Keep Your Mind in the Boat

Leadership Lessons from the 1936 U.S. Olympic Crew Team

“The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown effectively portrays the physically and mentally all-consuming experience of rowing competitively. The entire team must be in sync to win a race. An errant thought or sneeze could prevent a team of eight rowers directed by a single coxswain from winning a race.

This heart-rending true story follows underdog, Joe Rantz, orphaned in his formative years during the Great Depression in the Pacific Northwest. Against all odds, Joe gets accepted into the University of Washington and supports himself through college in the early 1930s. He was able to do this in part by joining the Huskies rowing team, comprised of hard-working boys from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. 

By their third year of competing on both coasts of the U.S., the boys formed an indelible bond that culminates in winning a gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. They had learned that there is no such thing as an individual rower and that, as a team, they could accomplish everything.

“Rowing then becomes a kind of perfect language. Poetry, that’s what a good swing feels like.”

- Joe Rantz

Inspired, I interviewed Briana Gallo, owner/operator of Driftwood Adventure Treks and former coxswain, to compare her competitive crew experience at Rollins College with that of Joe Rantz in “The Boys in the Boat.”

Briana Gallo with her crew team at Rollins College in 1993

1) Joe Rantz’s varsity team at the University of Washington finally seemed to click once they developed two necessary character traits: humility and trust. Does that resonate with your competitive crew experience in college?

Briana Gallo: Not only does it resonate with my competitive crew experience at Rollins College, but those lessons have remained with me. Rowing with eight other people taught me a level of trust that exceeded anything I knew. As a freshman in college, I had never rowed and didn’t even know what crew was. I was intimidated entering the boat house for the first time. Everyone seemed to be a good foot taller, humbling me immediately. I was definitely outside my comfort zone, but I knew I needed to give it a go and to trust that I could hold my own.

Fast forward, I became a coxswain and a lightweight rower. Every day I got into our boat with eight girls looking to me for guidance. The trust we had to have in one another to make the boat flow was daunting. Trust was earned through sweat, tears, laughter, and pain. We learned we could count on each other no matter what.

2) The varsity coxswain, Bobby Moch, is an intelligent young man with a firm resolve. His strategy was to keep the boys in the boat at a steady pace until they closed in on the competition toward the end of the race. At Moch’s command, the boys give it their all and pull past the surprised competition. As a former coxswain, how would you describe this role on the team? 

Briana Gallo: As a coxswain, you have to know what makes every person tick. Not only what drives them, but how far you can push them. You have to create a rhythm with the strength of the team together, based on an unspoken bond between all eight rowers and the coxswain. They all have to appreciate that they cannot win on their own, but that they can accomplish everything together.

This means leaving “life” outside the boat, which is a hard lesson to learn. You cannot think about what is going on at home, school, or work once you click that oar into place. My role as a coxswain was humbling every day, even when we won. We’d still go to practice the next day and work even harder. That work ethic stays with you for the rest of your life. 

3) What do you think the story of Joe Rantz and the boys in the boat says about humble beginnings and experiencing adversity early in life? 

“So is life: the very problems you must overcome also support you and make you stronger in overcoming them.”

- George Yeomans Pocock

Briana Gallo: Crew racing takes every bit of mental and physical strength you have and more. I learned to work even harder when I thought I would collapse from exhaustion. Working together to overcome difficulties is what builds a strong bond and trust between individual teammates and a team. 

4) Renowned boat designer and builder, George Yeomans Pocock, plays a critical role in mentoring Joe Rantz at the University of Washington. Like Rantz, the legendary Englishman who built the racing shells (rowing boats), faced adversity at a young age. He and his brother moved to Vancouver from London in search of work and, finally, to Seattle, to pursue his family’s profession of boatbuilding. Who was most influential for you and your team as a whole?

Briana Gallo:  My role models turned out to be every one of my teammates. We learned from each other, figuring out when to take the lead and when to step back. We taught each other life skills I use every day which give me the confidence to step outside my comfort zone. They taught me what true partnership looks like, the value of mentoring one another, and how much stronger we can be together.

Leadership means creating the conditions for teams to work effectively together on shared objectives. By establishing goals, setting standards for respectful, fair, and open interactions, appreciating the diverse strengths and skill sets of individual team members, and learning from adversity to develop new and better ways to move forward, your team will learn to trust and work in sync with one another to accomplish tasks in a way that exceeds expectations.

In the process, the team will experience more satisfaction and greater rewards, which leads to less turnover and higher productivity. All you have to invest is the time required to get everyone’s mind in the boat.