The first time author Daniel James Brown saw the inside of the University of Washington Shell House, he’d sneaked through an unlocked back door with Judy Rantz, the daughter of a crew member he’d later feature in his bestselling book “The Boys in the Boat.” And he felt like he’d just walked into a cathedral.
Here, the eight-oar UW crew team learned the art of rowing and prepared for the 1936 Olympics. Above them, in a second-story loft, legendary boat maker George Pocock built by hand the fastest wooden crew shells in the world — lightweight, expertly designed, lightning-fast.
If the Shell House was like a cathedral, “that space upstairs is the holiest of holiest for me,” Brown said.
Brown, who was a special guest of Clooney’s for a preview in Los Angeles in August, called it a “feel-good, slightly old-fashioned” movie, just as he had hoped. And “it’s very UW-centric,” he said.
He also hopes the story speaks to the value of public higher education, at a time when some question the value of a college degree. “It is one of the things I care about,” said Brown (who, for the record, went to the University of California, Berkeley, and to UCLA). “Anything that lifts the boat, lifts the tide of higher education, is a good thing.” (...)
Both the book and movie center on student Joe Rantz, who as a teen was abandoned by his father and stepmother and grew up in an unfinished house in Sequim. Rantz eventually moved to Seattle, graduated from Roosevelt High, and used college as a way out of poverty.
He and several other crew members earned engineering degrees at the UW and went on to successful careers at Boeing. The UW was a springboard for opportunity, Brown said — “it’s one of the through lines in the movie.”
by Katherine Long, Seattle Times | Read more:
Images: Luke Johnson/The Seattle Times; MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 1986.5.15874.1
[ed. Enjoyed the book, hoping the movie's just as good.]
[ed. Enjoyed the book, hoping the movie's just as good.]
