There are people who cover football for a living, and then there are people who live to cover football. And Holly Rowe, unmistakably, belongs to the latter group. The timeline of everything in college football, from camps and kickoff to injuries and recoveries, has mirrored her own seasons of grit, bravery, and survival. Holly Rowe was diagnosed with desmoplastic melanoma in May 2015, and she started administering treatment and going through surgeries. 

But those treatments didn’t help. Holly underwent yet another surgery 6 months later, but in August 2016, she got the news that her cancer had spread to her lungs. “This could be a death sentence. You need to start preparing for this. This is going to be hard.” Those were the words of her doctor as she revisited her battle in conversation with LaVar Arrington on the National Football Foundation’s podcast.

And these words were uttered just eleven days before a new college football season was about to start. Rowe had inoperable tumors in her lungs, and the existential shock she faced was unsettling. A lesser soul might’ve been down and would’ve accepted defeat in the face of uncertainty. But Rowe went back and did what was a sacred act of love for her: she covered football.

She dove headfirst into the season, with a wig on under 105-degree heat, and owned up to her craft. “I just knew that I just had to keep going to work and show up to games. So, my first game was Notre Dame at Texas, sold out. First time Notre Dame had played at Texas in forever. And I didn’t tell my bosses, you know, that I was sick, that I had this new kind of deadly diagnosis,” she shared. That is what courage looks like. When cancer tests your willingness to live, and you defy it to uphold your duties amidst aching joints, keeping your ears tuned for signals and your heart open for stories. If that’s not the definition of devotion, what is?

And Rowe found out soon enough that the entire college football community had her back. Nick Saban and Miss Terry sent her apples, colleagues and fans reached out to her, telling her that everyone is praying for her, and a marvel of development in the form of an immunotherapy trial drug saved her life. Holly had to fly to Los Angeles and get that drug administered every 21 days from August 2016 to August 2018, and that’s when her largest tumor started to shrink. Later, she was declared cancer-free. 

“And in that I got a lot of love from people, you know, like Coach Saban and his wife, Miss Terry, sent me a box of apples. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. I just feel like the love I got back from college football after pouring my whole life into college football, you know, really three decades, um, I think it saved my life, and I’m not overstating that,” she said.

Some people spend their entire life just surviving, and some people live it to the fullest. Holly Rowe is someone who survived by living. She lived and breathed football every day while fighting with a deadly disease, and that was possible because of her indomitable human spirit, a medical breakthrough, and an entire community by her side. The sidelines can be a lonely place for someone who isn’t part of a team, but for Holly Rowe, it became proof that everyone by her side was part of a bigger team, and that team was called humanity, which ultimately saved her life.

Holly Rowe on Switzer

The sidelines were as charged as they could be in the Week 2 marquee matchup between Michigan and Oklahoma. And Holly Rowe was balancing her broadcast with a starstruck moment of pure emotion when she crossed paths with Barry Switzer. She was set to work alongside Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler, but set some time aside to honor the legend. She wrote, “One of my coaching idols! 88 years strong ❤️love Coach Switzer so much! @Barry_Switzer,” on X.

Rowe’s admiration for Switzer goes way back, and it has been steady over the years of her covering college football. Back in 2021, as she was browsing through some archived footage for a show, she found a gem from 1984, which she shared with a caption that read, “Looking at old clips for our show tomorrow. Barry Switzer is one of a kind. Can you imagine a head coach wearing this hat in a game now? This is so throwback awesome.” That photograph has Switzer dripped out with a ‘Beat Texas’ hat, and Holly’s love for Switzer’s chutzpah could be felt through the screen.