Warsaw Community Schools fifth-graders heard Wednesday about how one man’s struggle during childhood turned into Olympic gold.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said when WCS started its speaker series 10 years ago, the school corporation wanted to bring in unique people to talk to its students.
“We’ve had some amazing people, but I don’t think we’ve had anyone as amazing as the people you’re going to meet today,” he said.
Hoffert said he has known the family for almost 20 years, but Wednesday was the first time he was able to meet them in person.
“Sometimes there are places in life where you don’t know you are making an impact on someone else,” he said.
In 2006, when Hoffert was a history teacher, his class wrote Olympian Joe Rantz a letter explaining they were history students studying U.S. history and wanted to know about Rantz’s experience in the Olympics, as well as understand Germany pre-World War II and what happened there.
The letter gave Rantz’s daughter, Judy Rantz Willman, the chance to write a 10-page document about Rantz’s experience and Rantz wrote a letter along with it with some of his memories. After Rantz’s death, Daniel James Brown decided to write “The Boys in the Boat.” Hoffert said the book sold over 4 million copies and was made into a movie.
Hoffert introduced Willman, who shared her father’s story.
Willman said “The Boys in the Boat” tells the story of the struggle of the country. Willman noted Rantz had struggles in his childhood, as well. His mother died when he was 4. Rantz moved between family members and was sent to live with a teacher. Rantz’s father later remarried and reconnected with Rantz. At 15, his family abandoned him.
Willman said Rantz asked himself if he wanted to live his life as a victim or not. Rantz decided it was pointless to waste his time in self-pity.
Willman then asked how can someone survive with nothing. She answered by saying that person has to have a goal and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

    Judy Rantz Willman talks about her father, Joe Rantz, at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center Wednesday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union
  

Rantz decided to finish school and went to the University of Washington. There, he was on the rowing team that went to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and won the gold medal.
Rantz learned trust brings pain and he was always guarded, except when it came to the university and the rowing crew. When asked why that was, Willman said Rantz said the team needed him.
Willman said she felt her father’s story was important. When she started the goal of telling her father’s story, Willman said her motivation was selfish. She wanted to make sure her father was remembered and didn’t want what the rowing team had accomplished to be forgotten.
Brown and Willman worked on the book for six years. They sent copies of the manuscripts to the coaches and teammates and families to make sure everything was right.
Willman said when the movie came out, she knew things couldn’t be the same as some things were condensed and “Hollywoodized.” Willman said what was needed to be asked was if the meaning of the movie was the same as the book so people could understand the struggles being faced and the importance of teamwork.
After Willman spoke, Hoffert had a question-and-answer session with Willman and her daughter, Jennifer Huffman.
One of things Hoffert asked about was about Rantz’s gold medal, saying for most people the medal would be a prized possession.
Huffman said when she was little, Rantz didn’t know where his gold medal was. When her grandparents were renovating the house, the gold medal was found in the attic installation because a squirrel stole it.
Willman said Rantz was a very humble man and, for a long time, a lot of the members of his church didn’t even know he had been in the Olympics. She said he would have been pleased with how his story has inspired people.