The boys of the title were the crew of an eight-man rowing shell (eight rowers and one coxswain) and the shell was 'the boat' in that same title. The entire title, however refers to not just the shell and not just the boys but the entire unit of the University of Washington team that ended up going to the Olympics in 1936. I guess that I just gave away the ending, almost (the real ending that I could reveal would be the fact that they won first place in that Olympics, but I will not tell you about that).

The book is not really so much about the winning, but about the individuals (including coaching staff as well as the man who actually built that shell), who finally coalesced into a united team wherein each of the individuals learned to totally trust all the other members of the team. Unlike the stereotype rowing teams (Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Princeton) these individuals were not the sons of Wall Street brokers, CEO's of major corporations and bank presidents. These individuals were the sons of miners, loggers, shipyard workers, construction laborers, farmers and for the most part, they had to spend their days off working to pay their own way through college.

You probably have already heard stories about the 1936 Olympics when Mr. Hitler had plans to show off his 'arian superman' athletes to the world, but in the end found out that there were others who were pretty super, themselves. This is another of those stories. I highly recommend it for a number of reasons. In spite of knowing the outcome of the story (it was not a hidden mystery any more than the story of the runners and the story of the parade of athletes entering the stadium is not), there is a lot of emotion in the telling of this story. Most of the story is told from the point of view of one of the crew members, Joe Rantz who kept a very detailed journal which the author was able to use to reconstruct the daily lives of the members of 'The Boat'.

If you pick up this book soon, you may be reading it as the 2016 Olympic's eight man crew races in Brazil are taking place.

I left this book on the chair next to the bench under the menu board to your left as you enter the restaurant.