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American Experience | The Boys of '36

The Boys of '36
Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW37304
/
PBS
The 1936 University of Washington’s varsity crew team. Left to right standing: Don Hume, Stroke; Joe Rantz, 7; George Hunt, 6; Jim McMillin, 5; John White, 4; Gordon Adams, 3; Charles Day, 2; and Roger Morris, 1. Kneeling: Bob Moch, Coxwain";

Tue. Aug. 2 at 9pm on WKAR-HD 23.1 | Explore the thrilling story of the American rowing team that triumphed at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. 

Inspired by #1 best-seller The Boys in the Boat, the film follows the underdog team that took the nation by storm when they captured gold.

The Boys of ‘36 explores how nine working-class young men from the University of Washington took the rowing world and the nation by storm when they captured the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. These sons of loggers, shipyard workers and farmers overcame tremendous hardships — psychological, physical and economic — to beat not only the Ivy League teams of the East Coast but Adolf Hitler’s elite German rowers. Their unexpected victory, and the obstacles they overcame to achieve it, gave hope to a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Depression

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