The Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation), page 11
The Englishman suggested that Joe think of a well-rowed race as a symphony, and himself as just one player in the orchestra. If one fellow in the 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 everyone on his crew. He had to give himself up to the rowing, but he had to do even more. He had to give himself up to his crewmates too. “If you don’t like some fellow in the boat, Joe, you have to learn to like him,” Pocock said. “It has to matter to you whether he wins the race, not just whether you do.”
Pocock paused and looked up. “Joe, when you really start trusting those other boys,” Pocock said, “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.”
The next day was a Sunday, and Joe took Joyce and drove over to a lot on Lake Washington where his father was building his new house. The land was right next to his brother Fred’s house, and for the past few weekends Joe had been helping his father work. The basement was nearly complete, and with the upstairs portion under way, Harry had moved the kids in downstairs. The basement was more like a cave than a house, but Harry had lugged in a woodstove, and it was warm and dry inside.
Joe at Harry’s new house on Lake Washington.
As Joe worked with his father, hauling lumber down from the road in a driving rain, Joyce entertained the kids, playing card games and making fudge and cocoa on the stove. Playing mother to Thula’s children was natural to Joyce. The children were grief-stricken, and Harry’s full-time work on the house prevented him from giving them the attention they needed. Every instinct Joyce had led her to sweep them into her arms and care for them. But her feelings about Harry were different. Even though he treated Joyce pleasantly, inside she still seethed with resentment toward him. She could not forgive him for his failure to stand behind Joe for all those years.
By late afternoon, after they had moved all the lumber into position, Joe stood outside on the dock by himself, staring out at the lake. The finish line for the Pacific Coast Regatta in April was a little less than a mile up the lake from there. He wondered if he would be in the varsity boat when it passed by this dock. A gust of wind struck him. Rain poured down his face. He stared at the water, pondering what Pocock had told him the day before.
Joe had spent the last six years making his own way in the world. Nothing was more frightening than allowing himself to depend on others. People let you down. People left you behind. Depending on people and trusting them got you hurt. But trust seemed to be at the heart of what Pocock was asking. Harmonize with the other fellows, he said. There was a kind of absolute truth in that. It was something Joe couldn’t deny. He had to come to terms with it.
He stood on the dock for a long time, gazing at the lake, oblivious to the rain. Then he turned and peered back at the house. Inside, the kids and Joyce and his father were all under one roof, sitting in front of the fire, waiting for him to come in. When he returned to the warm cave, he toweled dry, unpacked his banjo, and gathered the kids around him. He tuned the banjo carefully. Then he cleared his throat, cracked open a big white smile and began to play and sing. One by one, the kids, then his father, and finally Joyce began to join in, singing along with him.
By March 19, Ulbrickson figured he had found his best bet for an Olympic boat. He still had it pegged as the second boat on his chalkboard, but the boys in it were beginning to edge the first boat consistently. Bobby Moch was riding coxswain. Roger Morris was in the bow, followed by Chuck Day and Gordy Adam. In the engine room, Ulbrickson had placed Johnny White at number four, Stub McMillin in the five seat, and Shorty Hunt at number six. Merton Hatch, another of Tom Bolles’s former freshmen, sat in the seven seat. The star of last year’s freshman crew, Don Hume, was the stroke oar.
Joe was in the third boat. And it looked as if he’d be staying there, and staying home, not rowing in the Cal race or beyond. But then, on March 21, he walked into the shell house and found his name on the chalkboard, sitting at seat number seven in boat number two, right between Shorty Hunt and Don Hume. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t know if Pocock had talked to Ulbrickson or if Merton Hatch had simply messed up in some terrible way. Whatever the reason, he had his chance. He knew what he had to do.
From the moment he stepped into the shell that afternoon, he felt at home. He liked these boys. He didn’t know Gordy Adam and Don Hume well, but both made a point of welcoming him aboard. His oldest, most reliable shell house friend, Roger Morris, sitting up front in the bow, gave him a wave and shouted, “Hey, Joe, I see you finally found the right boat!” His buddies from Grand Coulee—Chuck Day and Johnny White—were sitting up near the front too. When he saw Joe, Stub McMillin, his face alight, said, “Okay, this boat is going to fly now, boys.” Shorty Hunt slapped him on the back and whispered, “Got your back, Joe.”
THE 1936 VARSITY CREW
Left to right: Don Hume, Joe Rantz, Shorty Hunt, Stub McMillin, Johnny White, Gordy Adam, Chuck Day, Roger Morris. Kneeling: Bobby Moch.
20
Finding Their Swing
On that first day out with the new crew, Joe rowed as he had never been able to row before. He rowed as Pocock had told him to row, giving himself up to the crew’s effort entirely, merging with it, becoming one with it. He followed Hume’s stroke flawlessly, sending it back to Shorty behind him in one continuous flow. It felt to Joe like a transformation, as if some kind of magic had come over him. As he climbed out of the boat, he realized that he didn’t need to struggle to give himself up to the rhythm of the boat, as Pocock had urged him to do. With this bunch of boys, he did not even have to try. He just trusted them. In the end, it was that simple.
