The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal

This is a bit outside my usual reading, but back in another life, when I was a collegiate rower and perpetually sore, tired, beleaguered, and intensely happy, this was the book we'd pass among ourselves and pore over with the same monkish devotion we had to our sport. It was the closest thing we had to an answer to the question "why" that we'd often ask ourselves at 5 am, in those hushed pre-dawn hours when we'd sit and sway in a rickety bus on our way to the most physically punishing workout any of us had ever known--or would ever know.

An interesting look at a little-known sport. Even though Halberstam's story centers around the mid-1980s not much has changed with the popularity of rowing. People can name basketball stars, football greats, even Olympic marathon runners and sprinters, but not many can name one let alone all of the members of the last Olympic crew team. I never thought about crew being a faceless sport; a sport that is not very camera friendly. Think about it - to photograph the action accurately you cannot focus on any one particular face. I never thought about it that way.
Halberstam digs deep into this relatively unknown sport to reveal how for athletes like Tiff Wood, the seeds of a competitive spirit were planted in childhood by these rowers' show more families: emulating older brothers or spurred on by critical fathers wanting to win, win, win. Encouragement was expressed by failure, ("better luck next time"), and compliments were reserved for the fastest times and first place wins. Reverse psychology at play. The Amateurs is a veritable who's who of the 1980s rowing world. The dozens of names bogged down the writing and made it difficult to remember who was supposed to be in which boat. show less

I enjoy reading David Halberstam's books, and I used to row in college (although not anywhere near the level of competition described in this book). So, I looked forward to reading this book on an airplane after it sat on my shelf for years as a "some day" read.

The book moves well, and Halberstam is strongest when describing the relationships among the top echelon of scullers in the 1980-84 time period. I also found interesting his descriptions of the financial challenges that these amateurs endured. He explains this by painting the evolution of the sport as compared to other sports that have generated much more money, largely because of television revenues. That this fact does nothing to deter the most hardcore of these amateurs, and show more Halberstam's description of this aspect of their lives further contributes to the character portraits of the scullers at the center of the book.

Overall, this was a very good book, but I found one aspect wanting. Halberstam describes the strenuous physical routine that these scullers follow, but not in a full enough way to convey the true level of exertion and strain that they put their bodies through. (Another book I've reviewed, Running with the Buffaloes, does a better job of this in the running context, but I enjoyed the Halberstam book more overall.) show less

Halberstam is an exceptional writer. This book covers the lives of 4 world-class rowers, and their struggle to make it to and win in the Olympics. While I'm not particularly interested in rowing, but if you are (or even if you're interested in underappreciated Olympic sports or athletes in general), this is worth checking out.