Row for your country. Row for each other. Row for that one moment when everything that’s stacked against you can take a back seat.
You’re all gonna be famous. Then you really will forget about me.[Joyce Simdars]I don’t think I could if I tried.[Joe Rantz]
They’re just kids, Al.[Hazel Ulbrickson]That’s why everybody told me I was wrong for bringing them. I just can’t afford for them to be kids. Not anymore.[Al Ulbrickson]
They didn’t understand who we were.
There are some moments in life… you never forget.
Technique is more important than power. You have to be able to pull a perfect oar, stroke after stroke. It’s called swing. When all eight are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action is out of sync with the rest of the boat. Then you aren’t fighting each other. You’re moving with less effort. Each one of your strokes is worth one and a half of the other boat’s. Most crews never find it. But when they do, rowing is more poetry than sport.
Sometimes young horses need a louder jockey.[to Al]
It isn’t easy to trust every other person on that boat as much as you trust yourself. But it’s not about you. As good as you are, it’s not about you, or me, or anybody else. It’s about the boat.[to Joe]
Watch now on:
I’ve built a lot of good boats, but the best ones, the boats where every part fits exactly as it should, where every man trusts the one behind him, they are the boats people remember forever.
Fellas, you’ve earned this. They don’t give gold medals for style. All that matters is how fast you are on the water. And nobody here is faster.
Everybody else tires and they just get stronger.[to Tom]
Eight-man crew is the most difficult team sport in the world. The average human body is just not meant for such things. It’s just not capable of such things. But average is not gonna get a seat on my boat.
