TRANSCRIPT

Adam Hildebrandt:Hey everybody. Welcome in. I'm Adam Hilderbrand, and I am lucky to be joined today by Holly Rowe, who is a longtime sports broadcaster and a whole bunch of other stuff. So we're going to talk about several things today. First of all, welcome back to Stillwater. This is not your first time here, so we're glad to have you back. You have been to many a college town with your jobs and the things that have taken you all around the country. What's special about places like this where everything centers around campus and the university?

Holly Rowe: Well, I think what's fun about Stillwater in particular is the sports passion is so big and so real. I've been doing games here, gosh, I want to say for almost 23 or 24 years, back to the Coach Sutton days. You know, it's been a long time. I've done a lot of games here. And I was just telling someone on our way over to this interview, I haven't been here since 2021 Bedlam. And so I was driving into campus last night and I was like, "Oh man, I'm homesick. This makes me feel so happy." We've had so many great games, great moments. I think back to the Marcus Smart days. And we've just had history of Oklahoma State sports, not just football, not just basketball, softball. I've done their first Super Regional that they ever got to. I got to do that. So lots of wonderful memories here, but people who really care about it. I think that's what makes the town special.

Adam Hildebrandt: I think we always enjoy when you show up because usually that means there's a pretty big game going on and something is going well at that point. Do you have, of all those memories, a favorite one or special one that stands out from here?

Holly Rowe: I would say almost every Bedlam game I've done has been absolutely epic. You know, the Brandon Weeden year, his senior year, that was incredible. My only negative memory is when we have done a couple of Bedlam games here where people jump off the stands, and I've seen people break their legs. That traumatized me for many years, and just even talking about it, I get a shiver. So please stop doing that. But I've been here for some really big upsets. You know, I remember when Landry Jones was playing for OU and they had a great record and they came in here and got beat. You know, Oklahoma State has been able to pull some big upsets, Lincoln Riley's last game, things like that. So big moments there, but I would say Gallagher-Iba Arena, I've had some really big moments there too.

Adam Hildebrandt: Were you here before the roof was raised? Like, did you see both versions of Gallagher?

Holly Rowe: Oh, for sure. Absolutely, yes. That's one thing that I did not get to experience, so I kind of long for the old days of that a little bit, but I was around for some of the 2004 and 2005 runs, and that was a ton.

Adam Hildebrandt: I will plead the fifth a little bit as a student who may or may not have been on the front row at 2011.

Holly Rowe: Oh my gosh, did you jump over? Be honest.

Adam Hildebrandt: I did. I may have.

Holly Rowe: And you were not injured?

Adam Hildebrandt: I was not, fortunately. No, I was smart enough. My fiance and I were a couple of the first over the wall and we cleared out as quickly as possible because we knew what was coming behind us. And the ESPN staff were really nice because they were like, "Hey guys, we understand what's about to happen. Just don't jump on this camera." And they protected it. "

Holly Rowe: This is $200,000. Yes.

Adam Hildebrandt: And I think everyone was respectful of that, so it worked out well for most involved at least. You got your journalism degree from Utah. I spent time at BYU as well. When did you know that journalism was something that you wanted to go into and to be around sports?

Holly Rowe: I had a very clear — I'm one of those lucky people that I've always known what I wanted to do my whole life. So I remember being in fifth grade and they had us do these little silly surveys. If you like doing this, you might be a good nurse. If you like doing this, you might be a teacher. And I remember vividly raising my hand in class and saying, "My job's not on here. My job's not on here. What do I do? What do I fill out?" Because I always wanted to be a reporter. I idolized some local people in Utah where I was growing up, and then I had this crazy sports passion. So I am obsessed with sports. I went to my first college football game at BYU when I was 5 years old. I hated Oklahoma State football for a long time because they killed BYU in a bowl game in 1976, and I still remember it to this day how they injured our quarterback, Gary Sheide. I was 10 years old. So when I say I have been obsessed with sports and just absorbing these moments that I care about in sports my whole life, and so I get to grow up and do something that I would be doing for free anyway. You know, there's that great saying, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life," and I'm living that life. That is me.

