The Boys in the Boat

by

Daniel James Brown

Joe Rantz Character Analysis

Although Daniel James Brown has described The Boys in the Boat as an “ensemble piece,” Joe Rantz is the closest thing in the book to a main character. Joe is emblematic of the 1936 American rowing team in general: he came from a poor family, struggled to support himself during the Great Depression, and exhibited extraordinary drive, determination, and ambition. Rantz lost his mother when he was still a child; afterwards, his father, Harry Rantz, married a woman named Thula LaFollette, who seems to have disliked Joe greatly. Harry and Thula abandoned Joe and forced him to support himself while he was still a minor; amazingly, Joe managed to pay his way through the University of Washington. It was here that Joe became a rower. However, in order to become a world-class athlete, Joe had to conquer his shyness and intense individualism—he had to learn how to work with his eight teammates in order to row as efficiently and powerfully as possible. Ultimately, The Boys in the Boat is a story about teamwork, and over the course of the book, Joe learns how to work with a team—both in the literal sense of cooperating with his rowing team and in the more metaphorical sense of opening up to other people, such as his girlfriend, Joyce Simdars.

Joe Rantz Quotes in The Boys in the Boat

The The Boys in the Boat quotes below are all either spoken by Joe Rantz or refer to Joe Rantz. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Teamwork and Trust Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

I shook Joe's hand again and told him I would like to come back and talk to him some more, and that I’d like to write a book about his rowing days. Joe grasped my hand again and said he’d like that, but then his voice broke once more and he admonished me gently, "But not just about me. It has to be about the boat."

Related Characters: Joe Rantz (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Husky Clipper
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

The hurting was taking its toll, and that was just fine with Joe. Hurting was nothing new to him.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

It didn’t help that [Joe Rantz] continued to feel like everyone’s poor cousin. With the weather remaining cool, he still had to wear his ragged sweater to practice almost every day, and the boys still teased him continuously for it.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

As Joe raised a hand to acknowledge the wave of applause rising to greet him, he found himself struggling desperately to keep back tears. He had never let himself dream of standing in a place like this, surrounded by people like these. It startled him but at the same time it also filled him with gratitude, and as he stood at the front of the room that day acknowledging the applause, he felt a sudden surge of something unfamiliar—a sense of pride that was deeper and more heartfelt than any he had ever felt before.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 170-171
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

For the most part, though, they stayed in Grand Coulee, where they could toss a football around in the sagebrush, chuck rocks off the edges of the cliffs, bask shirtless on stone ledges in the warm morning sun, sit bleary-eyed in the smoke around a campfire at night telling ghost stories as coyotes yelped in the distance, and generally act like the teenagers they actually were—free and easy boys, cut loose in the wide expanse of the western desert.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Johnny White, Chuck Day
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Joe and Joyce took the four children out for ice cream and then stopped by a grocery store and bought some basic provisions before dropping them off back at the house. By the next day, when Joe checked, Harry and Thula had returned. But Joe couldn't fathom what his father and Thula had been thinking. Apparently this had been going on all summer long.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Joyce Simdars, Harry Rantz, Thula LaFollette (Rantz)
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

Pocock paused and stepped back from the frame of the shell and put his hands on his hips, carefully studying the work he had so far done. He said for him the craft of building a boat was like religion. It wasn't enough to master the technical details of it. You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, George Yeoman Pocock
Page Number: 215
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

In the white-hot emotional furnace of those final meters at Grünau, Joe and the boys had finally forged the prize they had sought all season, the prize Joe had sought nearly all his life. Now he felt whole. He was ready to go home.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 355
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

Roger Morris, the first of Joe’s friends on crew, was the last man standing. Roger died on July 22, 2009. At his memorial service, Judy rose and recalled how in their last few years Joe and Roger would often get together—in person or on the phone—and do nothing at all, hardly speaking, just sitting quietly, needing only to be in each other's company.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Roger Morris, Judy Rantz
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis:
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Joe Rantz Quotes in The Boys in the Boat

The The Boys in the Boat quotes below are all either spoken by Joe Rantz or refer to Joe Rantz. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Teamwork and Trust Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

I shook Joe's hand again and told him I would like to come back and talk to him some more, and that I’d like to write a book about his rowing days. Joe grasped my hand again and said he’d like that, but then his voice broke once more and he admonished me gently, "But not just about me. It has to be about the boat."

Related Characters: Joe Rantz (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Husky Clipper
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

The hurting was taking its toll, and that was just fine with Joe. Hurting was nothing new to him.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

It didn’t help that [Joe Rantz] continued to feel like everyone’s poor cousin. With the weather remaining cool, he still had to wear his ragged sweater to practice almost every day, and the boys still teased him continuously for it.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

As Joe raised a hand to acknowledge the wave of applause rising to greet him, he found himself struggling desperately to keep back tears. He had never let himself dream of standing in a place like this, surrounded by people like these. It startled him but at the same time it also filled him with gratitude, and as he stood at the front of the room that day acknowledging the applause, he felt a sudden surge of something unfamiliar—a sense of pride that was deeper and more heartfelt than any he had ever felt before.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 170-171
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

For the most part, though, they stayed in Grand Coulee, where they could toss a football around in the sagebrush, chuck rocks off the edges of the cliffs, bask shirtless on stone ledges in the warm morning sun, sit bleary-eyed in the smoke around a campfire at night telling ghost stories as coyotes yelped in the distance, and generally act like the teenagers they actually were—free and easy boys, cut loose in the wide expanse of the western desert.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Johnny White, Chuck Day
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Joe and Joyce took the four children out for ice cream and then stopped by a grocery store and bought some basic provisions before dropping them off back at the house. By the next day, when Joe checked, Harry and Thula had returned. But Joe couldn't fathom what his father and Thula had been thinking. Apparently this had been going on all summer long.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Joyce Simdars, Harry Rantz, Thula LaFollette (Rantz)
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

Pocock paused and stepped back from the frame of the shell and put his hands on his hips, carefully studying the work he had so far done. He said for him the craft of building a boat was like religion. It wasn't enough to master the technical details of it. You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, George Yeoman Pocock
Page Number: 215
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

In the white-hot emotional furnace of those final meters at Grünau, Joe and the boys had finally forged the prize they had sought all season, the prize Joe had sought nearly all his life. Now he felt whole. He was ready to go home.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz
Page Number: 355
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

Roger Morris, the first of Joe’s friends on crew, was the last man standing. Roger died on July 22, 2009. At his memorial service, Judy rose and recalled how in their last few years Joe and Roger would often get together—in person or on the phone—and do nothing at all, hardly speaking, just sitting quietly, needing only to be in each other's company.

Related Characters: Joe Rantz, Roger Morris, Judy Rantz
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis: