Glory . . .

Submitted by Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter

September 2, 2015 10:42 a.m.

Boys in the BoatThough there are a lot of things to do in our town, sometimes it’s nice to stay at home and read a book. Recently I finished one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. There are many reasons to recommend this book. Most of the people I’ve mentioned it to have either read it or are reading it.

Among the incoming freshman class at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1932, several of the boys tried out for the rowing program. The Boys in the Boat is the story of how eight of these boys bonded together and became one of the all time great racing crews in 8 man shells. So good in fact that they won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin under the gaze of Adolf Hitler.

Crew racing in both shells and sculls was a big sport in those days and the rivalry between the East and West Coast schools was keen. Competitions between California and Washington were hotly contested. Big races in the East, including an annual race on the upper Hudson River and the Olympic trials in Princeton, pitted the West Coast against East Coast teams. As a mark of how good the book was, I was on the edge of my seat reading about the Olympic finals and worrying about whether they would win, despite knowing that they did.

The book is also a social history of the times. In 1932 the United States was tipping into the Great Depression. The boys of this book were trying to survive, make it through four years at the university, and excel in rowing. Their struggles are described in the context of the Dust Bowl and federal work projects such as the building of Grand Coulee Dam. We also read about the rise of Hitler and about our country’s mixed reactions to it.

This book is a good read for two other reasons. Crewing is about teamwork in some unique ways. Crews have to work at a consistent level and each man has to key his actions to the rower in front of him and to his coxswain’s orders. No one crew member can be stronger than his teammates nor can he do it alone. These boys in the boat achieved that blending in ways that made them one of the great racing crews.

The other reason is that their patriotism and view of our country is inspiring. In our age of shouting and blustering, I think we’ve lost some of the feelings the boys in the boat had. It’s good to be reminded of those feelings from time to time.

Evelyn McDonaldEvelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ’s Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.