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Touhy/Oher reports seems to touch on a lot of culture war issues. Though it could just be a family feud.
They only became a part of his life when he was 17/18. But I guess they decided to become a forever family then. Photos for the next 6-8 years looks like a happy family. They put him in conservatorship at 18 instead of adopting. It gave them a bunch of legal rights over him. Sounds a little bad since he was an adult but it did make a formal tie. And let’s be honest a normal 18 year old often needs adults in the room. An 18 year old who never had a family life definitely needs it. Sort of gets down to whether they were acting in good faith or using him. I lean on good faith.
The movie I believe portrayed him as a little dumb. His childhood issues probably did limit him. By the time he got to the nfl he scored a 19 on the wonderlich. Which when I’ve looked it up before is like American average IQ and around 100. So not dumb just average.
He apparently wants more money now. The family and the author Michael Lewis seem to indicate that they never made much in the movie. Like $700k between all of them. While Oher indicates they got bank. Lewis says this just means Hollywood bad and writers aren’t getting paid. Fwiw Oher never got paid a lot in the nfl. As a first round pick he got 5 years 13.8. For nfl contracts I’d do a simple formula of guessing you get about half after taxes and agent fees. The big money in the nfl is from free agency contracts. He signed two. First one he didn’t finish but was $5/year and played one year. Then signed elsewhere at $3. He played well so they extended him immediately but he got hurt mid year and cut with 9.5 guaranteed. Lifetime earnings probably around $30-35. 15 after taxes and fees. If your life story become a movie that grossed $300 million I think it would be reasonable to think it could boost those earnings and would be meaningful.
The white savior storyline. I’m curious how much current politics could have soured what was a happy relationship. The family no doubt used him some and loved the having a football star in the family thing and doing things like getting draft picks taken together. From my own background I saw the same storyline as my football coach adopted a black kid who was a great athlete (I played midgets football with him and high school basketball). Would have been a Catholic version of the same story. Curious if current politics are ruining these types of relationships.
Slightly different topic but I tend to think the people who make it to play pro sports are significantly above group level IQ. Like Oher being 100 IQ. I just can’t see a 70-80 IQ functioning well enough to understand pro-sports concepts or being capable of training themselves to get there.
For what it's worth, you're right on the nose with his career earnings in the NFL: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/michael-oher-5484/cash-earnings/
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Regarding athlete IQ, while the average pro athlete may be above group level, their intellectual abilities are so singularly focused on sports that they often come across as unintelligent when it comes to just about any other activity. Thus they are on the field making incredible plays that will be remembered for a long time thereafter, unlike their interviews/biographies which are generally devoid of any actual insight whatsoever.
I'm mainly lifting this theory from one of DFW's tennis essays, but I think it may hold true for sports in general.
certainly I've heard of various otherwise dim-seeming elite athletes having savant-like memory (LeBron James and Steven Stamkos are two that pop to mind)
There is a direct correlation between physical fitness (muscle size) and proper function of the brain. The primary reason for memory loss, and the mental effects are sarcopenia.
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Just for some clarification: The media reports seem to be acting like this is a lawsuit, or at least that's the impression they're giving most readers. It's not; it's a petition to terminate the conservatorship and order an accounting from the conservators. There's some language in it about him possibly being screwed out of some money, but without an accounting we don't know. I'm about the same age as Oher and God knows if I found out I had inadvertently made someone my conservator when I was 18 and they accepted money on my behalf I'd be damn sure that they account for every dime.
That being said, the whole thing stinks. Conservatives (i.e. the Fox News comment section) seem to be sure that this is a shakedown from a guy who blew all his NFL money, but there's no evidence of that. I find it highly unlikely as well, because the revelation of the conservatiorship was part of an investigation into his financial affairs he hired an attorney to conduct around the time he retired in 2016; hiring an attorney to investigate one's financial affairs isn't normally something a spendthrift would do, at least not until he he burned through it all. Anyway, the giveaway that he didn't know about the nature of the conservatorship and that the Touheys didn't want him to know the full ramifications of what happened is that they apparently stopped using it when he went to the NFL. Had he known about it at the time he wouldn't have been able to get his own agent and would have either petitioned to end it then or worked with the conservator. If the Touheys had sought to enforce it, it would have been a dead giveaway of what they did and would have caused some controversy right around the time the movie was released. Signing a movie deal on someone's behalf behind their back is one thing, but the public nature of NFL contracts means that this wasn't something that would have gone unnoticed. And there's no evidence that they tried to handle his affairs for him since. Better to let sleeping dogs lie and hope it never comes up again.
