61 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel James BrownThe Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation): The True Story of an American Team's Epic Journey to Win Gold at the 1936 Olympics
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Brown recounts his meeting with Joe Rantz, an elderly man who was part of the American rowing team that won gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Brown describes Rantz as a man who overcame significant hardships in his life, and who became emotional when discussing his rowing experiences. As Rantz talked about rowing, Brown initially misunderstood Rantz’s repeated references to “the boat,” but eventually realized that Rantz was describing something more than just the physical vessel or his teammates. For Rantz, “the boat” represented a profound, collective experience that had a lasting impact on his life. Brown concludes by expressing his intention to write Rantz’s story, with Rantz insisting that the narrative should focus not just on him, but on “the boat.”
Chapter 1 Summary: “Only Nine Seats”
Brown opens the chapter at the University of Washington in 1933. Two tall and athletic freshmen, Roger Morris and Joe Rantz, hurried across campus on a sunny October afternoon to try out for the freshman rowing team. Brown describes the bustling university setting and the boys’ walk to an old airplane hangar by Lake Washington, which served as the rowing team’s base.
Brown highlights the two boys’ backgrounds, noting that while many of the aspiring rowers came from wealthy families, Joe stood out due to his modest upbringing and financial struggles. Brown also acknowledges the broader context of the Great Depression, emphasizing the economic hardships faced by many Americans at the time.
For Joe, making the rowing team was particularly crucial. Brown explains that securing a spot would guarantee him a part-time campus job, potentially allowing him to complete his engineering degree and build a better future. The author emphasizes the high stakes for Joe, who feared having to return to his bleak hometown if he could not afford to continue his education.
Brown sets the scene at the boathouse, describing the 175 hopeful young men gathered for tryouts. He details the impressive racing shells, oars, and other equipment displayed in the boathouse, creating a sense of awe and anticipation. The author also touches on the competitive nature of the selection process, noting that only a small fraction of the candidates would ultimately make the team. The chapter concludes by underscoring the significance of this moment for Joe, framing it as a potential turning point in his life.
Chapter 2 Summary: “A Dream Life Shattered”
In this chapter, Brown recounts the early life of Joe Rantz. Joe’s childhood was marked by significant upheaval and loss. Born in Spokane, Washington, in 1914, Joe initially enjoyed a happy family life with his parents, Harry and Nellie, and older brother Fred. However, this stability was short-lived.
When Joe was nearly four, his mother died of cancer. His father, unable to cope with the loss, fled to Canada. Joe was sent to live with relatives in Pennsylvania, where he fell ill with scarlet fever. After recovering, he returned to Spokane to live with his older brother Fred, who had married and found employment.
Eventually, Joe’s father returned from Canada with a new wife, Thula. Joe moved in with them, adjusting to life with a stepmother and now-unfamiliar father. Despite the changes, Joe found some normalcy in his new home. He enjoyed simple pleasures like riding on a swing, eating melons from nearby fields, and singing popular tunes with his father at the piano.
However, Joe’s life was disrupted again when his father took a job at a gold mine in Idaho, necessitating long absences from home. During one of his father’s weekend visits, a fire broke out in their house. Nine-year-old Joe managed to save his younger half-brothers, while his father risked his life to rescue Nellie’s piano, a cherished memento of his first marriage.
Brown portrays Joe’s childhood as a series of destabilizing events that left him feeling insecure and uncertain about the concept of home, implying that these early experiences heavily shaped Joe’s character and set the stage for his later challenges and achievements.
Chapter 3 Summary: “A Thousand and One Small Things”
Brown depicts the first day of rowing practice for Joe and the other aspiring freshman rowers. Brown describes the initial assessment process, in which coaches and older students collected physical measurements and medical information from the new recruits. He notes that most of the freshmen had no prior rowing experience, coming instead from backgrounds in farming, logging, or fishing, which had developed their physical strength.
The author emphasizes the complexity of rowing, explaining that mastering the sport requires learning numerous intricate techniques. He raises questions about whether the rural students could grasp the intellectual aspects of rowing and if the city students could endure its physical demands.
Brown introduces Tom Bolles, the freshman coach responsible for selecting the first freshman boat, and Al Ulbrickson, the head coach of the rowing program. Ulbrickson, described as taciturn and observant, had a successful rowing career at Washington before becoming a coach. The author portrays Ulbrickson’s dedication to the sport, likening it to a religion for him.
As the chapter progresses, Brown reveals Ulbrickson’s ambitious goal to win gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. This objective would require overcoming several challenges, including defeating rival coach Ky Ebright from the University of California, besting top Eastern crews, and ultimately competing against the world’s finest rowers.
