And all three know that on any given day Joe Bouscaren, Biglow's crewmate from Yale, is capable of pulling an upset. The dark horse is Brad Lewis, the moody, often-resentful Californian, determined to beat the Ivy Leaguers at their own game. His chief rival is John Biglow, recovering from a back injury, a native of Seattle who dared to defy the Eastern Establishment while at Yale. The favorite is Tiff Wood, a former Harvard oarsman now in his early thirties who has postponed everything else in his life for this chance at rowing glory. The man who wins will gain the right to represent the United States in the '84 Olympiad the losers will then have to struggle further to gain a place in the two- or four-man boats.įour genuine challengers emerge.

What drives these men to endure a physical pain known to no other sport? Who are they? Where do they come from? How do they regard themselves and their competitors? What have they sacrificed, and what inner demons have they appeased? In answering these questions, David Halberstam takes as his focus the 1984 single sculls trials in Princeton. While other athletes are earning fortunes in salaries and/or endorsements, the oarsmen gain fame only with each other and strive without any hope of financial reward. This time he has taken for his subject the dramatic and special world of amateur rowing. In The Amateurs, David Halberstam once again displays the unique brand of reportage, both penetrating and supple, that distinguished his best-selling The Best and the Brightest and The Powers That Be. Inside, the pages are clean and unmarked with no evidence of use. There is surface rubbing to the dust jacket and foxing present to the top outside page edges. The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal by David Halberstam is a 221-page hardcover published in 1985 by William Morrow and Company, Inc.

The Amateurs by David Halberstam