to know that you’ve got talent and that you are worth the investment of time and effort. God valued you enough to give you those abilities. Value yourself enough to grow those talents to become great.

  SUCCESS IS DETERMINED by a lot more than what is in your bank account, but you do need to learn how to make good decisions about your money once you start earning it. There are a lot of very famous people who have earned a ton of money but don’t understand basic things like self-control and discipline. As I mentioned in chapter 17, it amazes me how some pro athletes can sign multimillion-dollar contracts and be broke in six months, but it happens all the time.

  Many churches and civic groups offer courses on learning how to make a budget and manage income. I would encourage anyone, but especially young people, to sign up for one. Believe me, I still think, “Wow! This is crazy!” every time I check my bank statement. It’s really hard to get used to seeing a lot of zeros when you’re used to just seeing one. It’s exciting and fun to think you can provide for yourself with your own paycheck, but, unfortunately, a lot of other people think it’s exciting and fun for you to provide for them out of your paycheck, too.

  I have people hitting me up for money all the time. Sometimes they are people I don’t know—a lot of inventors who want someone to invest in their product; a lot of wannabe rappers who want someone to pay for them to put out a record. Those are usually pretty easy to say no to. Sometimes the requests come from people I do know—people from back home in the old neighborhood who think I owe them; members of my father’s family who I’ve never spoken two words to before. Those can be a bit harder to turn down.

  I tell you those things because you’ve got to be prepared that with even the smallest amount of success, there are going to be people who feel like you should be paying their way. You don’t have to be famous to get hit up for money—there are a lot of people out there who think they are entitled to anything you’ve earned just because you used to be neighbors or are family. And even if you have signed a big contract, once you pay taxes on a million dollars, there isn’t nearly as much left over as most people think there is.

  It’s wonderful to help out people in need, or to donate to charities or causes that you believe in. I think that is a great thing and I would encourage everyone to do that. But you also have to have limits; you have to know when enough is enough. There is not enough money in the world to give everyone what they want. What you need to be aware of is how you handle the tough job of saying no when people ask you and you can’t meet the need or don’t think it’s where you want your money to go. Don’t let anyone guilt you into thinking your success obligates you to them; that’s one of the quickest ways to get sucked back into poverty.

  Remember the story of the Little Red Hen? She grew the grain and harvested it and baked it into the bread and no one wanted to do any of that work along with her . . . but they all wanted a piece of the bread when she took it out of the oven. If you do the work to get yourself a job, to put yourself through school, to work hard for good grades, to go without in order to save money and make smart spending choices—whatever it is that you need to do to achieve your dream—don’t let anyone else claim your success as their own. There may be people who cheer you on along the way, and you should be sure to acknowledge and thank them, but don’t let anyone try to guilt you out of what you’ve earned.

  IT’S ALSO IMPORTANT to really study how to behave properly in different situations. Like I said in chapter 13, you need to be aware of different ways of acting that are appropriate for different situations. It doesn’t mean that you’re putting on airs or not being true to yourself if you act differently in one type of situation than another; it means that you have the discernment to know what is acceptable for each occasion. The same is true with how you dress. Your clothes don’t have to be expensive, they just have to be neat in appearance and fitting for where you are.

  Think about it: If you want a job in an office, you can’t walk into the interview in jeans and an untucked T-shirt, or a really short skirt and low-cut blouse, laughing loudly on your cell phone and using curse words—right? That isn’t presenting yourself in the right kind of way for that situation.

  If you want to be a part of the professional world, you have to know how to act, dress, talk, and carry yourself. Look around at the people in the field you want to pursue, and make notes about how they come off. How does a businessperson act? How does a lawyer dress? How does a teacher speak? Study their behavior and even ask questions. By figuring out what it takes to present yourself in a certain kind of way, you can take huge steps in going after the kind of life you want. That doesn’t mean you have to stop being who you are; it just means that you understand the difference between casual situations and professional ones. Those are some of the personal choices that will help set you apart from the way of living you want to escape.

  Because, in the end, it all comes down to your choices. There is an old expression that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent what you make of it. 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.

  And there is just one more thing I want to encourage young people to think about. 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. The decisions you make this year, this month, this week, this day, this hour—they all matter, too. Each good choice you make is an investment in your future. You can get a better life. If you are willing to roll up your sleeves and work for it, then you certainly deserve it.

  We are all in this together. I’m pledging my support to be the best role model I can be through the appearances and speeches I make for the various foster care support groups I work with, as well as with my lifestyle and the choices I make. I hope each child reading this book will pledge to value their life enough to commit to making it no matter what; and that every adult will pledge to find a way—any way—to give back.

  If we all believe we can achieve something great, then I know that together, we can beat the odds, one life at a time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Ways to Get Involved

  If you are a concerned adult who would like to get involved but aren’t sure where to start, there are a lot of places you can contact. The organizations I talk about here are not a complete list of all those out there. This chapter is really just a starting point to let people know the types of groups and opportunities available.

  The most obvious place to start is to contact the guidance counselor at any local school. A counselor will be able to let you know if there are children in the school who have specific needs, like shoes or clothes. Or the school may have a mentoring program. Every school system has different rules and needs, but the guidance office is a great place to get started.

  Just judging from some of the organizations that people have written me from, there are a lot of great groups out there that are making a difference in kids’ lives.

  There is probably a YMCA or YWCA in a community near you, and they are always offering classes and sports activities for kids who want positive ways to fill t
heir time and develop their skills. These centers are often looking for volunteers to help coach, teach, or tutor, and can be a really good place to start making connections with individual kids.

  Another good option for getting involved is the Boys and Girls Club. With more than four thousand clubs around the country, plus military bases, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, this is one of the biggest youth organizations in the world; and since there are clubs in every state, there is almost certainly one in a community near you. These are great places for children to find all kinds of help that they need, from academic support to after-school activities. And there is always a need for volunteers to help support the different programs offered.

  Big Brothers Big Sisters is also a great mentoring program that offers one-on-one interaction for kids who are looking for positive role models and adults who want to have a direct impact on someone’s life. There are programs in all fifty states and twelve countries internationally, so there are a lot of places and ways to make a difference.

  Study Buddy is a national program that provides homework help online for kids who need some extra tutoring in math and science. It is part of the National Science & Technology Education Partnership, and its goal is to make “economics and geography no longer a bar to success in math. The linking of high school student tutors, one-on-one and online, with struggling middle and high school math students creates a community of role models for the struggling students in an unintimidating and exciting environment.”

  I strongly recommend you pick up the phone and call your local branch of any one of these organizations.

  THERE ARE ALSO A NUMBER OF PROGRAMS that are dedicated specifically to children who have been placed in protective custody or are in foster care.

  One group for which I’ve done some speaking is the Treehouse organization in Seattle, Washington. Their slogan is “Giving foster kids a childhood and a future,” and their entire purpose is to help kids and families who are a part of the system. They have six different branches that offer different kinds of support:• The Wearhouse, a free store where kids can get shoes, school supplies, books, and toys

  • Little Wishes, which takes care of life expenses like drivers’ education or classes to develop a certain skill

  • Summer Camp, which gives kids a camp vacation to make new friends and just have a good time being kids

  • Tutoring, which provides academic support for kids to teach them how to learn, study, and apply themselves

  • Educational Advocacy, a statewide effort to give foster kids equal access to a stable education

  • College and Career Planning, which lets older students explore different options for the future, either in terms of a career or working toward a college degree

  Treehouse is an incredible group that helps hundreds of kids each year. But in order to do what they do, they have to have volunteers who not only donate funds but also give their time to do things like organize donations to the Wearhouse, or give music or dance lessons for free or at a reduced cost. I mentioned this group because I have worked with them in the past and I’m familiar with the great work that they do, but there are lots of organizations like Treehouse in other cities. If you aren’t in the Seattle area, call around to see what programs might be doing similar work near where you live.

  Aspiranet is an organization in California that works to help foster children and families feel supported. They also work to help children who are eligible for adoption find forever families. House of New Hope, a private Christian non-profit group does similar work in Ohio. Jewish Child and Family Services, based in Chicago, has programs in place to meet the huge need in that city. CEDARS, a Nebraska-based organization, has several programs, including one that helps kids who try to run away. The Searcy Children’s Home in Arkansas specializes in helping siblings stay together in foster care.