Brown outlines the qualities Ulbrickson sought in potential team members: physical power, exceptional endurance, intelligence, and the ability to prioritize team success over individual glory. The chapter ends with Ulbrickson contemplating whether any of the new recruits might possess these essential attributes.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Life in Exile”
Brown recounts Joe’s experiences as a young boy living in Boulder City, Idaho, near the Golden Lobby mine where his father worked. After a fire destroyed their home in Spokane, the Rantz family relocated to this remote mining camp when Joe was nine years old.
Brown describes Boulder City as a small settlement of cabins perched on a mountainside, connected by wooden walkways. Despite the harsh conditions, Joe found adventure in this new environment. He enjoyed riding on his father’s steam shovel and racing down the mountain roads in a homemade go-cart. These activities provided an escape from the anxiety he felt following his mother’s death.
The author portrays Joe’s stepmother, Thula, as struggling to adapt to life in Boulder City. Educated and artistic, she found the living conditions difficult and was overwhelmed by the demands of caring for her growing family. Joe’s constant hunger and his habit of playing the ukulele added to her frustration.
Brown narrates a pivotal incident in which Joe’s younger half-brother, Mike, inadvertently damaged Joe’s prized vegetable garden. This event led to a confrontation between Thula and Joe’s father, Harry. Thula demanded that Joe be sent away, forcing Harry to choose between his wife and son.
The chapter then details how 10-year-old Joe was made to live separately from his family. He moved into the schoolhouse, where he chopped wood in exchange for lodging. Joe also worked in the miners’ cookhouse, carrying food trays and dishes in return for meals. Brown notes that this arrangement, while difficult, contributed to Joe’s physical development.
The author depicts Joe’s loneliness during this period of exile. Joe missed the companionship of his father and brother, particularly their shared activities and quiet moments observing the night sky together. Brown concludes the chapter by contrasting the image of Joe stargazing alone at the schoolhouse with his memories of doing so with his father, highlighting the emotional impact of his separation from family.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Making the Climb”
Brown details the rigorous initiation of the freshman rowers, whose daily routine involved long treks to the lake, weigh-ins, and grueling practice sessions in a training barge called Old Nero.
Freshman coach Tom Bolles emphasized two main themes in his talks to the boys: the extreme difficulty of rowing and its potential for life-transforming experiences. Bolles warned the freshmen of the physical and mental challenges ahead, predicting many would quit, while also speaking of the sport’s power to reveal untapped strength.
Brown describes the physical demands of rowing, comparing the energy expended in a single race to playing two consecutive basketball games. He notes the risk of injuries and the fear of “catching a crab”—a dangerous mishap in which an oar becomes stuck in the water, potentially ejecting the rower from the boat. Brown also mentions a mysterious figure in the background, observing Bolles’s talks: a British man who built racing shells and would later prove significant to the team.
As October progressed, the physical toll on the rowers mounted. Brown observes that those from privileged backgrounds were often the first to quit, while those accustomed to hardship, like Joe, persevered. The chapter illustrates the intense physical and mental challenges faced by the aspiring rowers as they began their journey in collegiate crew.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Another Chance at a Home”
This chapter chronicles a tumultuous period in Joe’s young life from 1924 to 1929. Brown describes how the family moved frequently due to Joe’s stepmother Thula’s dissatisfaction, eventually settling in Sequim, Washington. There, Joe and his father Harry built a farm and house from scratch, providing Joe with a sense of stability and home.
Joe thrived in school, developing musical talents and a close relationship with a girl named Joyce Simdars. However, this period of relative happiness was cut short by the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, which severely impacted the family’s finances.
The chapter culminates in a devastating moment for Joe: His family, at Thula’s insistence, decided to leave Sequim in search of better prospects, leaving 15-year-old Joe behind to fend for himself. Brown portrays Joe’s bewilderment and heartbreak as he watched his family drive away, leaving him alone on the farm they had built together.
Prologue-Chapter 6 Analysis
Joe’s life was characterized by a series of hardships and abandonments that forced him to develop a strong sense of independence from a very young age. This pattern of instability began with his mother’s death and his father’s initial abandonment, and continued through his stepmother’s rejection, culminating in his family leaving him behind at the age of 15. Brown portrays this devastating moment: “Joe watched the red taillights fade and disappear into a dark shroud of rain. He was fifteen years old, and he was on his own” (54). This abandonment marked a critical point in Joe’s development, solidifying his need for Self-Reliance Versus Trusting Others. However, as Joe joined the rowing team, he began to learn the value of trusting others and becoming part of a collective effort. This theme is encapsulated in Coach Bolles’s teachings, in which he emphasized that the best rowers would “tap into a strength and power they did not yet know they possessed” and grow “from boys to men” through their shared experiences on the water (43).