Adam Hildebrandt: I can certainly relate to some of those memories, because when I was growing up was not a great era for Oklahoma State football, so I had some of those memories growing up as well. You've done, I mean, goodness, everything: sideline reporting, play-by-play. You've been a host. You've covered a ton of different events. Was that an active decision to be that versatile, and did you go through school saying, "Hey, I want to be able to do all these things," or is that something that you just grew into over the course of your career?

Holly Rowe: I think when I got into sports journalism in college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't really know what a sideline reporter was at that point. I just knew I wanted to be in sports. And so I did try anchoring. I have tried hosting. And what I realized very quickly, no offense to any anchors or people in the studio, is I want to be at the game. I didn't want to sit in a studio and watch the game on TV. I wanted to be there. And so what jobs can you be at the game? And I had a great experience when I got out of college. I went and did an internship at CBS Sports in New York City. And I was really lucky. I was one of the first people they had ever brought in from out of state to be an intern for them. They usually just did it with, you know, local kids. But I met a woman named Leslie Visser, who was one of the first women to be a sideline reporter in pro football. And she is in the NFL Football Hall of Fame because of her work there. And she said to me, "Have you thought about being a sideline reporter?" So I really give Leslie Visser a lot of credit for my career because not only did she give me that idea, she showed me what it was, and then she put me in contact with people to help mentor me. And she was great to me. So that's kind of the first time I really realized what that role is, and the more I did it, the more it suits my skill set. I am a quick-thinking, creative-thinking. You know, that's how my brain works. And so I've just found something that completely suits how I operate as a journalist, and it's really cool.

Adam Hildebrandt: So with you, meaning Leslie, and looking up to her, what's it like being on the flip side of that now, because you for a whole generation of people have become synonymous with sideline reporting and doing it very well? Does it feel weird to kind of be on the flip side of that now?

Holly Rowe: It does. It means you're getting older, which is a privilege. You know, I am a Stage 4 metastatic cancer survivor, so I will never complain about being old. That means that I beat cancer and I get to live other days. But it is interesting. I look back and I'm like, "Man, where has time gone?" This is my 29th year for ABC and ESPN. Twenty-nine years, and I have only missed one Saturday College Football Saturday in 29 years. And I'm just like, "Wow, where did that happen?" I'm starting to meet people now that their young sons are playing college football and I covered their dads. Steve Sarkeesian was a player that I covered at BYU when he was a quarterback at BYU, and now here he is doing great things for Texas. So it's really cool to see the passage of time, but it is surreal.

Adam Hildebrandt: And that is a good segue, something else that I wanted to ask about, because you worked through going through your cancer diagnosis and treatment and all those sorts of things, and you were fairly public about it and shared what was going on. Why was it important for you to work through that time and basically allow other people a window into that world?

Holly Rowe: It was such a weird experience. So, when I first had to tell my bosses, "Hey, I've got to miss time, I've got to have surgery," and I remember being in the hospital and the PR lady saying, "What do you want us to tell people when they ask why you're not doing games?" And I was really naive and I thought, "No one's going to notice that I'm missing game. Like, who's going to call ESPN, 'Where's Holly'?" But so I just sent her a little text message and was like, "I'm just, I'm having surgery today. No one's going to ask, no one's going to care." And when I woke up from surgery, it was going across the bottom line on ESPN. So I don't think I ever really conscientiously thought, "Oh, I'm going to be public about this." It just kind of played out in an odd way. But it helped me to be public about it. So I remember I worked a game on Saturday — you'll remember this game: Oklahoma played at LSU, and it was Buddy Hield versus Ben Simmons, and Oklahoma comes back in overtime, wins that game. I flew to Waco, did Big Monday that next Monday night, and then Tuesday morning I had cancer surgery. And so one of my first text messages I woke up to was from Buddy Hield, like, "Oh my gosh, you know, you were just with us and doing our games and now you're in surgery. You know, my mom and I are praying for you." So I got a lot of love and support from my community, which is my sports families, and that helped me a lot.

