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Notes -
the NCAA would have brought the hammer down on them if they didn't. the parents were both Ole Miss alums and didn't hide the fact that they wanted him to go there too. the dad claims that he couldn't legally adopt because Oher was 18, which seems wrong. the biological mom was still hanging around so perhaps that's why. either way, from the book's portrayal, the idea that they had some master plan all along of 'adopting' him so they could help their alma mater seems absurd - he started staying with them before he became a mega highly rated recruit.
in the book he's not really 'dumb' so much as lacking a ton of knowledge, and extremely diffident (since he's one of like three black kids in a white private christian school). the position he plays, left tackle, actually scores the highest on the wonderlic relative to other NFL positions, which is pretty cool.
if the book was released today everyone would flame the hell out of the mom. she's not 'racist' per se, just kind of clueless at times, but she's acting in good faith trying to help the kid. at one point she's trying to find a baby picture for the senior yearbook, but since the kid's druggie mom and his foster families don't have anything, she just googles a picture of a black baby and uses that.
Checked the Tennessee Code (Title 36, Chapter 1: Adoption) and it does explicitly say "[a]n adult may be adopted" in Section 107. Section 117 talks about getting the adult adoptee's consent. The previous parent also normally needs to consent -- at least, I didn't see anything saying the parent's consent isn't required if her child is 18.
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