The Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation), page 8
Ulbrickson began to grow animated, almost emotional. There was more potential in this room, he said, than he had ever seen in a shell house in all his years of rowing and coaching, more than he ever expected to see again in his lifetime. Somewhere among them, he told the boys, was the greatest crew that Washington had ever seen. Maybe the best Washington would ever see. Nine of them, he ended up declaring, as if it were a certainty, were going to be standing on the medal podium in Berlin in 1936. It was up to each of them whether they would be there or not. When he finished, the boys leapt to their feet and cheered.
The next morning the Seattle Post-Intelligencer exulted, “A New Era in Washington Rowing. Possible Entry in the Olympic Games in Berlin!”
All-out war promptly broke out in the shell house. The rivalries that had arisen during the fall season now turned into outright battles. Accidental bumping of shoulders turned into open pushing matches. Locker doors were slammed. Curses were exchanged. Grudges were nursed. Two brothers in different boats now barely greeted each other with grunts each afternoon.
The weather stalled Ulbrickson’s plans to have the boys row themselves into shape. A series of brutal winter storms roared in from the Gulf of Alaska. Bitter winds ripped the surface of Lake Washington into a furious tumble of white-capped waves. The temperatures dropped into the teens; snow flurries turned into light snowstorms, which in turn became full-scale blizzards. When the boys did hit the water for quick sprints, they’d row in the snow until their hands grew so numb they could no longer hold the oars.
In February, the boats begin to compete head-to-head to see which crew would be the first varsity squad. Joe remained in the all-sophomore boat. Another member of his crew, Bob Green, had begun to annoy some of the boys in the other boats. Green had the habit of getting excited and bellowing encouragement to his crewmates during races. Normally, only the coxswain shouts commands, and this breach of an unstated rowing rule irritated the older boys, particularly Bobby Moch, the savvy little coxswain of the best JV boat.
Moch learned to turn Green’s loudness to his advantage. Whenever his boat came up alongside Joe and the sophomores, Moch quietly leaned toward his stroke oar and told him to pick up the pace. Green meanwhile would be hooting and hollering at his own crew, urging them on. Moch would direct his megaphone over to the sophomore boat and say, “Well, Green just opened his big mouth again. Let’s pass them!” By the time he said this, his own boat would already be starting to surge, since he’d secretly given the order to increase the pace. To the sophomore boat, though, it seemed like magic. The change appeared to be instant, as if Moch’s crew could just blow past them anytime they wanted. Green would start yelling even more loudly, “More, more!” “Give me ten big ones!” But Moch’s boat would already be accelerating away.
Each time Moch tried the trick, the sophomores lost their cool. They flailed at their oars, angry and desperate to catch up. Time after time, they got, as Moch called it, “all bloody nosed.” And none more so than Joe. The whole thing seemed like another joke at his expense, designed to show him up. But it always worked.
Ulbrickson was starting to have some serious doubts about the sophomores. He had expected that by now they would emerge decisively as the new varsity lineup. But as he watched them struggle against the JV boys, they just didn’t look like the crew that had won with such astonishing ease at Poughkeepsie. He studied them for a few days, trying to figure it out, looking for individual faults. Then he called Roger Morris, Shorty Hunt, Joe Rantz, and two other boys into his office for a talk. He told them flat out that they were all in danger of falling out of contention for the first varsity boat if they didn’t shape up. Among other things, they were letting their emotions climb into the boat with them. They were losing their cool over little things, and that had to stop. He reminded them that there were only eight seats for rowers in the first varsity boat and that four or five boys were vying for each one. Then he stopped talking and simply pointed at the door.
Joe, Roger, and Shorty came out of the shell house shaken, trying to ignore a cluster of seniors and juniors smirking at them from the doorway. They started up the hill in the rain. Talking over what had just happened, they were beginning to get agitated.
Shorty Hunt had grown up in a small town. His family life had been stable, and as a result he’d grown up confident and highly accomplished. In high school he starred in three sports and excelled in the classroom, graduating two years early. He was talkative and good-looking, with wavy dark hair, and although he stood six foot three, his fellow students dubbed him “Shorty.” He liked to dress well and was forever drawing admiring glances from the young women around him. He and Roger had been buddies from day one, and Joe was grateful that the two of them had never given him a hard time about his music or his clothes. In fact, more and more Joe could count on Shorty and Roger to come to his side when the older boys teased him or when Ulbrickson singled him out for criticism. Shorty rowed in the number two seat, right behind Joe, and he’d taken lately to looping an arm over Joe’s shoulder whenever he seemed down and saying, “Don’t worry, Joe. I’ve got your back.”
As they walked up the hill from the shell house that night, the three boys complained about Ulbrickson. They were angry he’d chewed them out. Shorty, in particular, was agitated. Ulbrickson was unfair, he complained. He was a cold taskmaster, too hard on them, too blind to see how hard they were working. He’d do better to give a fellow an occasional pat on the back than to always find fault. Roger moped along, looking even more morose than usual. They all knew Ulbrickson wasn’t likely to change. They agreed that from now on, they’d all better be watching one another’s backs. That night, Joe slept uneasily. Even at the crew house, the one place he’d begun to feel more or less at home, it was obvious that he still remained utterly disposable.