Adam Hildebrandt: What was that like, because you have never, I don't know that you've struck anyone ever as someone with a big ego. Like, it's not about Holly Rowe necessarily. But what was that like when you did realize, "Oh, people were going to notice if I was just gone" or people are taking notice of you?

Holly Rowe: I'll be honest, it really caught me by surprise because you just kind of put your head down and work, and I don't think you understand the impact you have on other people until something like this happens. And it was, don't make me cry, but it was really humbling to have so many people reach out to me. Nick Saban sent me a box of apples, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." You know, all of these coaches that did such loving, kind things. Conference Commissioners, every conference office, every sport, Brianna Stewart at UConn doing really sweet, wonderful things. Tina Charles, Sylvia Fowles in women's basketball. You know, I could just list 7,000 names of people. Sue Bird made me a playlist that I could listen to while I was in chemo. And I think it's really humbling that you don't really know how you impact people until you need help or you're hurting. And I realized very quickly my sports community loved me and supported me, and they really helped me through the hardest time of my life.

Adam Hildebrandt: One of the things that has always struck me about your career and how you've gone about your job is the relationships that you have been able to build with people that somehow managed to come through in 30 to 45 seconds in a sideline interview or something like that. And I think that speaks to that reaction that you got. How do you go about building those relationships, because it's not like you're in the Alabama football office every day with Nick Saban, and he's got a ton of other stuff going on? So how do you go about building relationships when you don't necessarily see those people all the time?

Holly Rowe: I think part of it is being authentically yourself. I think part of it is I am so curious about other people. I think that's why I like this job and I'm in this job. You know, I'm like, "Wow, I wonder why that happened. I wonder why he did this." I think that people tend to like you when you're interested in them, right? You know, if you are interested in other people, they want to be around you. They feel like, "Wow, she really genuinely cares about me and is trying to learn what makes me tick." And I think the other thing is, I always try to be very fair. You know, I've had to push back at times on my bosses, like, "I'm not doing that. I'm not asking those questions, because that's not fair and that's being sensational." You really have to have a moral compass of who you want to be as a journalist. So I think I've been able to navigate those things pretty well.

Adam Hildebrandt: Has that helped you in maybe more tense moments on with a coach on the sideline, because there's times where Steve Sarkeesian, they didn't have a good half and he's probably not super interested in talking? So how do you balance that, right?

Holly Rowe: I think it does, because you're always going to have some stuff. We are going up to people and trying to get interviews and do things in really competitive, intense moments. So everything's not always perfect. I mean, plenty of coaches have maybe snapped at me or it's been an awkward exchange or whatever. And as long as you circle back, "Hey, are we good? How did that go? I didn't feel like that went well. What can we do better?" I really do try to not just have that be the interaction. I want to make sure that we have the right interaction. So you know, you just have to be yourself, and you have to just really communicate well with people.

Adam Hildebrandt: Being yourself, you talked about having a moral compass at one point. Where does that come from, because that's something that you have to develop or is instilled in you. It doesn't just pop into thin air, especially in as high competitive of an environment as you've worked in. So what is that family background? Where does that come from for you?

Holly Rowe: Well, I was raised by a great family. My dad is Del Rowe, my mom, Diane Rowe. They were wonderful people that have raised me well. First of all, I was raised in Utah. But I have also had some good mentors along the way, and I remember showing my resume tape to an executive at CBS Sports one time, Rick Gentile, and he said, "You're trying to be somebody that you're not." You know, because you're like, "Hello, welcome to Oklahoma State football." And you grow up watching people on TV and think that you have to be a certain way, or you have to put on this character of somebody else. And that's not true. You have to be yourself. And then the other thing I'll say, and this is silly, but Oprah Winfrey, she has been, she's not your prototypical news person. If you looked at it, it was all blonde, skinny, young, whatever women. She has found a way to succeed at the highest level being just who she is. And I remember meeting Oprah and saying to her, "You've really impacted my life." And she looked into my soul and was like, "How so?" And I said, "You taught me that I can just be the best version of myself. I don't have to try to be this person that looks like this or whatever. Just be the best version of me." And I have succeeded in my job because I started just being truly my authentic self. And then we both cried and got a cute picture together, and it was really a special moment. But I think that's a good message to a lot of young people out there is the more you try to be like what you're seeing on TV or what you think other people are, the farther away you're getting from yourself, and people are going to connect with you, not someone you're trying to pretend to be.

