How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 1

Teamwork in The Boys in the Boat

Liam Grant

University of North Dakota

How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 2

Abstract

This paper offers examples of the success and failures of teamwork in the book The Boys

in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. The paper starts by providing background of the book and

some basic textbook concepts. It then leads into specific examples of the successes and failures

and how they relate to textbook concepts. Through the quotes, the book offers one of the most

outstanding examples of teamwork for any rowing team, leaving large shoes to fill.
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 3

Teamwork in The Boys in the Boat

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is one of the most fantastic examples of

American teamwork demonstrated in the Olympics. Starting as a depression-era rivalry between

the elite pirate schools of the East Coast and the underdog public schools of the West Coast

culminates in victory for nine Washington men in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In 1933, nine

students at the University of Washington, coached by the infamous Al Ulbrickson, made their

way from small-town farmboys to Olympic-ready oarsmen in three short years. In a nail-biting

photo finish, the Washington crew were able to sneak past the German crew and take home the

gold in Berlin.

The winning crew was made up of nine phenomenal oarsmen from Washington state:

Roger Morris, Charles Day, Gordon Adam, John White, James McMillin, George Hunt, Joe

Rantz, Don Hume, and Robert Moch. The book centers around one oarsman in particular; Joe

Rantz. Rantz, from a childhood filled with hardship, Joe may not have been the poster child for a

rowing team when compared to the high-status, struggle-free lives of the rowers on the East

Coast. Yet, his determination helped secure his team's victories against the rowing teams from

California and the East Coast, cementing Washington's first place spot in the 1936 Olympics.

While teamwork can be easy to identify when seen, it is usually not easy to define and

even harder to find. At a fundamental level, teamwork, according to the Merriam-Webster

Dictionary, can be defined as "work done by several associates with each doing a part but all

subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole." Nowhere is this concept more

clearly implemented than on rowing teams. When a rowing team works together, it is an

excellent demonstration of intellect mixed with peak physical strength. However, when a rowing
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 4

team is not working well together, it can lead to some of the most heartbreaking losses. While the

Washington rowing team may have had a few crushing losses, they continue to pick themselves

up to have even more sweeping victories.

According to a Harvard Business Review Article, five elements ensure a high functioning

team. Common commitment and purpose, specific performance goals, complementary skills,

commitment to how the work gets done, and mutual accountability (Katzenback & Smith, 2015).

With the Washington rowing team in mind, all five of these functions were demonstrated

throughout the book's retelling of their Olympic journey. The common purpose, in this case,

started vaguely but very quickly morphed into the specific goal of not only making it to the 1936

Olympics but also winning the games. Throughout the three years leading up to the winning

race, specific performance goals were set by the head coach Al Ulbrickson that the men all

worked hard to achieve. While the nine rowers may not have seemed complimentary to one

another at times, once they all got into a rhythm, there wasn't anything that could stop this boat.

What is likely the most evident element throughout this book is commitment. The commitment

from the team was just about as outstanding as the continued support from the head coach, who,

even in loss, kept his head up and his words calm to get the team back on track. Without mutual

accountability, however, a team could never make it far. The Washington boys were always

aware of what each other had sacrificed to get on the boat, and the entire team made sure those

sacrifices paid off.

How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 5

Teamwork

Successes of the Team

In a story full of prime examples of teamwork, it can be challenging to differentiate and

prioritize specific instances. However, using the textbook concepts helped determine which

quotes are most applicable.

The textbook defines collaboration in basic terms as "the action of working with someone

to produce or create something" (Black et al., 2019, p. 341). Anybody who has participated in

sports understands the importance collaboration has when it comes to a team's success. While

collaboration means different things in different sports, when it comes to rowing, collaboration is

necessary for each rower to be in perfect sync with the others, which is easier said than done.

Throughout the book, collaboration is emphasized as the make-or-break for a team. The best

example of this occurs in the quote, "One of the fundamental challenges in rowing is that when

any one member of a crew goes into a slump the entire crew goes with him. A baseball team or a

basketball team may very well triumph even if its star player is off his game. But the demands of

rowing are such that every man or woman in a racing shell depends on his or her crewmates to

perform almost flawlessly with each and every pull of the oar. The movements of each rower are

so intimately intertwined, so precisely synchronized with the movements of all the others, that

any one rower's mistake or subpar performance can throw off the tempo of the stroke, the

balance of the boat, and ultimately the success of the whole crew" (Brown, 2013, p. 89). This

quote sums up one of the book's overarching ideas: teamwork. Rowing has an all-or-nothing feel

to it, and this quote exemplifies that one oarsman in a group can throw off the entire boat and

jeopardize a race.
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 6

As mentioned earlier, one of the most prominent elements of this book is commitment.

Without commitment, sports can be challenging. Throughout the years covered in the book, the

team exemplified commitment from all angles. This complete commitment required for a

successful race is demonstrated when "Morry shouted, "M-I-B, M-I-B, M-I-B!" over and over to

the rhythm of their stroke. The initialism stood for "mind in boat." It was meant as a reminder

that from the time an oarsman steps into a racing shell until the moment that the boat crosses the

finish line, he must keep his mind focused on what is happening inside the boat. His whole world

must shrink down to the small space within the gunwales. He must maintain a singular focus on

the rower just ahead of him and the voice of the coxswain calling out commands. Nothing

outside the boat—not the boat in the next lane over, not the cheering of a crowd of spectators,

not last night's date—can enter the successful oarsman's mind" (Brown, 2013, p. 89-90). Morry,

the coxswain of the Washington rowing team, devised a plan to keep his fellow oarsmen focused

solely on the race at hand to push themselves to their limits and win the race.

