Chances are that if you go to Dartmouth, you are connected to crew in some way or another. Perhaps you are a rower yourself, or you have a friend who you watch in bewilderment as they get up with the sunrise to attend their first but likely not only practice of the day. Susan Saint Sing's newest book, "The Eight: A Season in the Tradition of Harvard Crew," chronicles one season of the Harvard crew team and, in the process, explains why so many people are obsessed with this enigmatic sport.
"The Eight" surprised me in a good way. I almost always prefer to read fiction, but I felt obligated to read this book in light of the number of people I know here who row. But Sing is a decent writer, and the story manages to engage people who don't know anything about the sport.
Further, the book is not just about crew; rather, Sing smartly uses the experiences of the Harvard team to explain what physical excellence and sportsmanship mean on a larger level, giving those who don't care about crew a reason to still care about the book.
Sing paints a clear, vivid picture of the 2008 Harvard varsity rowing team from the smell of sweat in the boathouse to the intensity of a rower's daily schedule that helps those uninitiated with the sport understand it. At the famous Newell Boathouse, Sing says, "No one here asks, Why are you getting up at 5 a.m.?'"
People who spend their days there understand each other understand why they are there everyday working to the point of exhaustion. "For today's Harvard rower, crew practice would take roughly four hours a day and consist of rowing practice and individual conditioning sessions, probably starting before dawn," explains Sing.
Beyond practices, Sing focuses on several competitions, including the famous Harvard vs. Yale race, as well as other famous regattas. Although these race sequences are exciting, Sing sometimes veers into the melodramatic and abstract.
During the races, she dramaticially explains, the rowers "are actively creating a sacred space from which they can take strength and into which they can put their passion and desires as they form a oneness with possibility."
The biggest complaint I have with Sing is her obvious bias towards rowing as the be all, end all, number one sport of all time. It's obvious where this bias comes from: Sing herself is a rower and served as a rowing coach for 25 years at various colleges.
While her passion for the sport is mostly endearing, at times it becomes tiring for a lover of any other sport. Sing writes, "We owe most of our sporting heroes to Harvard and to rowing." Statements like that are sure to irritate a basketball lover from Duke, or even a football enthusiast from Texas.
Before I read "The Eight," I was another one of the onlookers who would stare in confusion as rower friends spoke in the "unfamiliar but provocative jargon" Sing speaks of, full of terms like "work through," "erg piece," "coxswain," "watts," "VO2 max" and "bucket rig."
Although I still have absolutely no idea what any of that means, I do have a new understanding of the world of crew and the fixation it has become for so many people. "The Eight" is sure to please both hard-core crew fans as well as people who are passionate about the value of athletic excellence regardless of the sport.