Adam Hildebrandt: So when you started with ABC, ESPN 29 years ago, and you had other jobs before that as well, the media landscape looked a little different than it does today. Everything is out there immediately now and public, and our personal lives are public in a lot of ways now. So how have you managed to adjust with those times and not only stay yourself, but stay on the cutting edge of the media sphere and all those sorts of things?

Holly Rowe: It's really challenging because schools are putting out a lot of their own content now. Athletes are putting out a lot of their own content. They want to have more control over what story is being told about them. And I actually love that. I think it's super healthy. You know, Derek Jeter and The Players' Tribune was one of the first to do that, of athletes telling their story in their own words. I think it's healthy. It is healthy. But you know, as journalists, we don't want to be cut out. The middle man or woman doesn't want to be cut out. I can build and grow on that. So you have to get smart. I'll give you an example for this: I was covering Alabama football recently, and Jalen Milroe is doing his own video series every week. So I went and watched what he's putting out, and then I used part of that story in a game during his football game. I just credited him, you know, as, "I saw on the Jalen Milroe link podcast, I saw this, and here's a cute story." You have to be creative about the content you're gathering and how you present it to people. But I think that's healthy. It forces me to be better and be more nimble at my job, but I will adapt and I think it's cool.

Adam Hildebrandt: You have been, you're here to speak on campus, and you've been to our Sports Media Camp before, if I remember correctly. Here, you came and spoke with the Association for Women in Sports Media. So clearly you have taken time, and I'm sure at other schools as well, to give back to students and the next generation. Why is that important to you?

Holly Rowe: Because people did that for me. I had wonderful people in college, when I was doing internships, that took time. I mean, I think back to Leslie Visser. What if she hadn't taken time for me, a young student that's just trying to make it, and she changed my life? So I want to be that person. I'm going to give back and I'm going to make time in my schedule to make sure that we can help the next generation because that's something people did for me. And you know, there's an old movie, you're probably too young to have even seen this movie, called Pay It Forward. I want to pay forward any success or positive things that are happening in my life. I want to make sure I'm paying that forward.

Adam Hildebrandt: Speaking of paying it forward, you have been a massive proponent of women's sports in particular, and the growth has been, I'm sure, exponential since you start on the job. And we certainly, in the state of Oklahoma, I've seen softball just explode here and see the Women's College World Series be in Oklahoma City for so long. When you take a look and you see long-term discussions on TV about Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese or the Women's College World Series or what have you, what kind of emotions does that bring up because you have been part of the proponent of really growing those women's sports?

Holly Rowe: It's very satisfying and rewarding because I have been trying to tell people forever. You know, I'm really proud of one thing in my career. So, in my job, you know, I used to see a lot of women in my job start out and they would get opportunities to do women's sports events, and as soon as they made it, so to speak, they stopped doing it and they just did the men. And so I just thought that was always very wrong. Pat Summitt used to have a great quote. They tried to hire her to be the coach of a men's team once, and she said, "Why would I do that? I'm coaching at the highest level, the women's team." You know, just because society has told us that, that doesn't mean that the men's sports have the only value. So we have to put the value into it. So I'm really proud that I have juggled. I am on the top sports for the men's side, but I have never given up my women's sports reporting, and I never will, because to me that's where the big time is. So I'm really proud of it. I have sent 1,000 angry emails to people. One day I'll write a book, 'The Angry Emails,' but you know this is valuable. We've got to give this kid more coverage. We've got to give this player more coverage. We've got to get here and do a story on this and this. And now the bosses get it. That's what's really cool to me is now they're putting women's sports on ABC free network television. More people can see it, more people have access to it, the opportunities are there. We have put Oklahoma State softball was on ABC television. It's unprecedented, it hasn't happened. You know, gymnastics is now on ABC. The volleyball national championship is on ABC. Women's basketball is on ABC. Free access to women's sports. What we've seen are people love it and they're interested in it, and the ratings have skyrocketed. All we needed was a chance and an opportunity, and look what happened. And it's taken off.