Oher stated in his 2011 book that he entered into the conservatorship as a substitute for adoption. While the book was probably ghostwritten, he presumably read it, and would have been aware of it at that time. It's possible he didn't know that it hadn't been legally wrapped up.
What strikes me as most likely is that the family wanted to take care of him, but not to adopt him, because adoption presumably includes family inheritance on equal footing with the other kids. That's...a lot for a rich family to do, emotionally. That's not just the parents decision, at some level, it's also asking your kids to share their inheritance with the new adult son.
I'm glad you brought this up because I forgot to, and it's my suspicion that this was the real reason they got a conservatorship instead of an adoption. My problem is that, when it comes to adults, the two things aren't comparable the way they are for minors. I dealt with one adult adoption when I had my own practice (they were friends I referred out; I didn't handle it myself). The wife had met the husband when the daughter was very young, and the wife was dodging an abusive boyfriend at the time. The husband raised the daughter like she was his own, and would have adopted her earlier, but that would have involved tracking down the bio father to terminate rights which would have created a whole hornet's nest. The couple was working class and relatively young so they weren't likely to have wills or really do any kind of estate planning. The adoption was largely symbolic, but it had the added benefit of making sure that she would inherit and be able to make decisions without a ton of estate planning on his part. I assumed at the time that that's what most adult adoptions were about.
Now compare that to a conservatorship or guardianship of an adult (different states use different terms). It gives the guardian complete control over one's affairs until the court terminates it. In Pennsylvania the court will appoint counsel for the proposed ward just to make sure that the guardianship is in his best interest. It's not something that's done unless someone has the kind of disability that makes it unwise to allow them to handle money or make important decisions. My sister-in-law has a mildly retarded sister who doesn't have a guardian. The process is so involved one of the reasons I pushed Powers of Attorney on practically everyone who came through my office was that it's a lot easier to appoint someone while you're of sound mind then have the court figure out who the best person would be. I'm honestly surprised the court went along with it in the first place. It's certainly not something done symbolically.
My impression is that they didn't want to do the adoption but told him that the conservatorship, since it's an analog of guardianship, is "like an adoption" so they wouldn't have to explain to him that, upon the advice of their attorney, they didn't really want to formally adopt him. It would certainly be an awkward conversation to have. They probably figured that they just wouldn't enforce it. Then Hollywood comes calling while he's away at college and they're authorized to make decisions for him so they make one on behalf of "the family" without explaining anything to him.Then the movie does well and 20 years later the kid finds out that the adoption was a sham and that some contracts were signed on his behalf without his full participation and they involved a lot of money "to most people" and, to top it off, they never filed annual reports with the court even though they're legally required to (though courts often overlook this requirement). So now he wants answers and has to go to court to get them, because at this point he doesn't trust his "parents" to tell him the truth.
We're also all engaging in a little bit of racism/classism in assuming that the white family knew exactly what they were doing at all times, while Oher was just along for the ride. I've known a lot of rich people who got really odd legal ideas in advice from a family lawyer who doesn't really know what he's doing. They might equally have been under the mistaken impression that the conservatorship was kind of like a half-adoption, or that it expired automatically, or any of a dozen other harebrained ideas.
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We have things called wills. You can give money however you please. The Touhys gave equal shares of movie proceeds split 5 ways to both parents, Oher, and kids. Wasn’t a ton of money apparently from what they have.
Who knows why they chose conservatorship. Perhaps, they still wanted his birth parents to have that. For all we know he just royally f$cked himself with this and took himself out of family money. And they would have split three ways because they enjoyed all he brought to the family.
Sure you can distribute your money however you like. But you can't do so without introducing all kinds of problems and intrigue into your family. Just the facts of the matter.
The conservatorship doesn’t eliminate that issue. Someday the will gets read and if you told him you were family he’d still be there. And well that’s a rich persons problem if he gets 10 mill and the biologic kids get 95.
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This part of his allegations has, from the beginning, seemed delusional to me. Of course they made almost nothing off the movie. That is how Hollywood works, I bet if we looked it up, the studio still officially claims the movie lost money.
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It's worth noting that on Reddit the Tuohy's are being portrayed as mustache-twirling villains despite no evidence they did anything wrong.
It looks to me like another case of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics.