A unique concept in the textbook is the idea of paradoxes existing in team settings.

According to the textbook, "Paradox exists in the fact that teams have both individual and

collective identities and goals. Each individual has goals and ideas as to what he wants to

accomplish—on the project, in one's career, and in life. The team itself, of course, has goals and

success metrics that it needs to meet in order to be successful. Sometimes these can be in conflict

with each other" (Black et al., 2019, p. 330). The struggle between individualism and

cooperation is a common theme throughout the book. It is best exemplified in the quote, "But the

greatest paradox of the sport has to do with the psychological makeup of the people who pull the

oars. Great oarsmen and oarswomen are necessarily made of conflicting stuff—of oil and water,
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 7

fire and earth. On the one hand, they must possess enormous self-confidence, strong egos, and

titanic willpower. They must be almost immune to frustration. Nobody who does not believe

deeply in himself or herself—in his or her ability to endure hardship and to prevail over

adversity—is likely even to attempt something as audacious as competitive rowing at the highest

levels. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory

that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it. And yet,

at the same time—and this is key—no other sport demands and rewards the complete

abandonment of the self the way that rowing does. Great crews may have men or women of

exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen;

but they have no stars. The team effort—the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat,

and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes—is

all that matters. Not the individual, not the self" (Brown, 2013, p. 178-179). The paradox that

faces the oarsmen the most is the want to retain individualism but retain the synchronicity that

occurs when teams work well together. However difficult this paradox may have been for the

boys, they were able to find a more than advantageous solution.

Another idea the textbook brings up is diversity and how it can positively impact

teamwork. Teamwork is an overarching theme throughout the book, but the team's diversity

notably influences that theme. While the team is composed of college-aged men from

Washington, they all offer different strengths, both physical and intellectual. Midway through the

book, the importance of diversity is brought up in the quote, "And capitalizing on diversity is

perhaps even more important when it comes to the characters of the oarsmen. A crew composed

entirely of eight amped-up, overtly aggressive oarsmen will often degenerate into a dysfunctional
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 8

brawl in a boat or exhaust itself in the first leg of a long race. Similarly, a boatload of quiet but

strong introverts may never find the common core of fiery resolve that causes the boat to explode

past its competitors when all seems lost. Good crews are good blends of personalities: someone

to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve; someone to pick a fight, someone to

make peace; someone to think things through, someone to charge ahead without thinking.

Somehow all this must mesh. That's the steepest challenge" (Brown, 2013, p. 179-180). The

oarsmen making up the Washington team were all diverse in their strengths. When the coach put

them all together, they found a way to mesh incredibly well and created a powerful team. Each

team member filled at least one of the roles mentioned in this quote, leading to their many

victories and their eventual Olympic win.

Failures of the Team

The Washington team only had a few instances where they faltered, and their

cohesiveness was threatened. Aside from losing a few races here and there, the team worked

outstandingly well together and is considered by many to be the epitome of sportsmanship and

cohesion.

Conflict does not need to be viewed as a positive or a negative aspect of teamwork; it is

shown in the book to be both, at times, and offer opportunities for growth. A prime example of

this is revealed halfway through the book when the tensions rise, and the different teams fight.

"All-out war promptly broke out in the shell house. The sullen rivalries that had arisen during the

fall season now turned into outright battles. Eyes that had been coolly averted from one another

before now locked in icy stares. Accidental bumping of shoulders turned into open pushing

matches. Locker doors were slammed. Curses were exchanged. Grudges were nursed. Brothers
How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 9

Sid and George Lund—one in the all-sophomore boat, one in a JV boat—now barely greeted

each other with grunts each afternoon" (Brown, 2013, p. 150). This all-out battle is one of the

few examples of conflict in the book. The second example occurs towards the end but is handled

in a way that shows remarkable growth from the team. "As they began to see traces of tension

and nervousness in one another, they began instinctively to draw closer together. They took to

huddling on the float before and after workouts, talking about what, precisely, they could do to

make each row better than the one before, looking one another in the eye, speaking earnestly.

Joking and horseplay fell by the wayside. They began to grow serious in a way they had never

been before. Each of them knew that a defining moment in his life was nearly at hand; none

wanted to waste it. And none wanted to waste it for the others" (Brown, 2013, p. 326). By the

end of the book, the team had grown emotionally and used their tense feelings to their advantage,

rather than allowing those feelings to devolve into fighting.

One of the finest quotes in the entire book is written by one of the greatest builders of

racing shells in the 20th century. It reads, "To be of championship caliber, a crew must have total

confidence in each other, able to drive with abandon, confident that no man will get the full

weight of the pull. . . . They were a classic example of eight-oar rowing at its very best" (Brown,

2013, p. 251). This quote, shortened for the sake of this paper but still only a handful of lines

long in the book, is the epitome of rowing prowess. When all eight oarsmen hit their perfect

swing, when all else disappears, and they work as a single unit gracefully sweeping across the

water. There is no better example of teamwork.

How Eight Washington Boys Won Gold 10

References

Black, J., Bright, D., Gardner, D., Hartmann, E., Lambert, J., Leduc, L., Leopold, J., O’Rourke,

J., Pierce, J., Steers, R., Terjesen, S., Weiss, J. (2019). Organizational Behavior. 286-341.

Brown, D. J. (2013). The Boys in the Boat. Penguin Random House

Katzenbach, J., Smith, D. (2015, August 6). The Discipline of Teams. Harvard Business

Review. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://hbr.org/1993/03/the-discipline-of-teams-2

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Teamwork. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved March 4,

2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teamwork