Adam Hildebrandt: I remember, I think it was in late 2023, there was a discussion. It was Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark had played a game. Everybody was going berserk, and you posted a tweet that was something along the lines of, "Why are we trying to constrain the competitiveness of these two athletes and holding them to a different account?" And as someone who is raising two daughters to try to grow up and be fierce in the world that requires that, it stood out to me, and so I wanted to make sure to ask you about that. What growth is still needed? Where do we go next with the growth of women's sports and trying to continue to push that into the forefront?

Holly Rowe: I think something that would be very healthy is one, continue to give them opportunities. These are a few examples I'm giving you. We need more women's sports on bigger networks, bigger platforms. Give them more opportunities because they're rating well. Number two, more investment. I saw a stat recently where only about 20% of media buys are going to women's sports. So commercials, sponsors, that kind of stuff, still the majority is going to men's sports. Let's put some of that money towards the women, so their salaries will increase, their facilities will increase. That has to happen. But that conversation that you're talking about, that was after the national championship game where Angel Reese famously did this and whatever in Caitlin's face, and it became this national outrage and outcry, and it was so annoying to me because I think young women should be competitive. I think I should be able to talk, you know what, to somebody and get in their face. And what I don't like about it is it was largely a lot of men getting upset about it, men trying to police women and how they should behave. We're really sick of that in our country. We, as women, that has happened a lot to us in our lifetimes. I'm really tired of men trying to tell us how we should behave, especially in sports. It's not supposed to be nice. You know, there was a whole narrative in the WNBA this summer: "They're not being nice to Caitlin Clark." "They're jealous of Caitlin Clark." And I was so annoyed by that. I'm like, "Do we police who's nice in the NBA?" I mean, have we policed that Kevin Durant has to be nice? No, we do not police men in their feelings and their emotions and behavior. So let's stop doing it to the women, and how about we just let them be competitive and let them be confident, and however that manifests, that's awesome.

Adam Hildebrandt: I don't think I have anything to add to that. I'm sorry. I'm going to get off my sorry. So all these things that you've done, all these events, you've done things on the biggest stage. Was there ever, do you have a chance in those moments to like step back and look up at the 60,000 people or however many people are there, and realize where you are in that moment? Or are you so focused in on your job that you aren't allowed to do that?

Holly Rowe: No, I always appreciate it. I was just at Tennessee at Georgia this weekend. Georgia had not played at home for 37 days. Their fans were just rabid and so excited, and I remember in between the third and fourth quarter, they did this big fireworks show and light show. I just remember looking around like, "This is awesome, and this is my office. Welcome to my office! This is so cool." The day that I think it's just a job and I'm just going to worry about myself and my job, then I'll retire. The day that I am not still just blown away by, "Oh my gosh, this arena is bumping! This is so cool! Look at this!" You know, I just did a game, South Carolina women just played in Charlotte at an event, and there were so many South Carolina fans Sunday afternoon in Charlotte, packed for South Carolina women's basketball. I just remember closing my eyes and being like, "Oh my gosh, look how far we've come. This is awesome."

Adam Hildebrandt: Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say we hope that retirement day is far in the future, and that you will be joining us through the television for many more sporting events to come. So thank you so much for giving us some time today. I know you've got a busy day, but this has been a phenomenal conversation and a joy for me. So thanks for sitting down with us.

Holly Rowe: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

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