You take in a troubled teen, give him the support he needs to earn $14 million playing in the NFL, as well as enough fame to ensure a lifetime of sponsorship income when he blows the first $14 million. And this is the thanks they get. Serves them right, of course, for being rich, white, Southern, and Christian. Nothing they can do will ever be good enough.
In no world is Michael Oher worse off for knowing the Tuohy's. Where would he be without them? The lack of gratitude to me seems remarkable.
Just want to push back on the “when he blows it all”. I haven’t seen reports he’s broke. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn’t. But I’ve seen this narrative a few times.
Agree they did a lot for him. Probably helped him become a 5-star recruit. And helped him get into ole miss academically. Otherwise he’s probably a juco kid who transfers to a SEC school then hopefully works out. Becomes a 4th round pick without the bigger rookie first round pick contract. The dad played college basketball so no doubt helped him having a place to go home during off-season and with the work he needed to do to make it.
The best culture war angle here might be the gap between what really happened and the Reddit mustache no-nothing view. And perhaps I could say the film was blue tribe acceptable when made probably even moreso the book since Lewis throws in his the game “evolved” knowledge from Lawrence Taylor and here’s why his specific body type is so important in football. While the movie made some jokes on dumbwitted southern culture.
I assume he must be broke otherwise why go after the family?
He's clearly being taken for a ride by his lawyer. The family didn't make much money from the book/movie and, even if they did, why is someone entitled to money for their "story"? You can write a story about whoever you want and you don't have to pay them a thing. Nevertheless, I'm sure this will play out in the press and that the Tuohy's will settle with a non-disclosure to make it go away. Betraying the ones who helped you is a hell of a way to make money.
Which is a shame. He could easily pull down good money from appearances, endorsements, and memorabilia. He doesn't need this.
See my post above. He's not doing anything you wouldn't do if you found out someone had full control of your affairs for the past 20 years.
The Touhys' lawyer claims that Oher has threatened them with lawsuits before now that never went anywhere. I tend to believe the family, I think the idea that they were hoping to scam money out of a broke teenager is unlikely. The chances of even a really talented player going pro and getting rich are extremely slim.
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Could you add some context to this post? I have no idea what you're talking about.
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Could you include a little more background, or at least some links, in your post?
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38190720/blind-side-subject-michael-oher-alleges-adoption-was-lie-family-took-all-film-proceeds
Sorry didn’t feel like leaving a bunch of links. The Blindside is a movie about a black future professional offensive tackle who moved in around 17 with the local rich kid family in the south. They made a movie about it which was sort of a Hallmark style feel good movie. It was one of Michael Lewis books (Liars Poker/The Big Short/Moneyball) and was written in that fashion.
Thanks!
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IIRC IQ is correlated with reaction time too. Between that and the Army having a cutoff of around your low score because it's just too hard to train such types I also have to think they're >70-80, though you wonder if certain people like Ja Morant are actual morons in the old-fashioned sense.
The correlation is quite strong (.5?) ..that doesn't mean sportsmen are invariably smart. If you're smart you have far, far more options.
E.g. a lot of superstar soccer players seem fairly thick..
It's only strong for certain types of activities. Simple reaction time like someone throwing something at you which you bat away, it's almost nothing. Strategizing or problem solving, it's quite high. Defensive linemen probably have some of both. I'm sure it's way better to be smart than not, but much of it is using techniques and tactics on which you've drilled against techniques and tactics on which you've also drilled.
It's very strong for simple reaction time, even stronger for quick simple choices iirc.
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Hollywood Accounting. Whoever made money out of that movie, it's highly unlikely to be the family/people on whom the story was based. They may well have got a hefty payment, but it's doubtful to be in the millions. He probably did get cheated out of money, but this is (sadly) a family quarrel and let's be realistic here - like most sportspeople, he'd probably have burned through whatever he earned even if he had gotten his hands on every cent of it. That's not saying he's stupid or low IQ, but it seems to be how most (the exceptions being few) end up.
Hollywood accounting is largely a legend from the old days, and despite some real examples it was never as common as is sometimes implied (accounting tricks were commonly used for production finance and tax reasons, most creators who sold rights were paid cash). In the modern day, agents will make sure you get points up front or a substantial cash payment for IP rights.
For the most part in movies the people who make money are those who fund movies and some star talent (directors, star actors, occasionally others) that can bid up their price. Everyone else gets paid standard or union rates. This is similar to any other business.
