Abandonment. Poverty. Survival. Opportunity. Hard work. Determination. Success. No one asks to be born into the lives they enter. There are some who get a head start when living a life of privilege whereas others do not even know if they will eat again. In the two biographical stories, Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side and in Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat, both protagonists who have to face overwhelming adversity—including neglect, food insecurity, and poverty—eventually find personal and professional success because of their athleticism. Although Joe bears more emotional burden due to abandonment by family in comparison to Michael who still feels loved by his mother throughout childhood, Joe’s resulted personality leads him to great independence and refusal to help which further contribute to a greater potential to succeed, while Michael who are open to receive help and further utilizes the resources that are provided to him l. 

In both The Blind Side and The Boys in a Boat, Michael and Joe lose their mothers, which causes them to be abandoned. As a young child, Joe’s mother dies of throat cancer.  Since her death was too much for their father to handle, he takes off and leaves both Joe and his teenage brother to fend for themselves. Joe nearly dies after contracting scarlet fever and thereafter his aunt takes him in until his brother looks to raise him together with his wife. However, his father remarries and wants him back. Yet Joe is set up for disappointment and abandonment once again when his stepmother demands that he must leave the family home at the age of ten. Yet in Michael’s case, it is not that his mother actually dies, but he loses her on and off due to her drug addiction. Always neglected both in her care and in many foster homes, he would usually run away only to look for his mother once again. And even if he was successful in finding her, she would send him back to the foster house he was living in. Thus, Michael grew up with rejection and abandonment issues all while having to mourn the loss of someone who was unable to provide for him in every sense. In both cases, Joe and Michael learn from early on that the only person that they could rely on is themselves. 

In connection with Joe and Michael’s early life of abandonment, they both shared a common thread of being products of situational poverty. Though Joe’s father worked as a mechanic and his mom was a piano teacher in Washington State, which provided some economic stability, Joe soon found himself to be poor as a result of his father’s pattern of coming and going. Yet once his stepmother’s  jealousy came to a head, his dad placed Joe to live with a nearby schoolteacher in which he was required to chop wood in order to pay his living expenses. Thereafter, things only worsened for him as a young man once the Great Depression hit to the point where he would have to feed himself by searching for food on his mountain climbs in solitude. Yet his economic status became even more evident by the time he was accepted to the University of Washington rowing team in 1933. He had to work while managing school grades and practice. “He counted himself lucky when he landed a summer job with the Civilian Conservation Corps, laying asphalt for the new Olympic Highway for fifty cents an hour. The money was decent, the work brutal.” (Brown 108) Not only did he endure intense physical labor under the sun during the week, but he also had to work on weekends. “He cut hay again with Harry Secor and dug irrigation ditches for local farmers. By winter he was back in the woods with Charlie McDonald, cutting cottonwoods, chaining them to the draft horses, and skidding them out of the woods in snow and sleet.” (Brown 109) Despite the brutal effects of the nation’s economic downturn, those who were lucky enough to come from well-off families did not feel it as much on campus. In fact, Joe “n continued to feel like everyone’s poor cousin.” (Brown 143) Unlike other crew men, Joe only had one sweater that he would wear to school daily and would try to eat as much as possible while dining in the cafeteria, although he was often criticized for doing so by his peers, who never had experienced what it was like to go hungry  (Brown 143). In contrast, Michael was born at the height of the US crack cocaine epidemic in which his mother was so addicted to drugs that she was unable to care for him and his siblings. Living in the harshest of conditions in inner-city Memphis, Michael had to search for shelter, clothing, and food. “On the first of the month she’d get a check,” recalled Marcus, Michael’s eldest brother, “and she’d leave, and we wouldn’t see her until the tenth...Them drugs tear everything up.” This led Michael and his brothers to “ scrounge from churches and the street.” (Lewis 225) Though Dee Dee, Michael’s mom did receive government checks to support her family, her addiction came first, leaving her boys to wonder where they would get their next meal from. Evidently, Joe and Michael lived in two crucial points in time during twentieth century American history in which poverty was a key societal factor. Yet it was the way in which they both handled their respective situations that allowed them to find something out of virtually nothing. 

