The conservatorship case C-010333 celebrated its 20th year in Memphis probate court this month. During that time, Michael Oher, a standout tackle who earned national honors from Ole Miss, was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. He helped the team win Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 and played eight seasons in the league, including one for the Tennessee Titans.

Oher married his college sweetheart and started a family in Nashville, where they live today.

The big opportunitya 2009 film about a white Memphis family that adopts a homeless black teenager and then turns him into a football star, earned $309 million for Warner Bros. The Tuohys, the Memphis family that negotiated the rights to the film, also made money. Michael Oher, who is portrayed by his real name in the film, just kept playing football.

Then a comment from one of the Tuohy siblings to Oher about a large check brought things back to C-01033.

“In all my 43 years, I have never seen a guardianship established for someone without a disability,” Probate Court Division 1 Judge Kathleen Gomes said during her opening statement in a transcript dated Sept. 29, 2023 – the day she terminated the Tuohys’ guardianship of Oher. “And I say that because we take the Guardianship Act very seriously. It’s for people with disabilities. When we establish a guardianship, we take away rights, and those rights are then given to someone else.”

The case, opened in August 2004, assigned Oher’s legal rights to the Tuohys for 19 years. That summer two decades ago – between Oher’s penultimate and senior year of high school – Oher was already a football star. Colleges, including top SEC programs, already had him on their recruiting radar. A college career seemed guaranteed; the chance to turn pro was not far away.

Oher hired his own lawyer last summer to permanently end the conservatorship. When Oher was 18, it had been presented to him as an adult adoption when his lawyer, a friend of the Tuohys, drafted the legal agreement.

In a sense, Oher said The New York Times In a profile earlier this month, he was portrayed as a hapless teenager who depended on the generous material support of the Tuohy family. But that was largely not who he was.

“It is difficult to describe my reaction,” Oher told Just‘ Michael Sokolove. “To be honest, it seemed kind of weird to me, like it was a comedy about somebody else. I didn’t get it. But social media just started growing, and I started seeing things saying I was stupid. I’m stupid. Every article about me mentioned The big opportunityas if it were part of my name.”

Oher has said that the film’s portrayal influenced his draft rating. The tackle position requires a nuanced understanding of the football and adept mastery of the entire offensive playbook, a key point made by Michael Lewis in his 2006 book. The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Gamein which Oher’s story was featured. This month, Lewis contributed an affidavit to Oher’s case.

Somewhere between that summer in Memphis, Lewis’ book, and the movie, Oher’s story devolved into a charity story that rewrote the facts and stripped Oher of his intelligence, agency, and hard work. Hollywood mixed racist stereotypes with a formulaic plot. The big opportunity featured married couple Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy – played by Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw – as rescuers, portraying Oher in two dimensions. Bullock won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, but reportedly expressed reservations about the adaptation when Oher returned to the conservatorship case last year.

After the Tuohys’ conservatorship ended last fall, Oher – with the help of lawyers – is now trying to uncover all the ways the family has made money using his name, image or likeness. The couple has earned speaking fees and published their own books. A conservatorship requires a fiduciary responsibility to the individual, in this case Oher. The two parties are now arguing over financial accounting that did not occur during the conservatorship’s term.

The Tuohys claim that the Blind Side The story and the legal opportunity to profit from it are theirs, too. Oher says the lawsuit isn’t about money – he’s made a lot of money protecting quarterbacks. Rather, he says, it’s about redeeming the Hollywood myth that defined him before he could define himself.