In the fall of 1983, a Woods Cross High student started working as an intern for the Davis County Clipper newspaper. The opportunity began an amazing career for nationally renowned sportscaster Holly Rowe, who will be inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame at its annual dinner on Sept. 22.

She will be part of the Class of 2025, joining sports greats Mary Kay Amicone, John Buck, Wally Joyner and Stew Morrill. Her career after graduating from Woods Cross in 1984 has had an interesting trajectory. Once she started studies at the University of Utah after transferring from BYU, the late Dirk Facer (a former sports editor at the Clipper) brought her onboard of the staff at the school’s Daily Utah Chronicle. From there, she worked for several local media outlets and eventually found her way to ESPN in 1998 as well as working as the first female analyst for Utah Jazz telecasts.

In an article written by legendary local sportswriter Kurt Kragthorpe for the USHOF, he said, “The poise, enthusiasm and knowledge that Holly Rowe exudes during the ESPN/ABC telecast of the biggest college football game of the week are the same traits she once displayed during University of Utah women’s basketball radio broadcasts.” She told him “I’ve had a cool, awesome life.”

Holly Rowe has become a fixture on ESPN and ABC broadcasts of college football, women’s collegiate sports and the WNBA. Last season she focused on women’s college basketball, becoming an expert of WNBA star Caitlin Clark. She’s won three Emmy Awards, has been recognized with the Mel Greenberg National Media Award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association and received the Curt Gowdy Electronic from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. 

She also is a fighter, having been diagnosed with cancer in 2015, a battle she bravely fought by talking about her diagnosis with her broadcast partners and the incredibly large audience of fans and admirers. She has become a student of the game – all the games – and is one of the articulate and knowledgeable sportscasters in the industry. As she told Kragthorpe for his article, “I am obsessed with my job. Mostly because I love sports, as in I really, really, really love sports.”

The other members of the Class of 2025 include Amicone, who compiled more than 800 victories as a softball coach at Weber State, SLCC and BYU; Buck, a Taylorsville High graduate who played Major League Baseball for 11 years for Toronto, Miami, Seattle, Pittsburgh, the Los Angeles Angels and the New York Mets; Joyner, who went from BYU to MLB where he played for 16 years for four teams, compiling a .289 batting average in 2,033 games; and Morrill, long-time basketball coach at Utah State for 17 years whose teams won nearly three-fourths of their games under his tutelage.

The Sept. 22 inductions will be held at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. For reservations, go to Utahsportshalloffame.org.