Though Joe, a white male and Michael, a black male both had different races and geographically grew up in two different settings, their will to live and survive in some of the most difficult circumstances only contributed to the strength of their characters. Their survival skills also allowed them on some level to recognize ‘opportunity’, that of which would change their life’s trajectory. As Joe grew up dealing with hunger and poor education, he was quick to realize that he was presented with a major opportunity when he first moved back in with his brother’s family in Seattle. From once searching for food, he now found himself “with three square meals a day and little to do except attend school and explore his interests. He threw himself into both.” (Brown 106) Not only did he make the Dean’s Honor Roll at the Roosevelt School in Seattle due to his diligence, but he also joined various clubs. In particular, “ He signed up for the men’s gymnastics team, where his prodigious upper-body strength made him a standout on the rings, the high bars, and the parallel bars.“ (Brown 107) Ironically, the fact that he had experienced harshness throughout his childhood and adolescence is what helped him to excel in all that he put his mind to, especially that now, he had the resources available to do so. One day when he was in the gym, he was spotted by the head coach of University of Washington, Al Ulbrickson, which marked the start  of his rowing journey. Similar to Joe, Michael was also accepted to a prestigious high school under the initial guidance of Big Tony. Big Tony would often have Michael stay at his home since he was friends with his son. Yet once Big Tony’s mom died and made him promise to seek a better education and life for her grandson, he included Michael in this plan. Thus, Big Tony accompanied both boys to Briarcrest in which Michael’s outstanding physical form caught the attention of the school’s football coach, Huge Freeze. In fact, Freeze “e never [had] seen anything remotely like this kid—and he’d coached against players who had gone to the NFL.” He could not help but exclaim, “Whatever the dimensions, they couldn’t do justice to the effect they created. That mass! That...girth!” (Lewis 32). Ultimately, during the time Joe was living with his brother, he began to observe what he hoped to have in the future. “At the end of the day, he sometimes went out on the town with Fred and Thelma, eating in real restaurants, taking in Hollywood movies, even going to musicals at the 5th Avenue Theatre. It seemed, to Joe, a life of extraordinary ease and privilege, and it confirmed what he had been thinking—he did want something more out of life than what Sequim could offer.” (Brown 107) Similar to Joe, after Michael is adopted by the Tuohy family, he is introduced to “details of upper-class American life.” (Lewis 128) As a result of Leigh Anne’s nurture and the resources the family provided, “In many ways Michael was coming to resemble a naturalized citizen of East Memphis. Every Sunday he attended Grace Evangelical Church, and he was always the first one dressed to go in the morning. His grades had improved, dramatically, thanks to Miss Sue.” (Lewis 130) Consequently, he also started to form thoughts as to what he had desired to have out of life as well. Yet what differs between both young men is that after  Joe leaves his brother Fred’s home and has to again depend on himself, Michael continues to be provided for with the generous love and resources of his new family. 

As with most things in life, hard work and determination can help one on their journey of obtaining success. As such, both Joe and Michael work to prove themselves. They strive to show those who place many expectations on them that they can defy the odds while they equally work to prove to themselves that they can overcome their own insecurities, timidness, and brutal past. Once Joe found himself on the crew team and once Michael started to become a star athlete at Briarcrest, though at first, he did not even think of himself as one, their respective drive and determination increase in order to achieve collective team and individual goals. As Joe Rantz, like his crew mates, wanted to stay in the top varsity boat that Ulbrickson sent to Olympics, he also longed for economic stability. In this way, he could take care of his girlfriend, Joyce, and build a family. Especially since  Joyce “knew how much Joe wanted to succeed at crew, how much depended on it for the two of them.” (Brown 149) As a result, Joe did everything possible to succeed. During weekends, “When Joyce couldn’t get away, Joe spent much of his free time at the shell house.” (Brown 327) And during typical practices, “At the end of the day, after the others had drifted off to their homes or their part-time jobs, Joe often lingered at the shell house well into the evening, as he had the previous spring.” (Brown 328) With his teammates, he remained steadfast in his pursuit, even in the most difficult conditions even when   “The weather continued to be atrocious. Mostly the boys rowed anyway. Cold, rain, sleet, hail, and snow they simply ignored.” (Brown 351) Similar to Joe, Michael also has to overcome insurmountable obstacles while at Briarcrest and later as a student at Ole Miss. Despite being discriminated against and doubted because of his race, he must also maintain a minimum GPA. For instance, while at Briarcrest,  “He was earning straight D’s in the classroom and spending five hours a day with tutors, in exchange for being allowed to finish up the basketball season on the Briarcrest team.” (Lewis 53) This highlights one of many examples in which his academic and learning struggles add even more stress and pressure on Michael to perform not only in the classroom but also on the school’s sports teams. 

Needless to say, both men end up victorious as Michael’s story ends off with him heading to the NFL as a professional football player whereas Joe wins the 1933 Olympics on the US crew team when competing in Nazi Germany. In both The Blind Side and The Boys in the Boat, the authors make it clear that their protagonists were born into the most undesirable circumstances only to find a way out of the initial shackles that held them back. Therefore, it is clear that because of necessity, both Joe and Michael were driven to succeed—starting with the basic need of survival leading to international fame based on their respective athleticism.