A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America's First All-Black High School Rowing Team

Chapter 10 explores the developing relationships and trust that the four primary members of the team—Cooper, Preston, Alvin, and Malcolm—have with Alpart. Cooper begins the chapter by describing the strengths and qualities that each of his three teammates brings to the team. He explains that Alpart has set all of them up with summer jobs, Cooper and Alvin at a foundation helping kids and Preston and Malcolm doing handywork at some of Alpart’s properties. These four are the only team members practicing over the summer, so Alpart bonds with them more closely, inviting them to his home to meet his family and taking them to work out at Chicago’s East Bank Club.

Cooper bonds with Alpart even more than his teammates do, as he visits Alpart’s home without them for dinner and intellectual conversations about life and social issues. On one occasion, Alpart encourages Cooper to talk to other students at school about joining the rowing team, saying, “If you can get freaking Preston and Alvin to go to church, you can get kids to row” (138). Referring to Alpart’s interaction with the team and the ways he acts as a mentor and father figure, Cooper argues that “Ken is undoing what all the bad teachers and friends did to my self-esteem.