Before heading out of town from covering a Texas Tech basketball game, Holly Rowe, 20 year ESPN reporter, picked up the microphone again for a benefit with the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health at TTUHSC, hosted at Lubbock Country Club.
Rowe shared her story on sports reporting, parenting, and fighting cancer. While her message has been spread across America, the story many people do not know about, is the lives of the many women and cancer survivors she impacted, including Lubbock’s own Maggie Ryan.
“Initially in the Fall of 2017, I was diagnosed with stage two melanoma,” said Maggie Ryan, a cancer survivor.
Ryan explained she was in a dark place after this diagnosis, so she reached out to Rowe for help. Rowe had been diagnosed about a year before Ryan.
“I reached out to her on Facebook, not thinking that any type of celebrity would write back,” she said.
However, less than 24 hours later, she said a message landed in her inbox and it was from Rowe.
“You bond through this common experience,” Rowe said. “It’s important that, like Maggie, we are uplifting other women, whether we know them or not.”
When Ryan received that message, she said it gave her hope in a time when she did not have any.
While Rowe completed her last chemotherapy treatment in August 2018, she wished she asked for this kind of support when she was going through cancer.
“I think, as I’ve been going through this cancer battle for the last three years, I wish people shared more with me how they overcame things and what they went through,” she said.
Rowe and Kelly finally met for the first time at Madison Square Garden in December, when Texas Tech matched up against Duke. Kelly said her experience meeting her exceeded her expectations.
“Just personable, comfortable, and easy to be with,” Kelly said.
At the luncheon on Tuesday, she said they were reunited again.
Rowe is one of the lead reports on ESPN Saturday Night Prime College Football, Big Monday College Basketball, Women’s Final Four, Women’s College World Series, NCAA Volleyball Indoor and Beach National Championships and the lead WNBA announce team. She also advocates for cancer research and prevention.
