How Reading Can Change Your Life — and How it Changed Mine. My Rowing Journey.

Moderately Radical
Nov 7 · 6 min read
Mazie McNamara 2019

Why do we read? A broad question with no simple answer. I’d imagine its different for every person, even including those who dislike the practice altogether. Some might read because books last longer than movies. Others because of its uniquely immersive experience. Because books make us laugh, cry, feel things. I read to change my life.

We learn from reading every day. We read books, we read emails, we read headlines. We constantly learn new, if occasionally irrelevant, information from text messages. Textbooks can teach us about historical facts, laws of nature. We can even learn from the characters of fiction based on their experiences and development throughout a plot. The best books, in my opinion, teach you traditionally about the history and practice of a given topic, and allow you to learn subconsciously about life at the same time. Great works of literature allow you to learn, they invite you to indulge and grow.

During the summer of 2019, I read a book that did just that: The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown. The book follows the University of Washington rowing crew that went on to earn gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, on the cusp of World War II. Specifically, the story is about Joe Rantz, who rowed in the 7th seat of the boat, and his childhood and story leading up to Berlin. I’d only briefly heard about rowing once my life, and didn’t know anything about the sport or its history. Needless to say, the story captivated me. I felt Joe Rantz’s pain in my chest along with him, I cheered on the crew with the rest of the University of Washington and the United States. The book felt alive and breathing, and it consumed me.

The 1936 University of Washington Crew. Joe Rantz pictured third from the right.

About a week after I had finished the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about rowing. There was something so special about the story that urged me to look further, that created a sense of longing to try something I never thought would interest me. I opened up my laptop and made a google search for youth rowing in my area.

My personal history of participating in sports is brief. I played soccer, reluctantly, for two years in Kindergarten and 1st grade. By the time I started 2nd grade, I had finally convinced my parents to let me quit. A year after that, I started volleyball on a team with my friends. Although I participated for three seasons, I remember distinctly telling the coaches in person that “practice was worse than jail”. My best friend’s mom was that coach, and that is still one of her favorite anecdotes. After that, not only did I not play any sports, but I strayed away from all athletic activity. I was known as someone who absolutely was not athletic, and even identified myself as such. It became part of my identity in middle school and for the first two years of high school, a part of myself I was afraid to touch.

On that day, a week after finishing the book, a website for the only youth rowing club not only in my town, but in my region, stared me in the face. I read about the team’s history, looked at photos, and learned more about how the club operated. There was also a link on the website for summer camp information, which I tentatively clicked on. As if in a movie, the registration deadline was the end of that day. I quickly wrote off the idea when I found out that it would take place during the same week I was supposed to go to the beach with my mom and sister, and it was also pretty expensive for something I wasn’t sure I’d love. I decided that the circumstances were fate, and that rowing clearly wasn’t for me.

However, something pushed me to tell my parents just that I had thought about it. To my surprise, they loved the idea for me. My mom said it was fine if I missed the beach, that I could stay at home with my dad. My dad promised that it wasn’t too expensive if it was something I thought I should try. Everything clicked into place, and I was terrified.

While driving to a meeting I had elsewhere in town, I kept thinking about the idea. It wouldn’t leave my mind, the thought that I could try something new, and maybe I’d really like it. Maybe I could be a rower, maybe I could be an athlete again. I signed up for the camp when I arrived home again. The worst thing that could happen was I’d waste a week of my life.

The camp took place over the course of five days, and was held at a lake 30 minutes from the city. I made friends with both newbies like myself and varsity rowers on the team. I met and worked with the coach, who made me feel comfortable and like this was something I could really do. Most importantly, I learned to row — and I absolutely loved it.

My first day at camp.

After the camp ended, and fall season registration inched closer and closer, I was once again filled with doubt. I worried about how much harder practices would be from the camp. I worried that it had been too long since I’d done a sport and that I’d be behind. I worried that I’d grow to hate it and that my parents would waste their money. I worried that athletics weren’t who I was.

A few days before the deadline, my dad sat me down to talk about regret. A fear of regret is something I grapple with every day, likely stemming from my mom’s reminders to me as a child about being careful choosing my major, because she had her own set of regrets. A fear of regretting my own choices is what led me in the past to not accept a transfer to the high school I desperately wanted to attend. My dad told me that there were so many things that he wanted to try as a kid, so many things he loved that he wished he would have followed through on. He said that it was only one season, and I would always regret it if I didn’t at least try. It struck a chord.

Now, three months later, I am officially a novice rower on the team, and I love every minute of it (at least that’s what I tell myself during a 5k). I love the team, I love the lake, and I love the sport. I’ve earned three medals at two regattas we competed in this past season, and I’m more excited than ever to start winter training in the coming weeks. I never thought rowing, or sports, was something that I would do at this point in my life. Now I can’t imagine stopping.

If I hadn’t read that book, or if I’d let fear get the best of me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Rowing is something that I now love to do, and it’s all because of a book. 418 pages. I allowed The Boys in the Boat to completely change my life. And I’m more ready than ever to change my path and who I am because of reading.

I urge you to pick up a book. Go to the library, read about a subject that sounds interesting. Read biographies, read fiction, read about absolutely anything. Allow those books and those stories to change you. You never know what you can become, or what you are capable of before you try something new. Invite new ideas into your life, and you won’t regret it.