Ed Reed

A wonderful story about Ed Reed on ESPN.  Damn, it makes you almost want to root for the Ravens.

Here's something interesting:

In time, Reed grew comfortable around Hall and her husband, Walter, who worked as a foreman at a nearby oil refinery. They had four children of their own, and Reed soon bonded with each of them. His life at home with his parents wasn't anything he wanted to run away from, but he understood the Halls offered a discipline he needed if he wanted to get to college. 

"One day he asked me, 'Do you think I could come stay with you? Because I know I'll get up and go to school every day if I'm here,'" Hall said this week, recalling the conversation while sitting on a bench outside Destrehan High School. "I said, 'You know what, baby? You're here at the house all the time anyway, you might as well bring some clothes and move in.' And once Edward gets in your life, he's in your life forever." 

It didn't matter that they were white and he was black -- the Halls soon became a second family to him, and Reed's parents supported the move. Each night, Reed would labor over his homework, pondering math equations with the same intense focus he would one day use to study NFL game film. One evening, Hall recalls, she was doing the dishes while Reed sat at the kitchen table, finishing up an assignment. She looked over his shoulder to double-check his work, and he shooed her away. 

"No, no, no, I got this Ms. Hall," Reed said. "I got it."

Of course, this is similar to the Michael Oher story in the Blindside. Difference being, in the article, it sounds like Ed Reed's family was fairly normal - middle class - both parents worked and were around vs Michael Oher's mother who was a drug addict. I'm not sure what I'm missing here...but it's something...a child going to live with another family in town seems like a gigantic choice, one that a "regular" family wouldn't make. Let's put it this way: most, if not all, families I know would not consider this an option. How common a thing is this? You hear this same story about two athletes on the same pro football team, imagine all the other people where this situation goes down or could go down. I suspect this is a thing in the African American community...right? Or is this a thing that happens in poor communities?  Strikes me as something to be figured out more deeply, although I can see it being something people don't talk about.