What a good read!! I am absolutely fascinated by this time period and Daniel James Brown does a phenomenal job at making a narrative in a nonfiction, historical context.
We always share a little bit about the author in part of our discussion and I loved hearing about how he even heard about this story.
His neighbor was the daughter of one of the crew members and he had been reading one of Daniel's other books. She asked if he would mind meeting her father and he agreed. As Daniel talked to Joe Rantz, he learned about his life and said,
“It was when he tried to talk about 'the boat' that his words began to falter and tears welled up in his eyes...Finally, watching Joe struggle for composure over and over, I realized that 'the boat' was something more than just the shell or its crew. To Joe, it encompassed but transcended both - it was something mysterious and almost beyond definition. It was a shared experience - a singular thing that had unfolded in a golden sliver of time long gone, when nine good-hearted young men strove together, pulled together as one, gave everything they had for one another, bound together forever by pride and respect and love. Joe was crying, at least in part, for the loss of that vanished moment but much more, I think, for the sheer beauty of it.”
Of course when you devote yourself to something so fully you are bound to have attachments with it, but these boys beat the odds in so many different ways that the boat truly became a part of them. Growing up in the Great Depression, they had so little but were more determined and hardworking than anyone I know. It is truly remarkable everything they accomplished especially as college age young men. I truly think that people were made out of different stuff back then! It’s so hard to find people that are willing to work and to persevere through broken families, working all through school, not ideal living conditions, playing a collegiate sport, nurturing relationships, and keeping up with school. Joe Rantz and many of the other crew members are amazing examples of these attributes and the inner desire to keep moving forward and accomplish goals, while working as a team.
The process of the teammates being chosen and then learning to trust one another and work seamlessly on the boat was captivating. Being a Washington native, I also had a personal connection to the book and loved being able to recognize names of places and even picturing the beautiful University of Washington campus. I can’t wait to go back home and check out the boathouse and take in the lake where they practiced!
There are an insane amount of books written about this time period (about three or four of our nine books this year were around the time of WWII) which makes for amazing stories of incredible people. I love that at the same Olympics, Jesse James competed and won three gold medals. The United States was well represented at the 1932 Olympics in Berlin. This is incredible all on its own because with rising political agendas and prejudice building, the US almost dropped out of the Olympics. If you have the opportunity to watch the movie, RACE, you will get a little taste of what it was like to be in these Olympics and the discussion that ,ed up to them. Also, with both of these stories you get to learn about what it was like to be a collegiate athlete at this time. I absolutely ate it up!
Overall, I highly recommend this riveting story of the 1936 Olympic crew team.
The process of the teammates being chosen and then learning to trust one another and work seamlessly on the boat was captivating. Being a Washington native, I also had a personal connection to the book and loved being able to recognize names of places and even picturing the beautiful University of Washington campus. I can’t wait to go back home and check out the boathouse and take in the lake where they practiced!
There are an insane amount of books written about this time period (about three or four of our nine books this year were around the time of WWII) which makes for amazing stories of incredible people. I love that at the same Olympics, Jesse James competed and won three gold medals. The United States was well represented at the 1932 Olympics in Berlin. This is incredible all on its own because with rising political agendas and prejudice building, the US almost dropped out of the Olympics. If you have the opportunity to watch the movie, RACE, you will get a little taste of what it was like to be in these Olympics and the discussion that ,ed up to them. Also, with both of these stories you get to learn about what it was like to be a collegiate athlete at this time. I absolutely ate it up!
Overall, I highly recommend this riveting story of the 1936 Olympic crew team.
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