Holly Rowe

History with ESPN

Rowe has been with ESPN since August 1998 in the capacity of a full time college football sideline reporter. In that capacity, she has been a part of numerous regular season games and post-season bowls.

Before working full time as a college football sideline reporter, she served as a part-time sideline reporter in certain ESPN broadcasts during the course of 1997. (Prior to that, with ABC Sports, in both 1995 and 1996.)

With ESPN, Rowe has also been a part of broadcasting women's college basketball games, and women’s college volleyball. (both since 1998; generally in the play-by play capacity as opposed to her college football sideline duties) Other broadcasts that Rowe has been a part of with her time at ESPN include play-by-play for Women's World Cup matches, coverage of the Running of the Bulls, coverage of swimming, and broadcasts of track & field events.

Being one of a minority of females in the sports broadcasting industry, Rowe has been profiled by other media and news organizations.

Ron Franklin incident

On October 1, 2005, according to the Chicago Tribune, during a game between Notre Dame and Purdue that Franklin was calling, sideline reporter Holly Rowe spoke admiringly of Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack for using all three of their remaining timeouts on defense despite trailing by four touchdowns near the end of the game. Rowe was quoted as saying, "If the coaches are giving up, what does that say to the players?" Franklin responded to Rowe's question, "Holly, it's not giving up. It's 49-21, sweetheart."

In response to the incident, Mo Davenport, who was senior coordinating producer for college football, stated, "It was an inappropriate comment, and we've communicated that to Ron. There's never a reason to say something so mean-spirited. Ron apologized. We dealt with it internally."

Other work

Before and during her time with ESPN, Rowe has worked with several other broadcast organizations. Women's college basketball games broadcast by Fox Sports have seen Rowe as a broadcaster since she started in 1993. Rowe has served in the role of an analyst for the WNBA’s Utah Starzz in recent years as well. The Blue & White Sports Network in Provo, Utah is the network which syndicates several Western Athletic Conference (WAC) sporting events, and still employs Rowe in many of their broadcasts, as they have since 1993. In addition, she has held a position on the team at CBS which produces the men's Final Four.

Before becoming a sportscaster

Before Rowe gained a wider audience as a sportscaster, she was employed as a sportswriter for the Daily Utah Chronicle and the Davis County Clipper. While still in college, she was the news anchor for her campus TV station. She earned a broadcast journalism degree in 1991 from the University of Utah. Right after college (1991–1992), she interned at CBS Sports.

Personal

Rowe was a delegate from the state of Utah at the National Republican Convention in 1988.