It can sometimes seem as though crew exists less as sport than as metaphor. Rowers push themselves in fierce individual pursuit; and yet, the formation of a symphonic whole is what ultimately propels the boat. Power is nothing without precision and teamwork. As George Pocock, the British designer of wooden racing shells, once observed: “Harmony, balance and rhythm. There you have it. That’s what life is about.”
That line comes from The Boys in the Boat, the excellent 2014 book by Daniel James Brown, detailing the unlikely triumph of the 1936 University of Washington men’s crew team. A collective made up of modest, Depression-era blue-collar kids—sons of loggers and fishermen—from the Pacific Northwest.
First, the Huskies’ eight-man varsity boat would outrace rival boats from Ivy League schools. Then, with the Pocock-built Husky Clipper slicing through the water, the boys from Washington would overcome circumstances and underdog status to win the most unlikely gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. These were, of course, the Hitler Games—a mid-20th-century version of sportswashing, a competition doubling as an airbrushed display of German triumphalism—and even the Führer himself was on hand for the final race.