Over the next few days, the boat began to fly, just as Stub said it would. Racing the other crews, the boat won by an astonishing seven lengths one day, three lengths another day. They won sprints. They won in wind. They won in snow. And on March 28, Ulbrickson officially declared that they were the new varsity boat. If he was going to get to the Olympics, this was the crew that was going to take him there.
That afternoon George Pocock personally christened the new shell in which the boys would row. As Joe and his crewmates held it aloft, Pocock poured a jarful of mysterious fluid over its bow and pronounced, “I christen this boat Husky Clipper. May it have success in all the waters it speeds over. Especially in Berlin.” As the boys began to carry the boat down the ramp to the water, some of them crinkled their noses, trying to make out the odd scent of the fluid on the bow. Pocock chuckled and grinned. “Sauerkraut juice,” he said. “To get it used to Germany.”
Two weeks before the Pacific Coast Regatta, Ulbrickson held one final three-mile time trial. The course record was then 16:33.4, but Joe and his crewmates finished it faster, at 16:20, and they did it sitting upright at the end of the race, breathing easy, feeling good. Every time they climbed into the Husky Clipper together, they just seemed to get better.
There was a straightforward reason for what was happening. The boys in the Husky Clipper were all tough, they were all skilled, they were all fiercely determined, but they were also all good-hearted. Every one of them had come from humble origins or had been humbled by the hard demands of rowing. Life, and the challenges they had faced together, had also taught them humility—that there were limits to their individual powers. They had learned that there were things they could do far better together than alone. They were starting to row now for one another, not just themselves, and it made all the difference.
Ky Ebright and the boys from Cal arrived in Seattle on April 14. The next day, when they showed up to row, the sun was out in full force, and the water was glass smooth. As they carried their shells down the ramp to the water, the national champion Cal boys were an intimidating sight. They had been rowing well under the California sun and they were tanned and fit. A week earlier they had rowed a three-mile time trial in 16:15, a good five seconds better than Ulbrickson’s crew. But Ebright knew to take the Washington boys seriously. That first day, he jumped into the coxswain’s seat of his varsity boat, a Pocock-crafted shell called the California Clipper, and barked commands himself during an eight-mile practice row.
On race day, Saturday, April 18, the skies were flawlessly blue. The weather was warm. A ferry packed with students and the school’s marching band left the dock in the early afternoon. A navy cruiser and nearly four hundred other vessels flying purple and gold pennants gathered near the finish line. On the dock at Fred’s house, right next to Harry’s new home, Joyce and the kids and Harry sat eating peanuts and tossing the shells into the lake. By 2:15 p.m., when an observation train rolled into place, the largest crowd ever to witness a crew race in the Northwest had assembled along the racecourse.
The Washington freshmen did not disappoint, setting a new course record and winning by four and a half lengths. In the next race, Washington’s JV boat took the lead easily at the start and crossed the line almost six lengths ahead of California, again setting a new course record. At 4:15 p.m., the two varsity crews paddled out to the starting line. A tailwind had stiffened, piling rough water into heaps of whitecaps at the north end of the lake. So far, all the boats on the course that day had broken course records, even the losing crews. The bodies of the oarsmen were catching the wind, acting as sails, hurrying the shells down the course.
At the starting line, the Husky Clipper bobbed in the swells. Roger Morris and Gordy Adam, up front, kept the bow of the boat pointed due north. Bobby Moch lowered his hand to indicate his crew was ready to row. Over in the Cal boat, the coxswain did the same. The starter shouted, “Row!” and both boats bolted off the line.
The big Cal stroke, Gene Berkenkamp, who had mowed Washington down in two races the previous year, quickly powered his crew to a short lead. For three-quarters of a mile, the two crews rowed at the same speed, both furiously digging at the choppy water. Don Hume was matching Berkenkamp’s stroke rate but making no progress in overtaking him. Then Bobby Moch had a daring idea. Cal was ahead, and rowing hard, but he told Hume to lower the stroke count. Hume dropped it to twenty-nine. Almost immediately the boys found their swing. Don Hume set the model, taking huge, smooth, deep pulls. Joe and the rest of the boys fell in behind him. Very slowly, seat by seat, the Husky Clipper began to regain water on the California Clipper. By the one-mile mark, the two boats were even.
The Cal coxswain called out, “Give me ten big ones!” Bobby Moch hunched down in the stern, looked Don Hume in the eyes, and growled at him to keep it steady at twenty-nine. With the wind in their faces, pushing them along, both crews were flying down the course now. Spray was breaking over the bow of their shells as they skipped from wave to wave. Cal was rowing at thirty-one strokes per minute, but even with its slower rate Washington continued to inch ahead. The Cal coxswain called for another big ten, but Bobby Moch held steady, and Washington maintained its small lead.
