Quotes from “The Boys in the Boat”
…the most important one: the ability to disregard his own ambitions, to throw his ego over the gunwales, to leave it swirling in the wake of his shell, and to pull, not just for himself, not just for the glory, but for the other boys in the boat.
Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment.
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.
“The only time you don’t find a four-leaf clover,” he liked to say, “is when you stop looking for one.”
…from the time an oarsmen steps into a racing shell until the moment the boat crosses the finish line, he must keep his mind focused on what is happening inside the boat.
Because the rest of the boat necessarily goes where the bow goes, any deflection or irregularity in the stroke of the oarsman in the bow seat has the greatest potential to disrupt the course, speed, and stability of the boat. So while the boat oarsman must be strong, like all the others, it’s most important that he or she be technically proficient: capable of pulling a perfect oar, stroke after stroke., without fail. The same is true to a lesser extent of the rowers in the number two and three seats. The four, five, and six seats are often called “the engine room” of the crew, and the rowers who occupy these seats are typically the biggest and strongest in the boat. While technique is still important in those seats, the speed of the boat ultimately depends on the raw power of these rowers and how efficiently they transmit it through their oars and into the water. The rower in the number seven seat is something of a hybrid. he or she must be nearly as strong as the rowers in the engine room but must also be particularly alert, constantly aware of and in tune with what is happening in the rest of the boat. He or she must precisely match both the timing and the degree of power set by the rower in the number eight seat, the “stroke oar,” and must transmit that information efficiently back into the boat’s engine room. The stroke sits directly in front of and face-to-face with the coxswain, who faces the bow and steers the shell. Theoretically the stroke oar always rows at the rate and with the degree of power called for by the coxswain, but in the end it is the stroke who ultimately controls these things.
The speed of a racing shell is determined primarily by two factors: the power produced by the combined strokes of the oars, and the stroke rate, the number of strokes the crew takes each minute.
From the first stroke all thoughts of the other crew must be blocked out. Your thoughts must be directed to you and your own boat, always positive, never negative.
…calling for big tens when he was in danger of falling too far behind, but then settling in, holding steady, conserving his crew.
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.
A good swing does not necessarily make crews go faster… Mainly what it does is allow them to conserve power, to row at a lower stroke rate and still move through the water as efficiently as possible, and often more rapidly than another crew rowing less efficiently at a higher rate.
The coxswain must have the force of character to look men or women twice his or her size in the face, bark orders at them, and be confident that the leviathans will respond instantly and unquestioningly to those orders.
But the faster the boat goes, the harder it is to row well.
Put another way, beautiful and effective rowing often means painful rowing.
…they must possess enormous self-confidence, strong egos, and titanic willpower. They must also be immune to frustration. Nobody who does not believe deeply in himself or herself - in his or her ability to endure hardship and to prevail over adversity - is likely even to attempt something as audacious as competitive rowing at the highest levels. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it.
…great crews are carefully balanced blends of both physical abilities and personality types.
…each of these oarsmen must adjust to the needs and capabilities of the other. Each must be prepared to compromise something int eh way of optimizing his stroke for the overall benefit of the boat…
Good crews are good blends of personalities: someone to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve; someone to pick a fight, someone to make peace; someone to think things through, someone to charge ahead without thinking.
Each in the boat must recognize his or her place in the fabric of the crew, accept it, and accept the others as they are.
…get off to a good start to build up momentum, back off as much as possible to conserve energy for the finish yet remain within striking distance all the while, then throw everything they had left into a sprint to the finish line.
The ability to yield, to bend, to give way, to accommodate, he said, was sometimes a source of strength in men as well as in wood, so long as it was helmed by inner resolve and by principle.
From the moment the shell is launched, the coxswain is the captain of the boat. He or she must exert control, both physical and psychological, over everything that goes on in the shell. Good coxes know their oarsmen inside and out - their individual strengths and vulnerabilities - and they know how to get the most out of each man at any given moment.
[Coxswains] must be prepared to react quickly to unforeseen developments.
In short, a good coxswain is a quarterback, a cheerleader, and a coach all in one. he or she is a deep thinker, canny like a fox, inspirational, and in many cases the toughest person in the boat.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down,” he told his daughter Marilynn. “What matters is how many times you get up.”
…not catching the water as cleanly as he would if he kept his hands moving at the same speed that the water was moving under the boat.
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.
“If you don’t like some fellow int he 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.”
…rowing as if he were an extension of the man in front of him and the man behind him.
Starts were among the most critical component of a two-thousand meter race…
One morning he sneaked into the dining salon ahead of the rest of the crew. He ordered two stacks of hotcakes, slathered them with butter, drowned them with syrup, and was just about to dig in when Al Ulbrickson entered the room. Ulbrickson sat down, cocked an eye at the plate, slid it to his side of the table, and said, “Thanks a million, Jim, for fixing those for me,” and slowly devoured both stacks as McMillin glowered at [his coach] over a plate of dry toast.
