The Boys in the Boat

I recently finished the book, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. I'm guessing it took me a couple of months to work through it, but it was well worth it. Just a caution, you might get the urge to put all of your children into rowing and you may find yourself adding "attend a regatta" to your bucket list.

I have never really enjoyed watching sporting events (except for the Olympics), but this author pulled even me in. I felt like I was there experiencing it in every way. I was the athlete in the boat, the coach anxiously watching from the side, the opposing team, and the spectator for each exciting race. Even when I knew what the outcome would be, I still felt like I was on the edge of my seat reading it.

Some specifics that I like about it:

1. Every athlete and sports enthusiast can make a good case about the difficulty of "their" sport. MAN does Brown make a great case for rowing! Over and over again too. It made me really respect a great rower. At one point early on in the book the author spends two long paragraphs explaining what happens to the muscles and the bones in the body of an elite rower, then goes on to say, "The common denominator in all these conditions--whether in the lungs, the muscles, or the bones--is overwhelming pain. And that is perhaps the first and most fundamental thing that all novice oarsmen must learn about competitive rowing in the upper echelons of the sport: that pain is part and parcel of the deal. It's not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it's a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you." (pg. 40) Oh man I love it!

2. Learning about the mental games and strategies used by the coaches and the crew throughout the story was also fascinating. I liked this passage on page 106, "To defeat an adversary who was your equal, maybe even your superior, it wasn't necessarily enough just to give your all from start to finish. You had to master your opponent mentally. When the critical moment in a close race was upon you, you had to know something he did not--that down in your core you still had something in reserve, something you had not yet shown, something that once revealed would make him doubt himself, make him falter just when it counted the most. Like so much in life, crew was partly about confidence, partly about knowing your own heart." So much of life is mental! Another fascinating theme in the book.

3. I really liked their coach, Al Ulbrickson. As soon as I read this next passage I went to find Jayce so I could read it to him. The new sophomores Ulbrickson was addressing had just come off of a spectacular year of freshmen rowing and were feeling pretty high and mighty walking back into the crew house that fall. Then he starts the season like this:

"He gazed out over them for a moment, saying nothing, letting his attitude silence them. And then, without prelude, he began to tell them how it was going to be. 'You will eat no fried meats,' he began abruptly. 'You will eat no pastries, but you will eat plenty of vegetables. You will eat good, substantial, wholesome food--the kind of food your mother makes. You will go to bed at ten o'clock and arise punctually at seven o'clock. You will not smoke or drink or chew. And you will follow this regimen all year round, for as long as you row for me. A man cannot abuse his body for six months and then expect to row the other six months. He must be a total abstainer all year. You will not use profane language in the shell house, nor anywhere within my hearing. You will keep at your studies and maintain a high grade point average. You will not disappoint your parents, nor your crewmates. Now let's row.'" (pgs. 129-130)

Oh man, I absolutely love that! Get me a coach with that mentality in any sport and I'll sign my sons up! Even if you don't care much about swearing or the other things he mentions, there's just something about that statement that demands a certain respect for rowing from those athletes in the boat house.  He showed them that their outside lives are one thing, but they need to come into the boat house with a different mind set and respect for the sport. That's so much a part of pursuing a sport as a hobby to me. Respect and love for the game. This coach really knew how to require that from his boys and I found it very admirable.

4. The author follows the story of one oarsmen from the Olympic boat in particular, Joe Rantz. His story is full of highs and a lot of lows and it was very inspirational. At one point a man named George Pocock (another great man with a story--really, this book is full of people like that) teaches Joe a very important lesson. After making a great analogy about a symphony and an eight oared boat, the oh-so-wise George Pocock tells Joe, "If you don't like some fellow in the boat, Joe, you have to learn to like him. It has to matter to you whether he wins the race, not just whether you do." (pg. 235) I loved that. 

5. Speaking of more great people, the stories of each of the men who made it into the Husky Clipper and won the gold medal at the Olympics made you pretty grateful to be in the America you're in now. "Every one of them had come from humble origins or been humbled by the ravages of the hard times in which they had grown up. Each in his own way, they had all learned that nothing could be taken for granted in life, that for all their strength and good looks and youth, forces were at work in the world that were greater than they. The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility--the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole--and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before." (pg. 241) All of them were pretty special men who overcame a lot.

6. Then there's the camaraderie that develops in the boat. I remember watching Lord of the Rings (yes, I did just get two steps nerdier by bring LOTR into the equation) one time and my dad telling me that the reason he really enjoyed those movies was because of the brotherly bonding of the fellowship. I've come to learn that about myself as well. I really enjoy stories where men or women unite and become woven together in a common goal.

That's why I teared up when Shorty Hunt patted Joe Rantz on the back and said, "Got your back, Joe," on pg. 240. And again on pg. 335 when Joe Rantz tells Al Ulbrickson, "If you put him in the boat, Coach, we will pull him across the line. Just strap him in. He can just go along for the ride." You've got to read the story to fully appreciate the weight of those sentences.

Have I gushed enough? I just couldn't help it. I loved the book. Now go read it!