Like everyone in Austin, Texas, I watched the Texas-Ohio State football game last Saturday night. It was a hot, sweaty, and intense matchup, and that much was previewed by Holly Rowe, who held up a heat gun pregame, indicating that it was over 150 degrees on the field just before kickoff.
I was excited to see Rowe cover the pregame. As a freelance sports writer who is a woman, her work ethic, hustle, and skill under pressure have always impressed and inspired me. It helps that I am a child of the ‘90s, raised by a stay-at-home dad who thought I should probably be watching women’s sports growing up so I could have athletic role models, well before streaming made it accessible. That meant watching a lot of oddly scheduled games, often narrated by Holly Rowe and other icons in sports media who have done so much to grow the sports I love.
Dad’s insistence paid off. I earned an athletic scholarship to run track and cross country at Western Kentucky University (which unfortunately lost to Georgia, 70-20, on Saturday), before moving 800 miles away from home to pursue my PhD at the University of Texas. I switched from researching sports organizations to researching college sports policy in 2019, a year after I moved and right before the NIL era struck. My freelancing career took off almost instantly in 2020 amid ambiguous fall sport schedules, legally dicey COVID waivers, and lawsuits related to the very policy I’d been researching. I still live in Austin, and I’ve been trying my best to make it full-time in the industry ever since.
I think that’s why when Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian blew off Holly Rowe as she tried to interview him in a now-viral moment after the game, it struck a nerve. Not because I believe Sarkisian is evil or sexist or even entirely wrong. It was later revealed that multiple technical difficulties throughout the game contributed to frustrating media delays at halftime and after the game. The heat has been oppressive here for months, and was downright hellish on Saturday. I’m sure adrenaline was absolutely through the roof. A lot was happening in one charged moment on live television.
And, to be honest, I like Sark. He’s put Texas football back on the map while supporting Texas athletics beyond football, including appearing in a Humann supplements ad with Texas women’s basketball and softball players Rori Harmon, Madison Booker, and Teagan Kavan. He’s also historically been gracious with the media, often answering thoroughly, addressing reporters by name, and thanking them for their time. That morning, he went out of his way to shout out the College GameDay crew on air.
But the image of him and Rowe stuck because it’s hard being a woman in sports right now, to put it lightly.
That became even clearer when Arch Manning was asked about an AI edit of the moment depicting Sarkisian slapping Rowe to the ground that circulated after the game. Manning called it “hilarious,” while several male reporters in the room laughed along with him. Manning has since apologized, and Rowe noted in an Instagram story that she accepted his apology; they had a private conversation, and they are moving forward “with respect and kindness for one another.”
Still, it’s hard to ignore the backdrop behind these moments. And it’s a fascinating time to be living in Austin, Texas–in part, because, for a state that largely believes sports and politics should remain separate, Texas certainly is doing the opposite.
Saturday wasn’t just a football game in Austin. Ted Cruz was booed on College GameDay while promoting legislation that could reshape college sports. Politicians from both sides of the aisle were using the Longhorns as social-media currency leading up to a contentious Texas election season; political ads filled the commercial breaks. In Texas, sports and politics may be treated as separate institutions in theory, but in Austin they increasingly occupy the same cultural space.
This is happening as women’s sports have taken off at a staggering rate over the past few years, catapulting women in sports into the spotlight. But that visibility has come with a price. As a woman in sports, it’s impossible not to think about the controversial Sydney Sweeney sports ad and what it communicates about women’s “place” in sports, as well as Colin Cowherd asking Sophie Cunningham what it’s like to be the WNBA’s “sex symbol” (because who is the sex symbol of the NBA?). That comes amid the league’s ongoing conflict over trans inclusion, Enes Kanter Freedom’s harassment of WNBA players, and the NHL signing a player with a history of sexual assault. Not to mention the now-pulled Callaway ad that tried to turn shoving golfer Alexis Miestowski to the ground into a selling point for golf clubs–a depiction of violence against women in sports that is eerily similar to the AI video Manning laughed at.
These are all different issues, but taken together, they paint a difficult picture of the environment women in sports and beyond are navigating right now. And that’s why the Texas postgame mattered so much at this moment.
Because if Steve Sarkisian can blow off the Holly Rowe, what else is on the table? And if Arch Manning thinks that even a fake depiction of her being slapped is humorous–with sports media professionals laughing along–that paints a pretty bleak picture for the future of women in sports, and maybe even women in America as a whole.
To be clear, I’m not calling for Sark’s arrest or anything (but a statement would have been nice). And while Manning’s reaction was disappointing, at 22, he’s old enough to know better and young enough to make stupid mistakes in front of the media. But these moments between two hugely prominent figures in college sports and Holly Rowe felt symbolic to me.
Rowe was one of the first people who showed me that my voice could matter in this industry. I’ve played sports. I’ve done the research. I’ve covered the beat for almost seven years. I’ve spent my career trying to convince myself—and, at times, the industry—that there is room for women like me here. Rowe helped me believe that in the first place.
But this isn’t really about me. It’s about what happens when women who have spent decades proving they belong in sports are still treated as though their voices are optional. It’s about what that tells the women and girls watching. It’s about what all of this says about broader American culture right now. And it’s about the kind of culture we’re building as women’s sports become more visible than ever, and football games’ meaning transcends the scoreboard.
Lately, from Austin, it’s easy to wonder what the future holds for us.