The next day, the sophomore boat suddenly snapped back into form, handily beating all four of the other boats on its first outing. Over the next several weeks, the five potential varsity crews went at it tooth and nail, and through it all the sophomores seemed to have found themselves again. Coach Ulbrickson finally decided to list them as the first varsity boat. The following day they rowed awkwardly and lost badly. That night, writing in his logbook, Ulbrickson tore them apart: “Horrible,” he wrote, “every man for himself,” “no semblance of team work,” “have gone to sleep entirely.” Ulbrickson was beyond confused. He was starting to feel as if the sophomores might drive him nearly to madness.
He had also begun to see a great deal of unexpected talent in some of his other boats. Coach Bolles was reporting that his top freshman crew was rowing nearly as fast as Joe and his crew had the year before. They seemed to be getting better each time out. There was a curly-haired kid in the freshman boat, Don Hume, who looked particularly promising. He wasn’t polished yet, but he never seemed to tire, never showed pain. He just kept going, kept driving forward, like a well-oiled locomotive. There was also a big, muscular, quiet boy named Gordy Adam in the number five seat, and a kid named Johnny White in number two. White just lived and breathed rowing.
The JV boat that Bobby Moch was steering also contained a couple of promising sophomores. These boys hadn’t made Joe’s boat the year before, but now they were looking strong. Jim “Stub” McMillin was a six-foot-five beanpole of a kid. Stub was big enough to provide the power that a great crew needs in the engine room, and he never seemed to believe he was beaten. Then there was a bespectacled boy named Chuck Day, a chatterbox and a prankster. Day was the sort who tended to fight first and ask questions later. But he was also always ready with a joke.
As February gave way to March, Ulbrickson abandoned the notion of set crews. He started mixing and matching boys in different boats. First he moved Joe out of the sophomore boat. The boat slowed down. The next day Joe was back in. Ulbrickson moved Stub McMillin into the seven seat in the sophomore boat, then took him out the next day. He tried taking Joe out again, with the same weak results. He moved Shorty Hunt into Moch’s JV boat.
Slowly, two favorites began to stand out. One was the original sophomore boat. The other was the JV boat with Moch, McMillin, and Day. Ulbrickson was waiting for one of them to break through, but it just wasn’t happening. There were plenty of technical faults in both boats, but that was not the real problem. Ulbrickson had begun to notice that there were too many days when they rowed not as crews but as boats full of individuals. The more he scolded them for their technical issues, the more the boys seemed to sink into their own separate and sometimes defiant little worlds.
What they needed was to find something rowers call their “swing,” and they were not going to get there acting like individuals. Many crews never really find their swing. It only happens when all eight oarsmen row in such perfect unison that no single action by any one of them is out of sync with those of all the others. All at once, sixteen arms must begin to pull together, sixteen knees must begin to fold and unfold in unison, eight bodies must begin to slide forward and backward, eight backs must begin to bend and straighten. Each tiny action must be mirrored exactly by each oarsman. If they can find their swing, it allows a crew to conserve energy, to move through the water as efficiently as possible, and often more rapidly than another crew that appears to be working much harder.
Joe and his crew had found their swing as freshmen the day they’d won in Poughkeepsie. Al Ulbrickson had not forgotten that. He could not, in fact, get the picture of it out of his mind. There had been something marvelous, almost magical, about how they closed out that race. He had to believe they could find it again.
Bobby Moch.
15
Battle in California
The nasty weather that had assaulted Seattle since the previous October finally broke. On April 2, a warm sun blossomed over Lake Washington. Students emerged from the mustiness of the library and the dankness of their rented rooms. At the shell house, the crew boys stripped off their jerseys and stretched out on the ramp, basking in the sun. Joe figured a day out on the water would be good for Joyce. Her hatred for the job at the judge’s house was growing with each passing day. She needed a break, so they rented a canoe and Joe paddled them briskly across the Montlake Cut. He made his way lazily among the green expanse of lily pads and beaver lodges on the south side of Union Bay until he found a spot he liked. Then he let the boat drift.
Joyce reclined in the bow, trailing a hand in the water, soaking up the sun. Joe stretched out as best he could in the stern and gazed up into the blue sky. From time to time, a frog croaked and plopped into the water. Blue dragonflies hovered overhead, their wings rattling dryly. After a while, Joe took his guitar out of its battered old case and began to sing. At first he sang the songs he and Joyce had sung on the school bus back in Sequim—funny, happy-go-lucky songs that made them both laugh. Then Joe slipped into soft, slow, sweet love songs, and Joyce grew quiet, watching him and listening, happy in a different, deeper way. When Joe stopped playing, they talked about what it would be like when they were married and had a home and maybe kids. They talked all afternoon, with no sense of time passing, until the chill of evening finally sent them paddling back to the university side of the bay. It was a day that both of them would remember well into old age.