The narrative explores the transformative power of collective effort and shared purpose. When Joe spoke about “the boat” in his old age, he referred not only to the physical vessel or his teammates, but also to a profound, collective experience that transcended individual efforts. Brown writes: “Eventually, I realized that the boat was something more than just the shell or its crew. To Joe, it was something bigger than that, something mysterious and almost beyond definition” (14). This concept of Becoming a Part of Something Bigger Than Oneself is reinforced throughout the early chapters, particularly in the descriptions of rowing practice. Coach Bolles emphasized this idea in his speeches to the freshmen, telling them they had “a chance to become part of something larger than themselves” (43). The author’s depiction of these moments highlights how the sport of rowing can forge a deep sense of unity and purpose among its participants.
Brown’s narrative contrasts Joe’s humble origins with the privileged backgrounds of many of his fellow rowers, highlighting the theme of Working-Class Underdogs in an Elitist Sport. Joe’s worn clothes and desperate need for the opportunity stood in stark contrast to the well-dressed city boys who were largely unbothered by the economic hardships of the Great Depression. Brown illustrates this disparity: “Most of the young men around him were city boys dressed neatly in freshly dressed woolen slacks and expensive cardigan sweaters. Their fathers were doctors and lawyers” (19). This contrast is further emphasized in descriptions of how the rigorous training began to take its toll. Brown observes, “The first boys to drop out were the ones with the fancy clothes and polished shoes” (46). The author suggests that while Joe’s difficult childhood faced him with many challenges, it also may have shaped him into a determined person who was not afraid of hard work.
The author’s use of sensory details and historical context aims to immerse readers in the physical and emotional landscape of Depression-era America. Brown’s descriptions of the University of Washington campus, the shell house, and Joe’s childhood homes create a backdrop for the unfolding drama. For instance, he describes the shell house as “an odd-looking building […] an old airplane hangar covered with weather-beaten shingles and inset with enormous windows. The sides slanted up toward the roof” (18). This attention to detail extends to his portrayal of the broader historical context, as he describes the impact of the Great Depression: “Ten million people had no job and no prospect of finding one. No one knew when the hard times might end. As many as two million people were homeless” (19). These descriptions serve to ground the reader in the historical reality of the time, adding depth and authenticity to Joe’s story.
Brown employs a nonlinear narrative structure, portraying an elderly Joe recounting his experiences before jumping back to his childhood and then to his college years. This approach allows the author to create suspense and foreshadowing, hinting at Joe’s eventual triumph while exploring the hardships that shaped him. The Prologue, for instance, introduces Joe as a successful Olympian, creating anticipation for the journey that led him to that point. Brown writes, “I knew that in his mid-seventies he had single-handedly hauled a number of cedar logs down a mountain, cut and split them by hand, then built the nearly half-mile-long pasture fence I had just climbed over” (13). This glimpse of Joe’s strength and determination in his later years aims to pique the reader’s interest in how he developed these qualities.
The use of foreshadowing builds anticipation for Joe’s rowing career. Coach Ulbrickson’s silent observations of the freshmen and his ambitious goal of winning Olympic gold create a sense of possibility and potential that keeps readers engaged. Brown writes: “Ulbrickson stood on the floating dock, listening to the lake water lap at the shore, watching the boys leave. He was studying them closely, because he was thinking well beyond the upcoming season” (33). This subtle hint at Ulbrickson’s long-term plans adds an element of suspense to the narrative, encouraging readers to continue following Joe’s journey.
Brown’s prose style is characterized by detailed descriptions and evocative metaphors. For instance, his description of the energy expended in a rowing race conveys the sport’s intensity: “A single two-thousand-meter race was just as exhausting as playing two basketball games back-to-back. Yet all that effort would be packed into only six minutes” (44). This attention to detail extends to his character development, particularly in his portrayal of Joe, whose resilience and determination are consistently emphasized throughout these early chapters. Brown’s nuanced depiction of Joe’s emotional state, such as when he describes Joe’s reaction to his family’s departure—”Joe froze, his gray-blue eyes locked onto his father’s face, suddenly blank and expressionless, like stone” (54)—also adds depth to the character and seeks to foster a strong emotional connection with the reader.
