More than twenty years before Mia Hamm led the U.S. Women's soccer team to win the 1999 World Cup, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination in one of the most grueling and competitive sports. Among the members of the first national women's crew team were Gail Pierson, the soft-spoken M.I.T. professor who fought equally hard off the water to win the political battles needed for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Harry Parker, the legendary Harvard men's crew coach who overcame his doubts about women's ability to withstand the rigors of hard training. From their first dramatic bid at the 1975 World Championships, which won them the silver medal, to their preparations for their first Olympic Games in 1976, this gripping story of bravery, determination, and indomitable spirit captures a compelling moment in the history of sports, a turning point in American culture--and tells a truly exciting tale of women, winning, and the water.