A touching, fairly uncomplicated portrayal of rowing legends.
The long, passionate journey of the University of Washington rowing team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The nine young Americans (including coxswain Bob Moch) who made up the team in the Husky Clipper that would eventually edge to victory by six-tenths of a second ahead of the Italians in the Olympics emerged from the harsh realities of the Depression, as Brown (The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride, 2009, etc.) delineates in this thorough study of the early rowing scene. The journey of one young rower, Joe Rantz, forms the emotional center of the narrative. A tall, strapping country boy who had largely been fending for himself in Sequim, Wash., in 1933, he got a shot as a freshman at making the prestigious crew team at UW, which was led by freshman coach Tom Bolles and head coach Al Ulbrickson. Many strands converge in the narrative, culminating in a rich work of research, from the back story involving the creation of UW’s rowing program to the massive planning and implementation of the Berlin Olympics by Hitler’s engineer Werner March, specifically the crew venue at the Langer See. The UW team honed its power and finesse in the lead-up seasons by racing against its nemesis, the University of California at Berkeley, as well as in East Coast regattas. Despite the threat of an American boycott, the Berlin Olympics were carefully orchestrated by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and filmed by Leni Riefenstahl to show the world the terrifying images of Aryan “purity” and Nazi supremacy. Yet for these American boys, it was an amazing dream.
A touching, fairly uncomplicated portrayal of rowing legends.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-02581-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An altogether balanced, revealing and enjoyable study.
A meticulous, heartfelt chronicle of a baseball minor league's struggle to return to the game the fun and intimacy that's all too often missing from the major league game.
Fatsis, an AP correspondent, followed the Northern League, an independent six-team circuit with franchises in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Manitoba, and Ontario, over the course of its second campaign. Unlike most minor leagues, which enjoy financial and developmental support from the 28 major league clubs, the NL teams relish their privateer status and relative freedom from the corporate world of pro ball. Founded by Miles Wolfe, an experienced baseball executive who had wild success as general manager and owner of the class AA Durham (N.C.) Bulls, the league was dedicated to one goal: to return the game to the fans. It is a thought echoed by Marvin Goldklang, chairman of the league's St. Paul (Minn.) Saints franchise. His message to the majors: "You don't own baseball...Nobody owns this game.'' Although the teams are comprised primarily of cast-offs and also-rans (and a few aging former major leaguers, including former Chicago Cub All-Star slugger Leon "Bull'' Durham and mercurial Boston Red Sox hurler Dennis "Oil Can'' Boyd), some still harbor dreams of getting a shot at the bigs. Through his profiles of such hopefuls as Stephen Bishop, an unpolished outfielder with great athletic potential and personal charisma to match, or Vince Castaldo, a fiery third baseman, Fatsis reveals who truly owns the game: the players, who on this level possess only the hope that they can make a major league team notice them—or else leave the game on their own terms. Fatsis scores another point by demonstrating that fun (for the fans, not the players or management) is the real name of the game.
An altogether balanced, revealing and enjoyable study.Pub Date: June 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-8027-1297-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ryan does for women's gymnastics and figure skating what Suzanne Gordon did for ballet a decade ago in Off Balance: The Real World of Ballet. Ryan, a sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, strips away the graceful facade to expose the harsh, often destructive, training regimes to which elite female gymnasts and figure skaters are subjected. She argues that these sports are distorted by ``our cultural fixation on beauty and weight and youth'' and the drive to win at any cost. ``Skating was God,'' says one mother of two former athletes. ``That's what we prayed to: First Place.'' Top athletes—pressed into competition as young as age six and reaching their peak in their teens—fall prey to a vicious cycle of eating disorders, exhaustion, stunted growth, injuries, burn-out—and sometimes death. Ryan presents horrifying tales of their physical and mental abuse at the hands of leading coaches: Christy Henrich died at 22, unable to conquer her anorexia years after quitting gymnastics; 15-year-old Julissa Gomez died after landing head first on the horse during a difficult vault that her coach knew gave her trouble. Craving approval, the girls are victimized by the very people who claim to care most about them: coaches such as Bela Karolyi (trainer of Olympic gold medalists Nadia Comenici and Mary Lou Retton), who berated a girl after forcing her to compete with broken toes; sporting associations that turn a blind eye to abuse and lack power to enforce standards of treatment; judges who value image over accomplishment; and worst of all, parents who expect their children to bring them glory (one father decided his daughter would be a figure skater before she was even born). Ryan calls for government regulation as a means of bringing these abuses under control. Never again, after reading Ryan's book, will one be able to watch those tiny, lithe silhouettes—whether on the ice or the balance beam—without thinking of what they may have suffered to get there. (author tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-47790-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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