Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat demonstrates that success in a team comes when it learn to work as one and sacrifice for the team. He also recognizes that one’s background or wealth doesn’t necessarily determine one’s success. Brown supports his stance proficiently by illustrating the team's struggles because of their background and the Great Depression and the team's successes in races.
The book tells the story of the U.W. rowing team and its journey to winning the gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The story features Joe Rantz, who as an adolescent was abandoned by his parents, forced to fend for himself. One day, Coach Al Ulbrickson scouts Joe, prompting him tom join the U.W. rowing team. During freshman and sophomore years, Joe learns the demanding art of rowing and blows journalists away by beating the school’s rival, California, and winning the Poughkeepsie Regatta. Meanwhile in Berlin, Hitler
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They believe it’s an opportunity to present themselves as an elite state, thus they cover up all of their dirty crimes so they can deceive that they are a utopia. By junior year, Joe is placed in the varsity boat. The boat narrowly wins the varsity Poughkeepsie race. In Princeton, it qualifies for the Berlin Olympic. During his first two years, Joe's performance was very uneven, due the mental scars of his horrible childhood; so George Pocock, the wise boat builder, teaches him, "What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing…a man couldn't harmonize…unless he opened his heart" (235). This moment helps the reader see that teamwork is much more complex than many parts working, a team has to conform into one machine. Moments where Pocock bestows a portion of his knowledge gives readers interesting