Always stay in with the outs.

With the marketing pressures driving the book world today, it's much easier to get the author of a memoir on a television show than a serious novelist.

During their college years the oarsmen put in terrbily long hours, often showing up at the boathouse at 6:00am for preclass practices. Both physically and psychologically, they were separated from their classmates. Events that seemed earth-shattering to them-- for example, who was demoted from the varsity to the junior varsity -- went almost unnoticed by the rest of the students. In many ways they were like combat veterans coming back from a small, bitter and distant war, able to talk only to other veterans.

Physically, rowing was remarkable resistant to the camera... the camera liked power exhibited more openly, and the power of the oarsmen [is] exhibited in far too controlled a setting. Besides, the camera liked to focus on individuals, and except for the single scull, crew was sport without faces.

Sometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty.

This was the mark of an uncommon soldier, someone whose courage away from the battlefield was the same as that on it.

Always stay in with the outs.