Many coaches do odd things to teach, such odd things that it is now a trend on social media to post videos titled "Hitting coaches in 2024," making fun of the fact that they make clients do pointless things. In many cases, rowing fans and avid readers of today wonder if the "legendary" Coach Al Ulbrickson, the head coach from Washington as told in The Boys in the Boat by the author, Daniel James Brown, was a harsh and inefficient coach. That statement is clearly and blatantly false. First of all, from a recruiting standpoint, Ulbrickson was a mastermind. He would find strong, athletic kids with the right build he needed from other sports. In Joe Rantz's case, the book states, "Coach Ulbrickson had first seen Joe at a gymnastics practice and saw his 6'3" muscular …show more content…
Furthermore, Ulbrickson showed great erudition when finding the perfect fit for each crew. Think of switching the boys up in a shell to try an array of baseball bats at Dicks until they find the perfect one. To find the boys who would get into swing the best as a group, Ulbrickson needed to switch the seats and boys up. "Ulbrickson wanted to find the group that would work best together," which is his reasoning behind the switching. This strategy worked because they won all their races with Rantz's crew. In the end, the fact that Coach Ulbrickson may have had some unconventional ways of coaching, all that matters is the result. "The greatest team he'd ever coached." was what Ulbrickson called his 1936 team. He coached a team that won multiple national titles and the 1936 Olympics. Rantz's crew never lost a race in their four years at the University of Washington, so does it matter how others believe he coached? Ulbrickson was known as one of the most legendary coaches in rowing history, and his team proves that. Ulbrickson's ways of teaching paid off because of the team's performance at the highest level of collegiate and world