Saturday, August 24, 2024

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown

 

Rantz family

Coaches

Joe Rantz

Harry – father

Nellie – mother, deceased

Fred – brother, married Thelma LaFollette

 

Thula La Follette – stepmother

Step siblings – Harry, Mike, Rose, Polly

 

Joyce Simdars - wife

University of Washington:

Tom Bolles – freshman coach

Al Ulbrickson – head coach

 

George Pocock – built racing shells

 

University of California:

Ky Ebright

Crew of the Husky Clipper

Germany

Bob Moch – coxswain

Don Hume – seat #8 – stroke position

Joe Rantz – seat #7

George “Shorty” Hunt – seat #6 – always told Joe “I got your back.”

Jim “Stub” McMillan – seat #5

John White Jr. – seat #4 – worked with Joe at Grand Coulee Dam

Gordon Adam – seat #3

Chuck Day – seat #2 – worked with Joe at Grand Coulee Dam

Roger Morris – seat #1 - bow

Adolph Hitler

Dr.  Joseph Goebbels – minister of public enlightenment and propaganda

 

Werner March – architect

 

Leni Riefenstale – actress, produced movies for propaganda

 

NOTE: Page numbers are from the 2014 paperback edition.

1.       Why didn’t Joe’s father, Harry, intercede more in his behalf with Thula?  Given the time period, do you think this was unusual treatment of Joe by a second wife?

2.       Could you see Thula’s point of view?  She was a very talented violinist.  How might her life have been different today?

3.       How did Joe’s experiences growing up help or hinder him in the boat?  In life?

4.       All of the boys on the Olympic team were extremely successful later in life.  Was this partly due to their experiences in the boat?

5.       Did you learn anything new or gain any new insights about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich?  Several times the author wrote about young German boys and what would happen to them.  He wrote that the innocent young boys in Triumph of the Will would “someday pull sobbing children from their mother’s arms and herd them into gas chambers” (page 144).  Also, when describing the bell tower at the stadium, he wrote that in the final days of the Third Reich, “some of those German boys – those who cried or refused to shoot or tried to surrender – would be lined up against these limestone slabs by their officers and shot” (page 208).

6.       Were you surprised about the length Hitler, with the help of Riefenstale, went to present a false picture to the world about the situation in Germany?   Was there any way America and other nations could have known what really was happening?

7.       Did you like the way the author switched among the story of the team, coaching strategies, and Hitler and the Third Reich?

8.       How did you feel reading Ulbrickson’s opening remarks to the team at the start of the season in 1935?  He told them “Somewhere among them…was the greatest crew that Washington had ever seen…Nine of them…were going to be on the podium in Berlin in 1936” (page 150).  Did you understand how this inspired the boys trying out for the teams?

9.       Were there life lessons to be learned from the art of rowing?  Some of the things the author wrote are:

a.       “Like so much in life, crew was partly about confidence, partly about knowing your own heart” (page 106).

b.       When working with Pocock, Joe thought, “the deliberate application of strength, the careful coordination of mine and muscle, the sudden unfolding of mystery and beauty” (page 127)

c.       When explaining to Joyce why he did not get angry, Joe said, “It takes energy to get angry…I can’t waste my energy like that and expect to get ahead” (page 134).

d.       George Pocock, in the quote at the top of page 149, said “One of the first admonitions of a good rowing coach is “pull your own weight” …There is certainly a social implication here.”

e.       Bobby Moch told his daughter, “It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, what matters is how many times you get up” (page 233).

10.   We read this book during the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris.  Did reading it make you more interested in the Olympics?

11.   If you did not play sports in school, did this book give you an understanding or appreciation of team sports?  If you did play sports, was the author’s description of what happens on a team accurate or idealistic?

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