The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Phenomenal. Absolutely captivating from start to finish. The story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing crew is inspiring, emotional, and beautifully told. The amount of research and detail that went into this book is mind-blowing. You’re transported right into the boat, the Depression era, and ultimately to Berlin. A masterpiece of storytelling.

The Boys In The Boat I have had this book on my Kindle for quite a while, along with a number of other books to read. The other night, I finally opened this book and haven’t been able to put it down. I am reading it late at night and every moment of my spare time. Once in a while I will find a book that I haven’t touched and have had for a while and when I finally settle down to read it, it blows my mind! It was like going through a jewelry box and discovering an overlooked piece of jewelry. That is what happened when I finally started to read this book. I kept thinking how well it is written and what an interesting story. The book was about nine American rowers (eight oarsmen and one coxswain) from the University of Washington. Their quest was to be the best rowers, and be chosen for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and win a Gold Medal. The book centers on the main character Joe Rantz, who we meet as a young boy and followed his story to the University and how he became a rower. But it was his struggles before that made a reader admire him more. He was a little boy when his mother died. When Rantz’s father remarried, the second wife doesn’t want him around, so they abandon him. At first, he lived with his older brother and then with others and then by himself. Rantz struggled to take care of himself, and his survival tactics were amazing. But more interesting was that he harbored no ill will toward his father or his step-mother. It was a salute to him and how he managed his life that made me proud for him and proud to be an American. We learn about the other rowers in the nine men crew too, along with their coaches. Crew is an interesting sport and that was also a big part of the book along with the making of the rowing shells and more. It was also the eerie tale of the 1936 Berlin Olympics that plays a shadowy part of this book. While the crew and the other sports amateur figures were at the Olympics, there was something sinister going on behind the scenes in Berlin. While the Olympics are going on, Hitler and his generals present a different picture of Berlin, removing any signs of the Jewish people. All one sees are the Third Reich flags prominently flying, and soldiers with their high stepping cadence. There were no signs of the Jewish population because the Germans were in the process of getting rid of them, and removing their identifying symbols from the town. While the games are going on, the Germans are silently and craftily orchestrating the removal of the Jews and others from the cities, streets and towns. The Germans are also building their concentration camp, setting up the awful history of the Holocaust. This was a fascinating tale of nine men and the others who help them become great. It is also an ugly tale of what was to come. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. It will fill you with a sense of achievement and the horrors and evil that one nation was plotting. I promise you…if you read this book, you will not be disappointed in the least. My disappointment was that I didn’t read it sooner!

The Boys in the Boat is an exceptional book. It tells the story of the nine young men who competed for gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Even though the book title refers to "the boys", it really is the story about just one of those boys in particular, Joe Rantz. The book follows Joe's story from a young boy all the way through the Olympics, and along the way we meet an excellent cast of characters - his eight compatriots, family members, coaches, and even a few of the Nazi bad guys. Brown does a great job of not only telling a great story, but infusing it with just the right amount of detail to give you a great picture of the various scenes. His descriptions of the racing venues, living quarters, even the weather, set the scene without belaboring the point. In addition to the expected history lesson of the 1936 Olympic in Berlin and some of the surrounding controversy and politics, I was fascinated by the history of the sport of rowing, and learned a great deal of fascinating information. I did not know the the sport of rowing was a hugely popular spectator sport, often drawing crowds as large as 100,000 people! I gained a huge appreciation for the sport, the dedication and sacrifice required of its participants, and the craftsmanship that goes into the building of the boats themselves. All of that would have warranted a good review. But the way all the history, personalities, political landscape, and lifelong dreams come together in the final race for gold at the end of the book is nothing short of riveting. I was glued to my seat reading the description of that climactic race; just as good as any thriller. Finally, I loved the pictures that were peppered throughout the book, as well as the epilogue, which recounts the remainder of the life of each participant. Great book. --------------- I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between both sites. 5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime. 4 - Very good. 3 - Worth your time. 2 - Not very good. 1 - Atrocious

This is the first time I have ever given this kind of a review to a book. While I've given it a 5-star rating, it wasn't because I loved this book. I gave it this rating because it was an excellent book, very well written, very clear and descriptive and wonderfully charismatic in piecing the story together as well as the description of the characters, the setting, the mood and atmosphere of the time period. The author and story deserves the accolades this book has brought in because the story was told with such great detail, emotion, and accuracy to the events of the time. At times, the author had me sitting on the edge of my seat and I found I couldn't read fast enough to get to the juicy conclusion of the event just so I could sit back in my chair and resume the reading. While there were times in this story that I was sitting on the edge of my seat nearly breathless,this really was not my kind of story. I found this book not only to be a story about a place and people in a time period surrounding an epic event, it's also a history lesson. This was more a story of an account and I'm truly more interested in diving into the characters on a more intimate and personal level. Some may argue that the author was able to do that, but for me, it just didn't hit the mark. In any epic, well written story, the time, place and setting must be established to give the reader a perspective of the setting ... the place and time and even perhaps, the energy of the time, era and the people. It was in these places in the book that were of great disinterest to me. I'm not a history buff and to read how the author set the scene in each circumstance to prepare the reader for the upcoming events in the story, were a great bore to me. Yes, it was an epic story! Yes, it was told absolutely beautifully! Yes, the author is gifted in piecing each scene together and drawing from previous places in the book to bring the whole story together. Yes, this story will steal your breath away and leave you on the edge of your seat. No, I'm not interested in the history of the time. No, I'm not interested in the scene descriptions that set the stage for each scene and the upcoming occurrences. But I will say whether this is your type of book or not, you will not be disappointed reading this story. As the Seattle Times states on the cover of the book "Breathtaking". Indeed, it most certainly is.

