With Mike Pesca in for Tom Ashbrook

The Oscar-winning tale of an inner city football team that transcends what you know about sports story-telling.

In this film image released by The Weinstein Company, a scene is shown from "Undefeated." (AP)

The Manassas High School Tigers were bad, so bad that other football teams paid them to come, play, and get beaten.  But a new coach breathed life and hope into this inner city team.

At this point, even the staunchest football fan feels his body rejecting the inevitable sports movie cavalcade of cliché.  But here’s the thing – it’s non fiction. And it’s compelling – compelling to the point of an academy award nomination

This hour, On Point: A sports story you won’t believe if it weren’t real

-Mike Pesca

Guests

Daniel Lindsay, he is the co-director of Undefeated.

T. J. Martin, he is the co-director of Undefeated.

Bill Courtney, former volunteer coach for Manassas High School’s football team, the Tigers.

From The Reading List

Wall Street Journal “Sports movies are metaphors for meritocracy: Play well, do well. You gotta have heart, and if you do, you win, even against underfunding, injuries and overwhelming odds. It’s how we’d like to think about politics, although we’d sooner believe a 3-D alien-invasion movie.”

LA Times “Like all memorable sports documentaries — and this Oscar-nominated film is definitely one of those — “Undefeated” is really an examination not of how games are won and lost but how lives are lived, how young people faced with daunting challenges come to see, often in the most dramatic fashion, what is important going forward and what is not.”

Time “It’s ten times less condescending than The Blind Side, but because it’s essentially a portrait of a white guy lending a helping hand to troubled black youth in helmets and pads, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between Bill Courtney and Blind’ssassy bundle of goodwill, Leigh Anne Tuohy.”

Video: ‘Undefeated’ Trailer

Here is the trailer for the documentary Undefeated.

Playlist

“Seven Years Light” by RJD2
“Brighter Tomorrow” by Soul Swingers
“Undefeated” by Miles Spence Nielson & Daniel James McMahon