Hugh Freeze may have been blindsided by his unceremonious exit from Ole Miss, but at least one of his former players has his back.
Homeless for stretches of his teenage life, Michael Oher was taken in by the Freeze family -- a 2014 Bleacher Report article notes that “Oher spent one to two nights a week at their house” -- while Freeze was the head coach at Briarcrest Christian High School in Memphis. Oher went on to play football for Freeze in high school, with his compelling life story forming the basis for the Academy Award-winning film “The Blind Side.”
The player and the coach have formed a deep bond that stretches back more than a decade, a bond that hasn’t been broken despite the latter’s resignation as Ole Miss head coach under a cloud of controversy.
“He is a man of God and a man full of integrity,’’ Oher told USA Today Sports of his former coach. “I don’t know the full story but I’m willing to bet that everyone in the world had made a mistake that they have wanted someone to forgive them for.”
The offensive lineman added that without Freeze, “there is no Michael Oher and no “The Blind Side.’”
The news dropped last Thursday night that Freeze’s tenure as the head coach at Ole Miss had come to an end because of at least one call from his university-issued cell phone to a known escort service. While Freeze blamed the call on a misdial, the administration found a “pattern of misconduct” during a deep dive into his phone records, leading the school to confront the coach about the situation.
After meetings with Freeze Wednesday night and then again Thursday morning, it became apparent that, if he didn’t resign, the school was going to fire him. Because of a moral turpitude clause in his contract, there was neither a buyout nor a settlement.
“God is good, even in difficult times,’’ Freeze said earlier this week in his first public comments since his departure. “Wonderful wife and family, and that’s my priority.”
“I got some good friends,” he added.
On the same day Freeze resigned, coincidentally, Oher was cut by the Carolina Panthers. Earlier this offseason, Oher was arrested after an altercation with an Uber driver in which the player allegedly bit the driver on the back.