Tuohy says conservatorship best way to help Oher

Sean Tuohy refutes Michael Oher’s allegation that the Tuohy family tricked the NFL star who inspired “The Blind Side” into a conservatorship instead of adopting him.

Tuohy said he is “devastated” by Oher’s Monday filing in a Tennessee probate court that alleges Tuohy and his wife, Leigh Anne, “enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward.” The former Baltimore Ravens and Carolina Panthers tackle, whose life story was dramatized in the 2009 film, is alleging that the couple duped him into signing a legal document in 2004 that made them his conservators instead of his adoptive parents.

Tuohy told the newspaper that the 2004 legal arrangement had nothing to do with the movie. He alleged that the NCAA told him that if Oher wanted to attend Tuohy’s alma mater, Ole Miss, he would need to be considered part of the family because of the Tuohys’ “booster” status at the school. (Oher entered the school on a football scholarship in August 2005 at age 19, his petition said.)

“Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that,” Tuohy said. “They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’

He added that they contacted lawyers who told them that they couldn’t adopt a person who was over the age of 18 and “the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship.”

Tuohy also said that author Michael Lewis, his childhood friend who wrote the 2006 book that was adapted into the John Lee Hancock film, gave the family “half of his share” and “everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael [Oher].” Tuohy estimates that the shares were “about $14,000, each.”

Jets

New York’s backfield got that much deeper when the team took second-year running back Breece Hall off the physically unable to perform list [PUP]. Hall tore his ACL in October in a game against the Broncos. In the first seven games, he rushed for 463 yards, caught passes for 218 and scored five touchdowns.

Browns

Cleveland star defensive end Myles Garrett took part in individual drills, a day after he left the field with a foot issue in the first of two joint practices with the Philadelphia Eagles.