In Washington’s number seven seat, Joe realized he was nearing his father’s house. He was tempted to sneak a peek over his shoulder, but he didn’t. He kept his mind in the boat. Washington moved out to a three-quarter-length lead. The Cal coxswain called on his boys to give him more. They raised their stroke rate to thirty-five, then thirty-six. Moch continued to hold steady at twenty-nine. Finally, with a half mile to go, Moch bellowed at Hume to pick up Washington’s rate. The Husky Clipper surged forward, and in the last half mile they accelerated in a way that no shell had ever accelerated on Lake Washington. As they flew down the last few hundred yards, the boys rocked back and forth, perfectly in sync. Hundreds of boat whistles shrieked. The locomotive on the observation train wailed. Students on the ferry screamed. And a long, sustained roar went up from the tens of thousands standing along the beach as the Husky Clipper crossed the line three lengths ahead of California, beating the course record by 37 seconds.
As the crowds around him cheered, Al Ulbrickson sat quietly in his boat at the finish line, listening to the band play the school’s fight song. His boys had beaten a very good California crew, the defending national champions. They had rowed better than ever. They were truly an out-of-the-ordinary group, but it was too early to see whether the magic would hold. Two years running now, his varsity had beaten Ebright’s in the Pacific Coast Regatta, only to lose at the national championships in Poughkeepsie. Who was to say that this bunch wouldn’t do the same?
Ky Ebright.
21
Save, Save, Save
Following the victory, Ulbrickson gave the boys two weeks off. When they returned to the shell house on May 4, they rowed raggedly for the first few days back on the water, until they found their swing again. But find it they did, and they promptly began to power past the other shells. On or off the water, they were almost always together now. They ate together, studied together, and played together. On weekend evenings they gathered around the old upright piano in the parlor of the Varsity Boat Club and sang for hours. Don Hume tore through jazz tunes, show tunes, blues, and ragtime. Sometimes Roger Morris played saxophone and Johnny White played along on his violin. And almost always Joe got out his banjo or his guitar and joined in as well. Nobody laughed at him anymore; nobody dreamed of laughing at him.
By the end of May, the boys were again turning in phenomenal times on the water. But their success in Seattle didn’t guarantee victory in Poughkeepsie. The regatta on the Hudson would be a four-mile race, not three, and the California boys had proven time and again that they were masters at the longer distance. On June 6, Ulbrickson took the varsity and JV out for one final four-mile trial before leaving for Poughkeepsie. He told Bobby Moch to hold the varsity back behind the JV boat for the first two miles. But as they moved down the lake, rowing at a leisurely stroke rate of twenty-six, the varsity could not manage to stay behind. They kept edging out in front simply on the power of their long, slow strokes. When Moch finally turned them loose in the final mile, they exploded into a seven-length lead, and they were still pulling away as they crossed the finish line.
Four days later, the boys arrived at Seattle’s railroad station, led by a police escort with sirens wailing and red lights flashing. In the station the marching band was already playing fight songs. The crowd was packed with cheerleaders, journalists, parents, cousins, next-door neighbors, and utter strangers. The boys had not just packed for New York. They had packed as if they had already made the Olympics and were heading for Berlin. Some of them were even making plans to tour Europe after the games, although none of them were sure where they’d get the money for that. Johnny White had a grand total of fourteen dollars in his pocket. Bobby Moch was hoping to visit his relatives in Switzerland and Alsace-Lorraine. At first, his father, Gaston, hesitated to give his son their addresses. But he agreed to send them later, if the crew really went to Europe.
The boys climbed aboard, and as the train coughed, lurched, and began to pull away, they hung from the windows shouting farewells: “Good-bye, Mom!” “I’ll write from Berlin.” Joe hung out a window as well, searching. Then, in a far corner, he found her. Joyce was standing with his father and the kids, jumping up and down, holding a sign high over her head. In the middle of the sign she had painted a large green four-leaf clover.
The Washington boys arrived in Poughkeepsie early in the morning on June 14, in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. They were not using the rickety old shack for a boathouse this year. They moved into Cornell’s former boathouse, right next to California’s. The new quarters had been provided by the regatta authorities as a result of Washington’s newfound respect in the East. It had hot showers, exercise facilities, electricity, and extra-long beds. And the roof didn’t leak.
By the time they had finished settling in, they could smell food cooking. Led by their noses, and by Joe Rantz’s nose in particular, they quickly discovered the best feature of the new place. There was a cookhouse on the beach, just twenty-five feet from their front door. An African-American woman named Evanda May Calimar was in charge, and she was an awe-inspiring cook. The boys had heaps of fried chicken for lunch, and they were in heaven. Nobody appreciated it more than Joe, who went back for seconds and then thirds. Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer newspaper published a story on their first meal, with a picture of Joe captioned “Joe Rantz, The Eating Champion.”
Pocock visited the California boathouse to check on the shell he’d built them, but the Washington boys declined to speak to their rivals. On the dock they shared, the two crews passed each other silently, with eyes averted, like dogs circling before a fight. And although a fight on land was possible, a battle on the water was a near certainty. During the next few days, word leaked out that Cal had turned in a blazing time of 19:31 over four miles. After Washington held its own time trial, Ulbrickson announced that their time was slower, a fraction of a second over 19:39. But Ulbrickson may have been trying to deceive Ky Ebright. Johnny White recorded the boys’ true time in his journal that night: 19:25. The next day, though, rumors began to circulate that California had held yet another time trial, and turned in a phenomenal time of 18:46.