The next day Joe, still feeling good after his day with Joyce, bought a little gas and drove over to the bakery where his father worked as a mechanic. He rolled the window down and waited, trying to enjoy the smell of baking bread but too nervous to really savor it. A little after noon, men dressed in white streamed out of the building and began sitting on the lawn, opening lunch boxes. Then a few men in dark coveralls emerged. Joe spotted his father immediately. At six foot two, he was easily the tallest man in the group. Joe climbed out of the car and trotted across the street.
Harry looked up, saw him coming, and froze in place, clutching his lunch box. Joe stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, Pop.”
Startled, Harry said nothing but took his son’s hand. It had been five and a half years since he’d seen Joe. He was no longer the scrawny kid he had left behind in Sequim. Harry had to wonder what Joe was doing there. Had his son come to confront him or forgive him?
“Hi, Joe,” he said slowly. “It’s swell to see you.”
The two of them crossed the street and climbed into the front of Joe’s car. Harry unwrapped a salami sandwich and silently offered half of it to Joe. They began to eat, and then, after a long, awkward silence, to talk. Harry spoke about the machinery and equipment in the bakery, and Joe said little at first. He wasn’t much interested in the machinery, just happy to be hearing the sound of his father’s big, deep, familiar voice.
When Joe finally started to talk, questions about his half siblings tumbled out: How was Harry Junior doing? How big was Mike now? How were the girls getting on? Harry assured him they were all well. There was a long pause. Joe asked if he could come by and see them. Harry looked down at his lap and said, “I don’t reckon so, Joe.” Deep down in Joe’s gut, something surged. Anger, disappointment, resentment? He couldn’t quite place the emotion, but it was old and familiar and painful.
But then, without looking up, Harry added, “Sometimes Thula and I go off on little excursions, though. Nobody home but the kids then.”
In early April, the Pacific Coast Regatta was approaching. This year the Washington crews would face California on its own waters. As the day of the race grew nearer, Joe and the boys could not seem to hold on to their magic. One day they’d have it; the next day they’d lose it. They would beat the junior varsity on Monday, lose badly on Tuesday, win again on Wednesday, lose on Thursday. There was no clear favorite in the competition for the first boat, but Ulbrickson had to make a decision. Finally, he placed his faith in the sophomores and made them the 1935 first varsity crew. The local newspapers announced it to the world. The sophomores promptly lost their next head-to-head race against the JV boat.
Once again, Ulbrickson changed his mind. He declared that the two boats would race one more time, on the Oakland Estuary, a few days before the regatta. The winning boat would row as the varsity. On April 10, after the team traveled down to California, Ulbrickson staged the race. Joe and his sophomore crewmates came in almost a length behind the JV. The sophomores slumped in their shell in disbelief. The JV had won the right to row as varsity. Yet Ulbrickson still hesitated. The sophomores had come south with a new shell, and they did not like it. They had been complaining since they arrived that it just didn’t swing for them. So Ulbrickson sent them out again in their old shell, the City of Seattle. This time they rowed beautifully and matched the JV’s time.
After a team dinner at the Hotel Oakland that night, Ulbrickson dropped the bomb on the JV. He told them that he was going to race the sophomores as the varsity despite their repeated defeats. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I can’t help it.”
The JV boys walked out of the room in a rage.
When reporters asked Ulbrickson about the series of reversals, he said simply what he believed in his heart about the sophomores. They were, he declared, “possibly the best crew I have ever coached.”
Race day, April 13, was rainy, and a stiff headwind blew out of the south, up the length of the Oakland Estuary. The estuary was not a pretty place to row. Crumbling brick warehouses, oil storage tanks, rusting cranes, and gritty factories lined both sides of the waterway. The water itself was gray green and oil slicked. Right next to Cal’s shell house, a four-inch pipe discharged raw sewage directly into the estuary.
By midafternoon, nearly forty thousand spectators had assembled. They gathered under umbrellas in empty lots, on scattered docks, on warehouse rooftops, and on small craft moored along the racecourse. At the finish line, on the Fruitvale Avenue Bridge, thousands of California fans in blue and gold mingled with hundreds of Washington loyalists in purple and gold. Everyone was jostling to get a good view of the water.
The freshman race went off first, with Washington stroke Don Hume easily powering the boat to a three-length victory over Cal. The JV raced next, and with Bobby Moch calling the cadence and big Stub McMillin in the engine room, Washington dominated again, winning by a staggering eight lengths.
As Joe and the sophomore varsity paddled to their starting position, they figured they pretty much had to win now, after what the boys in the JV had just done. Once they started, Washington leapt out to an early lead. Cal raised its rate and pulled even, then moved out in front by half a length. Both boats settled in and held their positions for the next mile and a half. The blades of the two boats were dipping in and out of the water almost stroke for stroke. At the halfway point, California slowly increased its rate and stretched its lead out to a full length. George Morry, the Washington coxswain, called for more. Ever so slowly, the boys began to claw their way back, inch by inch. They whittled the lead down to a quarter of a length. Then they were bow to bow. Cal raised its stroke rate, but Washington remained steady and nosed out ahead.
The boats surged into view of the fans at the finish line, up on the bridge. California started to sprint, charging forward again, back into the lead. The Cal fans erupted in cheers. But George Morry did not panic. He resisted the temptation to call for a higher stroke rate, knowing his boys still had plenty of power.
