Team Narrative Essay

Thoughts of drowning run rampant in every man’s mind on that boat. At dawn, the men decided that their only chance is to row toward the distant shore again and swim when the boat finally capsizes.

Transition: Now that you are prepared it’s time to get into the water and in starting position.

For the first time in our small rowing club’s history, we made it to the finals in what was our biggest regatta of the season. Unfortunately, our boat came in dead last...by a lot. We felt bad enough, but the last thing I expected was the outburst by one of the veterans. Having only a few months of rowing experience, I assumed his yelling at us was directed at me and my novice teammates. The scenario of confronting him was running through my head. By the time we stacked the boat back on the trailer, the thoughts myriad of thoughts through my mind were spoken. I spoke in a tone that my teammates have never seen before. I even surprised myself with how I stood up and defended myself and the other newer members.

    The 1936 Olympics was an international multi-sport event held in Berlin where eight young boys, against all odds, managed to row their way to their first gold medal in the eights rowing competition. The Boys in The Boat by Daniel James Brown delves into the stories of Joe Rantz and Washington’s rowing organization before their victory in the Olympics, revealing the many obstacles they had to overcome to gain the coveted gold medal. At the beginning of Chapter 13, the epigraph above describes the beauty and efficiency of the “swing” in rowing, where a team begins to row in sync in an almost magical fashion, leading to an amazing increase in performance. The following chapter described the creation of the rowing crew and their victory at the Pacific Coast Regatta over their rivals in California. Their victory, however, was only possible through the crew’s performance as a team, achieving the ‘swing’ that Pocock’s described in the epigraph.

The rowing team were always interesting and competitive. The sophomore, Miracle Nine, and the juniors raced against each other in practices to see who would compete as what category. They raced to see who was the better boat. When they raced against California for the first time, each of the categories won. Then Washington College rowing team went to Poughkeepsie and Al Ulbrickson, the coach, decided to but the junior varsity to go against California

The race had already been postponed from a previous date, and after having to wait an extra week for our highly anticipated home invite, our entire team was stirring by the time the day finally befell us. It was a reassuring feeling to be able to warm up on the course knowing that every step of the 3.11 mile course had been imprinted into from the time I had started running on it the summer before. Granted the weather wasn’t perfect by any means and the course’s condition was already less than stellar, but I could make do, to be honest I was too excited to even let it

The water was an icy shock. It made my muscles tighten as I began my eight lap warm up. Focusing on my arm movements, I struggle to keep up with the others in my lane.

Faced with an unfamiliar problem, Coach P, of the West Point Crew team, had a JV boat that was consistently outperforming the Varsity team on different measures. Upon preliminary analysis, it appears that the problem is simple: the selection of the varsity team was flawed and many of the athletes were misjudged and subsequently misplaced. However, the coach analyzed this possible flaw through seat races and even decided to demote varsity rowers to the JV team and JV rowers to the varsity team; the unlikely outcome was that the JV boat would win by even more, meaning that the demoted rower actually made the JV boat faster. This unlikely outcome revealed a deeper flaw within the Varsity team’s attitudes and motivations that sharply contrasted with those of the Junior Varsity team.

The story of Joe Rantz and how he came to be a collegiate rower is astounding. However the story of the Washington Row team who had to be perfect to be successful in the water. The hardest part about this team sport “is that when any one member of a crew goes into a slump the entire crew goes with him” (Brown). If one of the nine men in the boat were off count and there was no communication the whole run could be effected and could be the difference of a

Throughout the race Brown kept posting the standings of the boats for the readers. He effectively updated the reader on each of the boats’ stroke rates. Germany and Italy were consistently in or near the lead position. Japan burned its energy in the beginning. Britain tested its prowess in the middle. America showed its courage at the end. At the end of the race, I could feel my heart beating even though I knew the

We wait inside the no wake zone for the horn to go off which gives us the signal to blast off and time has started. It was five o’clock and we had until nine o’clock to be back in to weigh our five best fish. We caught fish right at our first spot we stopped at and had three in the boat in about two hours. We knew we only had two more hours to come up with two more solid fish and the fishing was slowing down as the night went on. After thinking and planning we came up with one last spot to go hit. As we arrived to this sot my partner Blake caught a big fish on about the second cast. And from that time on we couldn’t get another bite and we only had twenty minutes left by this point. As the boat ramp was only five minutes away we still had fifteen more minutes to come up with this last fish. Just as I was about t reel my line in to put everything up to come back to the boat ramp, it happened. My line popped as a fish had bit my lure. I reared back and set the hook and there it was, the fifth fish we had been fishing for. My partner quickly netted the fish and we put him in the live well and raised off to the dock. We got to weigh in to find that we would be the last to weigh in. They said a total of fifteen pounds and seventy-five ounces was winning so far. I knew we had something close to that or more. My nerves began to grow as I knew I had the hot of winning my very first tournament. We put the fish in the weigh

I heard the announcer on his microphone call you for ages 14 to 15 reps in 45 minutes I went down to the water to see what I really got myself into and surprisingly it was not too cold but it definitely woke me up. 20 minutes I heard him call out but then people started grouting around the water 10 minutes he started the race in knee-deep water the countdown has begun 5958 57 my heart beaded faster and faster my knees were shaking people were cheering 10 98 I put my hate hands out ready to dive 4321 and I went went reaching my arms as far as they can get kicking my feet with power. When I turn my head to breathe you could hear people's cheering and screaming around that the Bewley I went falling behind a kid as I was reading the sand I pulled myself as hard as I could to the beach and ran to the transition station my body Felt like rapper I was so cold as it was changing my shoes as best as I could grab some water and I was off rating my bike out on the road my mom screaming is all I heard passing my family with

coxswain did not see the start signal. To quote the book, “The Husky Clipper, for a horrific moment, sat motionless at the line, dead in the water.” They were already quite behind and they had a sick rower. He was doing well until the coxswain asked to up the tempo. The ill rower did not respond. The coxswain tried again to no avail. As he was starting to get worried he decided to pass on the order to Joe hoping that the rest of the boat would follow Joe’s lead and pick up the pace as a team. Just as the coxswain leaned forward to tell Joe what he wanted, the sick rower seemed find strength in himself and the team picked up the pace. They were already far behind and had the odds stacked against them. Through shear will power, the U.S. crawled their way back to the front of the pack and won the race in a photo finish. It was so close, no one could tell right away who had actually won. This is the most prominent example of the ‘Boys in the Boat’ over coming difficult circumstances and finding a way to

Hardin gives different situations of people getting onto the boat. The first situation would be letting the boat get to the

Thinking about this obstacle now, I probably appeared to be a little bit of an idiot at this one, I was really excited to get in the water and the obstacle had a few minutes delay while racers very slowly entered the water and completed it and I was eager to get in. When my turn came, I asked the volunteer if it was okay to attempt to cross all three sections on one breath, which got me an odd look from the volunteer, but he said it was okay. I got in the water, took a breath and crossed the first two floating barrels with no problem, but for some reason floating barrel # 3 wasn’t coming when I expected it to and I eventually came up to check why. I ended up swimming off course and to my right, but I did receive a collective cheer from all the racers waiting on the line, which made me happy and fired me