Auburn coach Hugh Freeze, who coached former NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, has offered his thoughts on the public dispute between Oher and the Tuohy family after Oher alleged earlier this week that the Tuohys exploited his story for financial gain.
The Tuohys became Oher’s conservators while he was in high school, Oher alleges, and reaped financial gain on the success of the 2009 film The Blind Side, adapted from the ’06 book of the same name that chronicled Oher’s rise.
“I think it’s sad. I certainly don’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of adoption, conservatory, all of that. I know what I witnessed,” Freeze said Thursday, per The Athletic‘s David Ubben. “I witnessed a family that totally took in a young man and I think without that, there is no story.”
Oher filed a petition Monday in a Shelby County, Tenn., court, saying that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy coerced Oher into signing a document that granted them conservatorship after he turned 18 in 2004. Oher claims that the Tuohys received royalties from the film, while he had not gotten any of the proceeds.
“The lie of Michael’s adoption is one upon which Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher,” the legal filing states, via ESPN. “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys.”
Sean Tuohy later said the family was “devastated” at Oher’s accusations, while an attorney representing the family described Oher’s petition as a “shakedown effort.”
While saying he was unaware of the particulars, Freeze defended the Tuohys, calling their handling of the situation while Oher was in high school “admirable.”
“I know this: If Michael called Sean 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 said. “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.”
