Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. New York: Viking. 2013. Print
First Sentences:
Monday, October 9, 1933, began as a gray day in Seattle. A gray day in a gray time.
Description:
Monday, October 9, 1933, began as a gray day in Seattle. A gray day in a gray time.
Description:
I admit I knew nothing about rowing, much less 8-man crew racing, prior to reading this captivating book. But author Daniel James Brown has now made me so interested in this sport that I cannot wait for the 2016 Olympics to watch the crew races.
Where once I thought crew was just a bunch of strong rowers going all out from start to finish, now I understand the exhaustive training, the synchronization of effort, intricate techniques, and subtle strategies as to number of strokes per minute vs. strength of each pull, etc. Absolutely eye-opening to be able to understand the workings of a successful team.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics recounts the lives of eight boys (and the men and women behind them) who became the crew team that rowed for the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Brown focuses primarily on one rower, Joe Rantz, describing his working class home, early poverty, and family struggles. Rantz actually was abandoned by his parents to live on his own at age 10, struggling to eat, work his two jobs cutting firewood for the school and toting dirty dishes at a restaurant, and then sleeping in the schoolhouse just to continue his schooling.
Rantz does graduate high school and enters the University of Washington and their powerhouse rowing program although he has never rowed before. He chooses to try out for crew because it guarantees a job on campus to any athlete who makes the team. This small but reliable source of money allows Rantz to continue his chemical engineering degree and his goal to marry his high school sweetheart.
This is the Depression and jobs are scarce. To make college fees, Rantz also cuts timber, lays asphalt for roads, and uses a jack hammer while hanging over steep cliffs to drill the mountainside to build the Grand Coulee Dam.
Meanwhile, the grueling crew workouts of rowing in wind, rain, snow, and ice soon winnow the 175 boys trying out for the 8-man freshman boat to just a handful. But Joe's boat beats both the varsity and JV in practice, and then goes on to win the only two competitive races of the season: against University of California Berkeley, and then later in Poughkeepsie against the crews from Columbia, Rutgers, Cornell, and Syracuse. Next stop: Berlin and the Olympics.
The Boys in the Boat pulls you along as Rantz and his fellow rowers face challenges of technique, unity, health, money, and dedication en route to their pursuit of the rare "Swing," where rowing becomes effortless, where each oarsman pulls together completely with his mates, and the boat flies along the water.
Brown also carefully details the background issues permeating the world around the boys. He describes the worldwide fanaticism over rowing, the building of the perfect shell, the Depression, Hitler's rise, the politics and propaganda behind the Olympics in Berlin. Brown also describes the interpersonal relationships between crew mates, their families, and friends over the long years of training.
And there is humor and innocence as boys become men, ride their first trains, board their first boat bound for Germany, experience the luxuries and temptations of their new exalted status in this age of the public fascination with major sports figures. Using diaries, interviews, newspaper articles, and personal interviews with the crew and their families, Brown ably captures the dreams, the insecurities, and the simple language of these characters.
It is a great tale of perseverance, of strong coaches and skillful shell (boat) designers. It is a history of the boys who became heroes to the world in that era, the men, boys, and boat builder who developed a crew capable of producing the perfect "Swing."
Where once I thought crew was just a bunch of strong rowers going all out from start to finish, now I understand the exhaustive training, the synchronization of effort, intricate techniques, and subtle strategies as to number of strokes per minute vs. strength of each pull, etc. Absolutely eye-opening to be able to understand the workings of a successful team.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics recounts the lives of eight boys (and the men and women behind them) who became the crew team that rowed for the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Brown focuses primarily on one rower, Joe Rantz, describing his working class home, early poverty, and family struggles. Rantz actually was abandoned by his parents to live on his own at age 10, struggling to eat, work his two jobs cutting firewood for the school and toting dirty dishes at a restaurant, and then sleeping in the schoolhouse just to continue his schooling.
Rantz does graduate high school and enters the University of Washington and their powerhouse rowing program although he has never rowed before. He chooses to try out for crew because it guarantees a job on campus to any athlete who makes the team. This small but reliable source of money allows Rantz to continue his chemical engineering degree and his goal to marry his high school sweetheart.
This is the Depression and jobs are scarce. To make college fees, Rantz also cuts timber, lays asphalt for roads, and uses a jack hammer while hanging over steep cliffs to drill the mountainside to build the Grand Coulee Dam.
Meanwhile, the grueling crew workouts of rowing in wind, rain, snow, and ice soon winnow the 175 boys trying out for the 8-man freshman boat to just a handful. But Joe's boat beats both the varsity and JV in practice, and then goes on to win the only two competitive races of the season: against University of California Berkeley, and then later in Poughkeepsie against the crews from Columbia, Rutgers, Cornell, and Syracuse. Next stop: Berlin and the Olympics.
The Boys in the Boat pulls you along as Rantz and his fellow rowers face challenges of technique, unity, health, money, and dedication en route to their pursuit of the rare "Swing," where rowing becomes effortless, where each oarsman pulls together completely with his mates, and the boat flies along the water.
Brown also carefully details the background issues permeating the world around the boys. He describes the worldwide fanaticism over rowing, the building of the perfect shell, the Depression, Hitler's rise, the politics and propaganda behind the Olympics in Berlin. Brown also describes the interpersonal relationships between crew mates, their families, and friends over the long years of training.
And there is humor and innocence as boys become men, ride their first trains, board their first boat bound for Germany, experience the luxuries and temptations of their new exalted status in this age of the public fascination with major sports figures. Using diaries, interviews, newspaper articles, and personal interviews with the crew and their families, Brown ably captures the dreams, the insecurities, and the simple language of these characters.
It is a great tale of perseverance, of strong coaches and skillful shell (boat) designers. It is a history of the boys who became heroes to the world in that era, the men, boys, and boat builder who developed a crew capable of producing the perfect "Swing."
Happy reading.
Fred
Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com
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