In 1936 at the Berlin Olympics nine young men in a rowing crew boat made history. They came from poor or working-class backgrounds and none of them had ever set foot inside a boat before three years or less. That wouldn't be the case for their competitors who came from high-class backgrounds and were well funded and had been training for years and were older than they were and yet they would row away with the gold medal. This book chronicles that journey especially through the life of Joe Rantz.
Joe lost his mother at the age of five and was at first sent away to live with an aunt back east while his father in Washington state left for Canada and his much older brother finished college. When his brother, Ben, left college with a wife he moved to Idaho and took Joe with him. Then his father, Harry shows up and marries Ben's wife's twin sister Thula and takes Joe with him back to Washington. Soon children came into the picture and Thula began to take a dislike to the person who reminded him of Harry's beloved first wife, Joe.
When they moved to a mining camp in Idaho she insisted that Joe leave the shack they lived in and Harry had him move in with the school teacher. After a brief stay in Thula's parents' basement, they settled in Sequim, Washingon and built a house there. But soon enough Thula would have enough of Joe again and the Great Depression was kicking in really bad. No one was buying their farm goods. So Harry and Thula and the kids left leaving Joe, still a kid himself, behind.
Joe found odd ways to make money like playing his guitar for tips and stealing fish from the protected rivers and lakes and eating and selling or trading them for goods. He also set up a system of stealing from the bootlegger and replacing a few of the liquor drops with dandelion wine and selling what he collected to his customers. All through this, he stayed in school. On the bus, he met a girl that he fell in love with named Joyce and she fell for him too. While working out for the gymnastics team he got a visit from the University of Washington's crew coach Al Ulbrickson who gave him his card and an idea was born in Joe's mind. It would take a year after graduating high school of working hard at different jobs to earn enough money to be able to afford the first year of school at the University of Washington, but he did it.
When he arrived there, there were over a hundred boys who were looking to try out for crew positions on the freshman, junior varsity, and varsity crew. Soon, though those who thought it would be easy and couldn't take the pain would drop out. Tom Bolles handled the Freshman crew and he never lost in the competition against their fierce rivals California Berkely or at Poughkeepsie at the nationals, where 90,000 people would show up to watch the race because crew was so popular at that time. He was getting his Masters at the University of Washington which is likely why he was still coaching there even though he had received offers from schools back east at prestigious Ivey League colleges where the money would be a great deal more than the pittance the University of Washington paid their coaches.
After being pulled in and out of this one particular boat that was doing really well and had in it Shorty Hunt, Stub McMillin, and Roger Morris, Bolles realized that that boat only did well with Joe in it even when Joe was not rowing at his best or erratically. But when Joe was "on" they rowed liked a dream. Which they did when they won the races. But Joe knew that his position was always in jeopardy. The next year they would belong to the enigmatic Ulrickson who didn't know what to do with Joe either and would debate racing the sophomore crew as varsity instead of junior varsity.
An important person in this story is George Yeoman Pocock the man who builds the boats for the crew of the University of Washington as well as many other schools. He was born in England and learned from his father how to build boats. When his father's fortunes turned down, to help him out they took what little money they themselves had and went to Canada and went to work in a logging camp. Someone in Canada who had heard of them from England and their talent of building boats and needed a crew boat hired them and that got them started off on their business. George would eventually move to the grounds of the University of Washington for his business. But building boats was more than what he did. He dispensed wisdom on rowing. He invented a special way of rowing years ago that Americans used. When he spoke people listened.
Ulbrickson has Pocock talk to Joe and work his magic on the young man and try to reach him as only he can. This is an incredible book of how one man overcame hardship to succeed in life with the help of eight other men and their coaches and one wise advisor. Also the love of a good woman who was there throughout supporting him never leaving his side as others in his life had. It's also a story of underdogs who win despite everything going against them. I have to admit that crew is not an especial interest to me but the author succeeded in making it fascinating. This book has heart and I highly recommend it.
Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Boat-Americans-Berlin-Olympics-ebook/dp/B00AEBETU2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524658879&sr=8-1&keywords=the+boys+in+the+boats
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