‘The Boys in the Boat’ brings a Hollywood twist to rowing during the Olympic year – NBC10 Philadelphia

The journey from nothingness to Olympic gold is a story as old as time.

Also well-worn, but less explored, are the stories of great athletes who realize they can’t get anywhere unless they have a way to finance the journey.

“The Boys in the Boat” is Hollywood and director George Clooney’s way of tying plot lines together. That it opens on Christmas Day, just seven months before the start of the Paris Olympics, is fortunate for the people who oversee U.S. rowing and know the general public often either a) don’t think about the sport or b) see it as the playground. Exclusive to the East Coast and Ivy League elite.

USRowing worked with the film’s producers to sponsor dozens of screenings across the country for two purposes: to raise money for an organization that received about $3.5 million of its $15 million budget in 2023 from charitable donations, and to build awareness across racial and socioeconomic lines. One jarring stat: In 2021, a study found that only 2% of women who rowed in the NCAA were Black. (Men’s rowing is not sanctioned by the NCAA and therefore was not part of the study.)

“What we’re trying to do here, and what a lot of clubs around the country are doing, is try to create programs and opportunities” for people to row, said Amanda Krause, CEO of USRowing.

“TBITB” is about a group of poor students at the University of Washington who try out to join the university’s junior crew team. It’s 1936, and far from chasing Olympic glory, these guys are simply trying to find a way to make money.

An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how the actors in George Clooney’s film “The Boys in the Boat” learned to row.

“All you have to do is make the team,” someone says. “How hard could it be?”

It turns out to be very difficult, and what ensues is a miracle on ice, minus the water — with one other notable difference: Most of these hockey kids always know where their next meal is coming from.

Surely there are others in the country of 330 million people looking for a fresh start, a taste of the great outdoors, and a chance to try something new. Kraus believes her sport could be that thing, and that all these would-be rowers don’t have to be the daughters and sons of millionaires.

Rowing hopes to inspire more people like Arshay Cooper, who was a member of the first all-black high school rowing team at Manly High School in Chicago. Cooper wrote a book called “The Most Beautiful Thing,” which was made into a movie produced by basketball stars Grant Hill and Dwyane Wade.

“In rowing, you move forward by looking in the opposite direction,” is a quote from Cooper on his website describing his worldview. “I learned that it’s okay to look back, as long as you keep pushing forward.”

The sport is also hoping to build more programmes, such as Learn to Row Day, where rowing clubs are urged to welcome newcomers and teach them about the sport.

A lot about paddling is a steep climb. Kraus says it costs about $50,000 a year to support a USA Rowing team; This comes after tens of thousands were spent on their development at the grassroots and university levels. But she said building a pipeline is an investment worth making, and doesn’t mean everyone should end up in the Olympics.

“We hope people will be inspired to check out the sport for themselves,” Krause said. “You could be 30, 40 or 70 years old and go to a ‘learn to row’ course at your local club. This is a real thing. You don’t have to row in college to be part of this sport.

The US Rowing Association has about 74,000 members (by comparison, the US Tennis Association has 680,000), and like all professional sports, the Olympics are their time to shine. This makes the rowing film a Christmas gift for the sport.

The climax of the film — based on the 2013 book of the same name by Daniel James Brown considered the bible of blasphemy — is set during a particularly perilous time. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Nazi flags got better placement than the Olympic rings and Adolf Hitler had an ever-glowing presence.

However, no one poses a greater threat to the boys from Washington than the leader of the U.S. Olympic Committee, who seems unfazed as he tells their coach that even though they won their era’s version of the Olympic Trials, the team has better pedigree and more strength. More money will take their place in Berlin unless they raise $5,000 a week.

It’s a ridiculous and unfair insult, and unfortunately, it’s not that far removed from today’s reality: politics rules. Even in the multi-billion-dollar Olympics industry, many athletes have to earn a pittance, especially in America, where the government pays nothing.

They hit it off, get over the hump with a little unexpected help, and soon find themselves arm-in-arm at the opening ceremony with Jesse Owens. The great hostility to the blasphemers asserts that he is not there to prove anything to Hitler, but rather to his country, which still treats blacks as second-class citizens.

We know how Owens’ story ends. Now, we know how the rowers’ story ends too.

It’s a quintessential underdog sports drama, right down to the brief epilogue that’s meant to give moviegoers a sense of the mystery of a sport that very few understand. If just a few of them put down their popcorn and went to an online donation page — or maybe even their local crew club — the small U.S. rowing community would take a hit.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games