Love. Love. Love this book! Amazing story! I love true stories and this is a great one. Some of the lives of the rowers are just so shocking for us today. I love to see people work hard and surprise the world with what they can do!

Oh, my. How do I describe this book--and the extraordinary value of reading it together with your team? If I write a dull, been-there-read-that review, you might surmise the book is equally dull. It's not! What if...I bet the farm and predicted that "The Boys in the Boat" will be my 2014 book-of-the-year pick? (Would that get your attention?) What if...I said this true story of "Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" included my pick for the most exquisite description--I've ever read--of what a high performance team looks like? What if...I told you that Bill Butterworth, the author of On the Fly Guide to...Building Successful Teams , wrote me recently after I had reviewed Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption ? He noted, "Unbroken is the best book I've read in the last couple of years! Wanna know what comes in at Number Two? It's called The Boys in the Boat. I couldn't put it down. Everybody I've recommended it to hates my guts because they can't put it down once they start it." Author Daniel James Brown writes narrative nonfiction books and his primary interest as a writer is "in bringing compelling historical events to life as vividly and accurately" as he can. Trust me, he can! Back before American football owned it all, sports fans in the 1930s (a tough time) embraced university rowing teams with remarkable fanaticism. In Seattle, the lakeshore crowds at the eight-oar crew races between the University of Washington and the University of California at Berkeley rivaled the "12th man" stupor over the NFL Super Bowl champs, the Seattle Seahawks. What if...I were still leading a team? Here's how I would leverage the power of this book: --Buy one book (or Kindle version) for each team member--and provide a "read and reflect" learning tool. --Plan a team-building retreat in the next 30 to 90 days. --At the retreat, invest time every morning and evening--listening, listening, and more listening as our team talked about "Elements of Teamwork," as described in The Boys in the Boat. --Enjoy every afternoon in an experiential team-building activity: Rowing (if possible), ropes courses, zip lines, climbing walls, confidence courses, etc. Really--the insights, the drama, the real life stuff-in-the-trenches, is so, so insightful. Some, like Butterworth, will read the book non-stop. Others might enjoy slowly savoring each chapter--including the PowerPoint-worthy insights from George Yeoman Pocock, the master craftsman and leading designer and builder of racing shells in the 20th Century. "To be of championship caliber, a crew must have total confidence in each other, able to drive with abandon, confident that no man will get the full weight of the pull..." "Pocock-built shells began to win U.S. Intercollegiate Rowing Association championships in 1923." According to Wikipedia, "he achieved international recognition by providing the eight-oared racing shells which won gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics and again in 1948 and 1952. In this era, nearly every collegiate and sport rowing program in America used wooden shells and oars built by Pocock." Trust me--the reverential side trips down historical alleys are stunning. Brown excels in fluid detail. The writing: elegant. The insights: elevating. Here's a keeper from pages 234-235. Listen to the wisdom as Master Boatbuilder Pocock coaches Joe, a young rower with promise and dreams--but a nasty childhood: "He suggested that Joe think of a well-rowed race as a symphony, and himself just one player in the orchestra. If one fellow in an orchestra was playing out of tune, or playing at a different tempo, the whole piece would naturally be ruined. "That's the way it was with rowing. What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing. And a man couldn't harmonize with his crewmates unless he opened his heart to them. He had to care about his crew. It wasn't just the rowing but his crewmates that he had to give himself up to, even if it meant getting his feelings hurt. "Pocock paused and looked up at 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.'" Then this clincher: "He told Joe to be careful not to miss his chance. He reminded him that he'd already learned to row past pain, past exhaustion, past the voice that told him it couldn't be done. That meant he had an opportunity to do things most men would never have a chance to do. And he concluded with a remark that Joe would never forget. "'Joe, when you really start trusting those other boys, you will feel a power at work within you that is far beyond anything you've ever imagined. Sometimes, you will feel as if you have rowed right off the planet and are rowing among the stars.'" Unlike most other sports, says the author, "One of the fundamental challenges in rowing is that when any one member of a crew goes into a slump the entire crew goes with him." How do individual slumps affect morale on your team--or in your family? One of the University of Washington coxswains would often shout to the eight oarsmen, "MIB! MIB! MIB!" Brown writes, "The initialism stood for `mind in boat.' It was meant as a reminder that from the time an oarsman steps into a racing shell until the moment that the boat crosses the finish line, he must keep his mind focused on what is happening inside the boat." What acronym could your team use to keep everyone focused?