  In New York, Little Flower Children and Family Services specializes in helping abused and neglected children to help match them with strong, supportive families. They work with at-risk teens, too, to help straighten out their lives before they get into trouble and land in state custody. Their work also reaches out to disabled adults and seniors. Also in the northeast is Casey Family Services. They work in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and provide “Foster care and adoption; family advocacy, preservation, and reunification; adoption support and other post-permanency services; [and] community-based family strengthening and resource centers.” The Martin Pollak Project is an organization in Baltimore that offers help with placement and support for foster kids and children who have recently aged out of the system; the Center for Family Services offers resources and support for foster parents in the city, too. The Tennessee Foster and Adoptive Care Association is one that does the same kind of work in my own home state, and Monroe Harding, Inc. in Nashville offers a lot of different care options, too.

  Youth Villages provides family structure and support for children in foster care across the southeast in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and also in the northeast in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C. A great feature about this organization is that it offers help to people up to twenty-two years old. So instead of just telling a kid “Good luck—you’re on your own now!” when they age out of the system at eighteen, it gives older kids in the foster care system a transition period to look forward to as they finish high school and look to start a trade school, college, or full-time work.

  There are also a number of group homes and teen ranches all over the country. The Florida Baptist Children’s Homes have fourteen locations around the state to provide group home care for children in state custody. Methodist Home for Children is just one organization that places, supports, and advocates for foster children around the state of North Carolina. Sunrise Children’s Services operates in Kentucky and has a lot of different programs and locations around the state, from group homes to family support.

  There are also the Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch (outside Amarillo, Texas) and Cal Farley’s Girlstown, U.S.A. (outside Lubbock, Texas), which offer group home options and have strong records of success. The affiliated Family Resource Centers in Amarillo, Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio help families that are struggling to stay together and provide stable environments for their children, and support for the children who are trying to make it through school and become contributing members of society.

  In Missouri there are at least a half dozen places like Whetstone Boys Ranch in West Plains, which is a new organization doing a lot of great work already; Lives Under Construction Boys Ranch in Lampe, which works with boys ages seven to twenty-one; and Coyote Hill Children’s Home in Harrisburg, which supports children from a lot of different types of family backgrounds. Drumm Farm in Independence specializes in caring for foster children, as well; Brodie Croyle, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, does work with them. He grew up around that kind of environment because his father, John Croyle, established the Big Oak Boys Ranch and Big Oak Girls Ranch in his home state of Alabama.

  I know of a number of other really good ranches/group home environments like these in just about every state—some are state-run, some are private, some are religious. It’s worth doing a little research to find one that is a good match for your own interests so that you can feel good about your involvement. I should also add that places like these are usually happy to take all kinds of donations, sometimes even including gifts of older-model cars to help teach the young men auto repair. You get a tax write-off and the boys get a chance to learn responsibility and job skills.

  In addition to Brodie Croyle, there are other athletes who are involved with helping foster kids, too. Myron Rolle, former Florida State All-American and Rhodes Scholar, runs a camp in the summer called the Myron Rolle Wellness and Leadership Academy. More than one hundred foster kids get the chance to hear motivational speakers, learn about physical fitness a
nd nutrition, and most important, work on the confidence and skills to become good leaders. Athletes for Charity is an entire organization devoted to helping pro sports figures get involved in supporting and encouraging foster kids.

  Some people have come up with creative ways to raise support and awareness. In August 2010, the singer Jimmy Wayne, who grew up in foster care himself, walked 1,700 miles from Nashville to Phoenix. His trip halfway across America was part of his Meet Me Halfway project, which aims to bring attention to older children in foster care who are aging out of the system.

  Bethany Christian Services is a nationwide organization that helps match foster children with adoptive families and helps adults looking to become foster parents learn valuable skills to reach the children put in their care. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has as their slogan “Finding Forever Families for Children in Foster Care.” Started by Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, they are one of the county’s biggest promoters of foster care awareness and adoption-support organizations. And AdoptUsKids has helped more than 13,500 foster children around the United States find permanent adoptive families.

  Of course, don’t forget to keep your eyes open for the need right in front of your face. Leigh Anne and Sean call this “popcorn giving,” meaning you take care of the needs that pop up right in front of you. You don’t need to have a school or a formal program to get involved. The Tuohys and other families at Briarcrest didn’t. They didn’t go looking for a needy kid to help; they didn’t just close their eyes when one crossed their path. They saw a need and they each met it however they could.