The problem is that in entertainment an additional entitlement exists, namely the ‘right’ some people demand to revenue points even when they bear none of the risk for a production. In other industries this doesn’t fly, equity is offered either as part of compensation packages to attract talent or to keep it, there is no ‘right’ to it. And when an accountant or lawyer makes partner, they have to ‘buy in’ for several years before they start making a personal profit.
This (not AI or writers rooms) is actually the biggest sticking point in the current strikes.
Looks like this crowd don't know that:
Maybe their lawyer should tell them "Sorry, but 'Hollywood accounting' is an old days legend, I can't take this case because you will embarrass yourselves"?
Lawsuit here, doubtless the judge will laugh it out of court because "Hollywood accounting doesn't happen today!"
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Hollywood accounting is alive and well. The films are quite good at turning minimal profit, so if your contact is based on the profit not the gross you are fucked. On the other hand this type of accounting is very common in any multinationals - there is reason they are based in Dublin and the companies in Dublin pay trough the nose for ip from companies in the Cayman Islands, so calling it Hollywood is probably a bit dated.
I once started on an abortive career in Accenture (absolutely hated the culture, was mildly relieved I got fired) and as we were getting familiarized with SAP modules it was pretty obvious one module existed mostly to allow deceptive accounting. E.g. creating illusory numbers through billing for various corporate 'services' provided between controlled companies meanwhile still preserving the real numbers.
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I imagine part of the problem is that the guy is looking at "This movie made $300 million, I didn't get any of that, who did?" and pinning it on his family. But it is going to be the studios who take chunks out of that to cover marketing, distribution, etc. Even if that means $100-200 million of a profit remaining, that's going to the people who know how the system works and that you don't sign up for a flat fee at the start, you make sure you look for a share of whatever profits are made.
I would say Mr Oher took the up-front money, and is now expecting that his share should have been bigger, and nobody is explaining to him (or he's not listening to them) that this is not how it works when you make movies.
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The latest examples on Wikipedia are from the late 2010s (including one case settled in 2021). When I think of the old days of legend I think "my grandsires' grandsires", not "my kids were a little shorter".
Revenue points are a way of bearing some of the risk for a production. If I demand $100K flat, I bear zero risk. If I demand 0.1 gross points on a movie expected to gross $100M, my expectation is still $100K (either pretend interest rates are 0 or say I get a little more to even out the NPV) but my risk has increased (my variance is no longer 0), and my paymasters' risk has decreased (their expected profits are still $N-$100K but the variance of their profits has reduced). I'm bearing more risk and they're bearing less. For many standard/union rate workers this might usually be moot, as they can only negotiate for points in addition to base salary rather than instead, but people with IP rights aren't so restricted.
Looking thru Wikipedia - I’m surprised there are still some examples of this. I’d assume the stars have agents who know the accounting games and would have their workarounds at this point. I could see things working years ago for studios in their contracts but I’d assume the agents and lawyers on the other side aren’t idiots.
The examples from the 2010s section involve either old cases or losses for studios in lawsuits for trying this against established stars e.g. with the cast of Bones or Frank Darabont vs AMC. So at least their lawyers were on-point.
I assume anyone with leverage is wise now.
Other people just take what they can get and don't even get on that page because there's nothing to challenge.
I remember some redditor writing a short story (or it may have just been the outline of the concept) about a group of US Marines trapped in ancient Rome called Rome Sweet Rome that got optioned and he clearly noted the problems with a net profit share in his AMA but he also pointed out that he had absolutely zero leverage.
Think I heard that story might become a movie. Almost feel like it was associated with the next gladiator movie.
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Isn't that what 'gross' means? Gross revenue? Eg Box office ticket sales.
So the producers can't say a movie bringing in $300 million cost $400 million to make factoring in catering and purchasing IP from the company in the Cayman Islands?
As an actors agent I think you'd be able to tune your contract's definition of 'percentage of gross revenue' to deflect most Hollywood accounting issues. You'd also think the Screen Actors Guild would actually have resources available to help provide this knowledge.
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People like the idea of human beings as like character creation in DnD, you put too many points in Str and you don't have any left for Int! It feels just, it feels fair, it allows for humans to see a role for themselves in an Eigen Plot, even if they're not the big strong hero they still have a role.
The reality is human traits aren't distributed fairly. [John Urschel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Urschel#::text=John%20Cameron%20Urschel%20(born%20June,of%20the%202014%20NFL%20Draft.) and Frank Ryan are guys who played in the NFL while obtaining and holding PhDs in mathematics from MIT and Rice respectively. Some people are just better than others. The idea of the dumb jock, and of the nebbish nerd, are copes designed to help people feel better about their own lacks.
