Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A powerful, rousing sports story, Men in White is an oral history of the Penn State football players' amazing turnaround after sanctions were imposed for the atrocious acts of Jerry Sandusky.
On November 5, 2011 Jerry Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of child molestation, rocking Penn State's leafy campus and unseating the university president, the athletic director, and head coach Joe Paterno--devastating the football program he had erected and scrupulously maintained over half a century.
Men in White traces the aftermath from the day NCAA penalties were handed out to the university, focusing almost entirely on the teammates, just ordinary college students, who were ensnared in the aftermath of the unforgivable transgressions of the their elders.
With their personal futures in doubt, and the once proud football program in disrepair, these young men rose up to rehabilitate their team during a five year stretch, culminating in the thrilling, redemptive defeat of Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship. Their story is not unlike that of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a cast of young men with huge hearts who boldly accepted the challenge of a lifetime: shouldering the weight of a bruising political drama and blistering media scrutiny.
Synopsis
A rich, rousing sports story, Men in White is an oral history of the college players who defied the doomsayers and rescued Penn State's football program from the horrors of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
On November 5, 2011, the news that Jerry Sandusky had been charged with 40 counts of child molestation rocked Penn State's leafy campus, unseating the university president, the athletic director, and head coach Joe Paterno--devastating the football program he had erected and scrupulously maintained over half a century.
Men in White recounts the saga of the student athletes who elected to stay and rebuild the program in the face of crippling NCAA sanctions, blistering heat from the outraged media, and radio silence from the adults in the school's administration.
With the once proud program in free fall and their personal fortunes in peril, these young men refused to back down, toiling for five long seasons to rehabilitate the program and its ideals, culminating in the thrilling defeat of Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game. Their story echoes that of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a cast of young men who boldly accepted the challenge of a lifetime, achieving success while shouldering the weight of a bruising political drama and ferocious media scrutiny.