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a book that is beautifully written as well as moving, haunting, frightening, uplifting, and thrilling. We listened to the audiobook version read by Edward Herrmann, and at 14 hours and 30 minutes, The Boys in the Boat kept us enthralled for a long car trip. The Boys in the Boat is a story that might have gotten lost to history except for one small chance encounter: writer Daniel James Brown was asked by a neighbor to come talk to her father about a previous book that he had written. It turns out that her father was Joe Rantz, one of the boys on the University of Washington crew team who went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936. And over time, Rantz’s story came spilling out. This story is actually multi-layered. It is the story of Joe Rantz and his horrible childhood as a “throwaway boy.” It is a story of families struggling through the Great Depression. It is the story of the rise of Nazi Germany and the 1936 Olympics, which was planned as a propaganda showcase. It is the story of rowing—not just the beauty of rowing but the grueling physicality of the sport. It is a David and Goliath Story, of the University of Washington competing against the Ivy Leagues, and then the rest of the world. And it is a story of unlikely heroes, from the University of Washington Coaches, to boat-builder George Pocock, to the boys themselves. The “boys” would remain friends for the rest of their lives as their experience forged an unbroken bond among them. Only death would separate them. Daniel James Brown excels in the area of describing the art and poetry of rowing. “The boys sat without talking, breathing heavily, exhaling plumes of white breath. Even now that they had stopped rowing, their breathing was synchronized, and for a brief, fragile moment it seemed to Joe as if all of them were part of a single thing, something alive with breath and spirit of its own.” Sometimes he uses the quotes of others to show us the beauty and spirituality of rowing. George Pocock wrote “It’s a great art, is rowing. It’s the finest art there is. It’s a symphony of motion. And when you’re rowing well, why it’s nearing perfection. And when you near perfection, you’re touching the Divine. It touches the you of yous. Which is your soul.” How good was The Boys in the Boat? It was good enough that I bought copies for almost everyone on my Christmas list last year. It was good enough that I trolled the internet, looking for photos and videos of the University of Washington crew team and their races. And it was good enough that I just wanted to learn more about this amazing group of men. I found just about any article I could on Google about their exploits and what happened to them afterward. This hardscrabble group of boys became engineers, lawyers, doctors, and coaches. The Boys in the Boat is truly a wonderful story, and an American story. Thanks to Daniel James Brown, it is not one that will be lost to future generations.

In 2014, I was working with a client to help him put together a book of profiles of top performers in his field. My client interviewed all of them. My job was to review his interviews and then conduct follow-up interviews. That’s where a strange thing happened. I like to ask interview subjects a question that’s not related to the project itself that helps me get a sense of who they are and helps set them at ease. For this book project, I asked the question, “What’s the best book you’ve read lately?” The first time I heard about The Boys in The Boat, I made note of it. The second time, I starred my note, so I would follow up and learn about the book. After the third and fourth and fifth and sixth times the book was mentioned, I knew I had to read it, too. I’m sure glad I did. The Boys in The Boat was one of the top five books I read in 2014, and one of the best books I’ve ever read. Let me tell you why. I love books where I learn something, and this book was full of things to learn. I didn’t know much about rowing as a sport, and I certainly didn’t know that in the 1920s and 30s, collegiate crew was as popular as professional baseball and college football. I didn’t know how hard competitive rowing is, either. I’ve raced other folks in a rowboat and a canoe, but that’s nothing like top-level crew. I was amazed by some of the descriptions in the book. Here’s one. “There were a thousand and one small things that had to be learned, mastered, and brought to bear in precisely the right way to propel a twenty-four-inch-wide cedar shell, carrying three-quarters of a ton of human flesh and bone, through the water with any semblance of speed and grace.” In addition to general learning and the enjoyment of reading a well-written book, I’m always on the lookout for lessons that translate over to the field I write about: business. If you’re a businessperson, you’ll be inspired by the way the rowers work to get better. Of course, business is not exactly like sports. In sports, you practice more than you play. In business, every day is game day. But in both sports and business, the top performers work hard every day at getting better. There are many lessons about teamwork in The Boys in the Boat. Here’s a quote from the book to think about. “There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can’t sustain it. It’s called ‘swing.’ It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by any one is out of synch with those of all the others.” That swing experience for a team is like the flow experience for an individual. Great teams of all kinds have it, even if they don’t call it “swing.” I was probably primed to see this especially clearly, because my friend and client Stephen Lynch had used the example of a rowing crew as his example of elegant teamwork when we worked on his book, Business Execution for Results. The parts of the book that deal with the way crews work together will give you some ideas about how to do things more effectively with business teams. Here’s a quote to consider. “Great crews may have men or women of exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen; but they have no stars. The team effort—the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat, and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes—is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self.” In A Nutshell The Boys in The Boat will be a great read for you if you enjoy the history and if you enjoy books about sports teams that don’t portray the team members as superior beings. This book is about talented, but not superhero type, men who put in an extraordinary amount of focused, hard work to achieve something important. If you’re a businessperson, you can read for the story and the inspiration, but there are also good lessons about teamwork. Whatever your starting point, I think you’ll enjoy The Boys in The Boat: Nine Americans And Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown.