'I Know What I Witnessed': Michael Oher's High School Coach Says 'The Facts Will Come Out' Amid Dispute with Tuohys
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze has weighed in the ongoing media feud between Michael Oher and the Tuohy family.
The former NFL offensive lineman recently accused the family that took him into their home while he was a homeless teen of taking advantage of him, ESPN reported.
He filed a petition in a Tennessee court to request an end to a conservatorship over him from Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy.
The story of the family and its acceptance of Oher into their home inspired the 2009 Oscar-winning film “The Blind Side.”
Oher charged the inspirational story was not what it seemed.
He claimed he was under the impression he was “adopted” and was shocked to recently learn he was still under a conservatorship – and was never considered the Tuohy’s legal child.
However, in his 2011 memoir, he admitted he knew he was under the conservatorship, People magazine reported.
The 37-year-old never lodged any complaints against the wealthy family at the time.
Freeze, who will climb his way back into SEC football coaching the Tigers this season after he exited Ole Miss in 2016 amid scandal and before a three-year stint coaching at Liberty University, knows the family and its relationship with Oher perhaps better than anyone.
Before Freeze was hired as the head coach at Mississippi in 2012, he was one of the team’s assistants from 2006 to 2007 – when Oher played for the Rebels.
But prior to that, Freeze was the head coach of Briarcrest Christian School in Shelby County, Tennessee from 1995 until 2004.
That happens to the same academy Oher attended with the help of the Tuohy family. Freeze coached Oher both in high school and at Ole Miss.
The coach weighed in on the feud between the two parties, WVTM-TV reported.
Freeze said that in spite of Oher’s accusations against the family, the Tuohys would be there for him right now if he needed them.
“I know this: If Michael called Sean (Tuohy) right now and said let’s work this thing out, Sean and Leigh Anne would be there in a hurry to hug his neck and tell him he’s loved,” Freeze opined.
The coach added, “I hope he feels that. Until you walk in people’s shoes, I don’t claim to have all the answers to anything, but I think whatever happens will happen. The facts will come out. But I love both sides of it.”
While Freeze did acknowledge there are two sides to every story, he did explain his perspective of the situation is one most people can’t have.
“I think it’s sad,” Freeze said of the situation. “I certainly don’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of adoption, conservatory, all of that.”
He added, “I know what I witnessed. I witnessed a family that totally took in a young man, and I think without that, there is no story.”
Freeze’s comments call into question Oher’s claims that he was taken advantage of and dispute claims of critics that the couple was out to cash in on a long-shot teen in hopes he would somehow blossom into an NFL talent.
The Tuohys are reportedly ready to end the conservatorship at any time.
But the family has not been shy about defending their relationship with Oher.
“We’re devastated,” Sean Tuohy told Daily Memphian of Oher’s allegations. “It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children. But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”
Oher, who won a Super Bowl ring with the Baltimore Ravens, now has his own family and he is retired from the NFL.
But according to the man who coached him in high school and in college, the independently wealthy Tuohy family still loves him as if he is one of them.
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