A great story of trials and triumph in one of the world’s darkest times. This book sits at the intersection of the 1936 Olympic US Rowing team, the Great Depression, and Hitler’s rise to power.
Notable Excerpts
If you simply kept your eyes open, it seemed, you just might find something valuable in the most unlikely of places. The trick was to recognize a good thing when you saw it, no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear, no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind.
So is life: the very problems you must overcome also support you and make you stronger in overcoming them. —George Yeoman Pocock
It had been with the best of intentions, Joe was sure, but he had felt suffocated by the ceaseless rejoinders and advice
To defeat an adversary who was your equal, maybe even your superior, it wasn’t necessarily enough just to give your all from start to finish. You had to master your opponent mentally. When the critical moment in a close race was upon you, you had to know something he did not—that down in your core you still had something in reserve, something you had not yet shown, something that once revealed would make him doubt himself, make him falter just when it counted the most.
The first collegiate crew race in America—and in fact the first American intercollegiate athletic event of any kind—took place between Harvard and Yale in 1852, on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They’re the three things that stay with you your whole life.