“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. He turned to Joe. “Rowing,” he said, “is like that. And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway. Do you know what I mean, Joe?” (The Boys in the Boat, pg.215)

Part 3 is titled The Parts That Really Matter. What do you think George Pocock meant in his statement to Joe? Using specific examples from the story, what aspects of rowing do you believe are “parts that really matter”? How can you apply this philosophy as a student?