I've never actually seen the movie, or read the book, it didn't seem like a plot that would interest me. But consider that as many as 80% of NFL players declare bankruptcy within three years of retirement [ETA: This number is probably wildly inflated, but it points to the general concept that a non-HoF level NFL player typically goes from making millions to making almost nothing in a year when they retire]. It is very common for players to think the money will never stop, to spend themselves into game-day paycheck to game-day paycheck, for their career to run out earlier than they thought, and next thing you know they're broke. It is quite likely that Oher is looking for alternative sources of revenue.
Simultaneously, he will never ever escape the movie. Even if he had been a truly great NFL player, he would always be "that guy from The Blind Side." As the poem goes, O-Line isn't a famous position for anyone other than Jason Kelce:
Ultimately, he quickly became a top 1000 O-Line player in the world, a fringe guy hanging around the edges of the NFL, rather than a top 150 player in the world who starts for an NFL team. For virtually any NFL player, they have defined their life by football for a decade or more. In high school he's the best player on their team, in college he's royalty. The end of their career becomes a crisis of self-definition, who am I if I'm not a football player? The lucky ones become coaches or commentators, the rest have no good answer to the question. Oher faces the additional obstacle towards his identity, he faces the Oscar-Winning film, he's stuck. In every room he enters he is "that dumb kid from the movie" before he is even "Super Bowl Winning Baltimore Raven." Even the sympathetic articles introduce him primarily by the movie, rather than as a starter in two Super Bowls. Viewed in this light, I suspect this is more of a tragic personal lashing-out played on a national gossip circuit. It's sad to me, and even worse that race is going to get dragged into it.
In general, when I see a celeb complaining about the contracts they signed early in their career, my prior is that they hit their sell-by date and can't understand what happened and they are lashing out. From Tab Hunter to Ke$ha, products of systems think they did it all themselves and wonder why the system claims so much of their money.
100%. It's not points buy, it's roll 3d6 in order.
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In my experience very good student athletics are slightly smarter than the average of their peer group. Most athletic performance benefits from intelligence, whether it's anticipating the path of a ball in flight or predicting an opponents' next move. Being stupid is at the very least limiting, and for some positions and games it's disqualifying.
I'd also say intelligence benefits from clarity of mind, enhanced through good cardio.
The discipline needed for regular athletic training would also presumably have some potential flow onto study habits.
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The NFL bankruptcy thing is a bit like the sexual assault thing in college. It’s not that reliable. I found this. Especially since it includes “financial stress”. A udfa guy might get a 15k signing bonus. If he ends up working a $40k a year college grad job I would probably say “financial stress”.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theres-a-difference-between-broke-and-bankrupt-for-ex-nfl-players/
One thing I find funny in the study is it lists 45% of nfl athletes who played more than 3 years have at some point lost a significant amount on a financial investment. Which is meaningless. Ken Griffin says he’s lost $70 billion in various bets in markets (and make 100 elsewhere). So that question would include him and basically every VC guy.
Most arguments in the US have some variant of this. The obese mother of 3 who is "choosing between eating and paying the electric bill"... To me she's suffering from hypermacronutrition. To the NYT? Food insecurity.
If the straightforward issue such as hunger or poverty isn't true they make up an alternative, meaningless term.
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I feel like this mostly comes down to $. Oher seems to believe he was screwed out of $ from the movie but the family is saying they got paid very little.
From my understanding the family is independently very rich already so maybe they just settle.
I will say Hollywood is an interesting world where a movie about your life can make $300mm and you don’t see any of it. I wouldn’t be hyped about it either.
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Did the Touhy's put their other kids in conservatorships? If the conservatorships are for the good of the people being placed in it, why not? Did they not want as good for their own children as Oher? Does he still need an adult in the room now that he's 37? The conservatorship reportedly still exists!
I have read enough variance in how payouts for various parts of Hollywood productions work that I'll wait for discovery (if any) on this. Obviously Lewis and the Touhy's have an incentive to down play any money they may have received and Oher has an incentive to exaggerate it.
The payoffs feel off to me. Especially since Michael Lewis wasn’t a complete virgin at this stuff. He already wrote a big book - Liars Poker. Was smart enough to last on a Wall St trading desks. And the Touhys negotiated plenty of deals too. It just doesn’t make sense they only got themselves 700k. Depends on the touhys net worth to a great extent I see anything from $40-250 million. (Apparently sold restaurants for 200+ but who knows how much debt they had on them). If it’s 250 million I doubt they would squeeze Oher on some payouts.
On the conservatorship I feel fairly confident a person in his position needed someone he could trust. The other kids wouldn’t have had life coming at them as fast and the Touhys being rich would control their kids allowances etc.
Didn’t the family get $700000? The author of the book probably had his own separate deal.
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Moneyball is the much more relevant comparison fwiw.
Moneyball came later. So couldn’t include it as his background when negotiating first deal.
Huh. You're right. The Moneyball movie came later, but the book was written before The Blind Side.
I figured once an author has made the content for one big movie they get more leverage. Having a highly popular book gives some leverage.
You are correct, that makes a lot of sense. More familiarity with the process as well. But I'd think the most important thing is having two producers (directors, studios, whatever and etc.) interested in the work. One guy wants to make a movie of your book, you get what's "fair;" two guys want to compete to make a movie of your book you have a bidding war.
Michael Lewis also spoke at my sister's graduation, so I've followed his writing pretty closely, but less so the movies. I never recall hearing anything about the book prior to the movie, where Moneyball and Liar's Poker and The Big Short were huge successes and cultural landmarks prior to their respective films. The Blind Side was sort of an also ran as a book.
Possibly relevant: on another forum someone mentioned that Oher was in college when the book was written/published. NCAA rules would have prohibited him from benefitting from the book during that time. This may have impacted the later distribution of rights based on the book. So because Oher probably didn't/couldn't get revenue from the book, he would not have gotten part of the book rights, his rights in the film would have had to be a more general "life rights" agreement. But the filmmakers may not have pursued that, given that they had the rights to the book in hand. Maybe a sufficiently zealous advocate manages to carve out some money for Oher, but that seems like a tiny slight to sue over.
It's an interesting theory but the timing doesn't work out. The conservatorship started in 2004, and it's doubtful that there would be any indication that not only would a book that featured him be written by a prominent writer but that that book would be turned into a movie. He wouldn't have needed to sign over publicity rights for a book because he wouldn't have been entitled to any money from it, and there's no indication that he made any money. It's certainly not customary for publishers that aren't tabloids to offer cash to people whose stories they make money off of. In any event, even if NCAA rules prohibited him from making money directly, it's unlikely that they would be interpreted that a conservator would be allowed to make money on his behalf. Even if that were the case, it would make more sense to establish a trust for his benefit that to go full-blown conservatorship, since a trust doesn't require court approval.
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The rule of thumb is that rights to source material should be about 2% of the film's budget. The Blind Side has a 29 million budget which puts the fee at 580,000. JK Rowling received 2 million for the first four Harry Potter books, and those were much bigger than a nonfiction book about offensive linemen. 700k seems reasonable.
The movie Liars Poker has nothing to do with the Michael Lewis book.
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I agree he probably needed someone he could trust, but I don't see how that necessitates the construction of a legal conservatorship. It's not clear to me why the Touhy's needed extra legal rights to control Oher after he was an adult.
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the NCAA would have brought the hammer down on them if they didn't. the parents were both Ole Miss alums and didn't hide the fact that they wanted him to go there too. the dad claims that he couldn't legally adopt because Oher was 18, which seems wrong. the biological mom was still hanging around so perhaps that's why. either way, from the book's portrayal, the idea that they had some master plan all along of 'adopting' him so they could help their alma mater seems absurd - he started staying with them before he became a mega highly rated recruit.
in the book he's not really 'dumb' so much as lacking a ton of knowledge, and extremely diffident (since he's one of like three black kids in a white private christian school). the position he plays, left tackle, actually scores the highest on the wonderlic relative to other NFL positions, which is pretty cool.
if the book was released today everyone would flame the hell out of the mom. she's not 'racist' per se, just kind of clueless at times, but she's acting in good faith trying to help the kid. at one point she's trying to find a baby picture for the senior yearbook, but since the kid's druggie mom and his foster families don't have anything, she just googles a picture of a black baby and uses that.
Checked the Tennessee Code (Title 36, Chapter 1: Adoption) and it does explicitly say "[a]n adult may be adopted" in Section 107. Section 117 talks about getting the adult adoptee's consent. The previous parent also normally needs to consent -- at least, I didn't see anything saying the parent's consent isn't required if her child is 18.
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