Ben Rowley, 23, now in his last year at UNLV, started a blog for a journalism class. He writes about rural sports, which knit communities together but often receive limited news coverage. He also writes for an online publication that focuses on sports at small schools. He and his wife, Robin, hit the road together.
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.
More on Rowley's blog
Ben Rowley's small school sports blog may have been for a class at UNLV, but the senior’s writing provided valuable information to rural schools’ students and fans - as well as few memories for its author.
A sliver of white moon hangs above scraggly mountains silhouetted against an indigo sky. On a lonely stretch of U.S. 93, Ben Rowley is driving north to Alamo, a town 100 miles from Las Vegas.
His gold Corolla, its headlights on their bright setting, creates a halo of light in a darkness thick as velvet.
To Rowley, 23, these two-lane desert roads are familiar. Not long ago he was a teenage athlete traveling to games across the state.
Now in his last year of college, the UNLV student crisscrosses Southern Nevada reporting on high school sports on a blog he started for a journalism class. His project provides a service to rural students and fans who do not get much other coverage.
And on this recent Friday night, Rowley is on his way to Alamo to report on varsity basketball games at Pahranagat Valley High School, his alma mater.
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Rowley moved to Alamo from Hill Air Force Base near Salt Lake City when he was 14. At first, the experience was jarring. His junior high school in the Beehive State had 900 students -- the same population that Alamo claims on its Web site.
“Kids still wore tight Wrangler jeans,” Rowley said. “I was like, ‘What is going on here?’ I saw young people wearing cowboy hats for the first time and stuff like that.”
But with time, his perspective on his new home changed. Fellow residents welcomed his family into their tightknit community. And small schools meant every student had opportunities to play sports.
“I didn’t make the eighth grade team before in Utah,” he said. “And then I came down to Alamo. I was 110 pounds, 5 foot 3, and I’m starting on the (junior varsity) team all of a sudden.”
He joined the basketball program and took up track, hoping to meet girls. In practicing and competing, he learned about winning and losing, about how to work with teammates and interact with coaches. He brought those lessons to his life after graduation, treating colleagues and bosses with respect.
In a place like Alamo, proud and isolated, prep sports are the main attraction. Hundreds of people attended the basketball games between Pahranagat Valley and Mountain View Christian School that Rowley covered Jan. 11.
“You look around, and they could be home sitting on the couch watching TV. They’re huge fans,” said Robin Rowley, Ben’s wife.
“Sports is what this town is about.”
With an intimate connection to rural communities, Ben Rowley landed a job this summer reporting for NevadaPrep.com, an online publication that focuses on sports at small schools.
About the same time, he signed up for a UNLV journalism course that required students to blog on a topic of their choice. The digital journal Rowley created in response, benrowley.wordpress.com, supplements stories he writes for NevadaPrep.
As he tells readers in an introductory post: “It’s an informal, fun complement to the more formal game recaps I do on NevadaPrep.
“As my wife, Robin, and I rack up the miles on the Corolla, this blog will discuss the teams we watch, the communities we visit, the interesting folks we meet, and whatever else comes our way as we meander around the desert.”
Merritt Staley, 16, of Logandale, a town at the north end of the Moapa Valley, said he reads Rowley’s blog because the entries describe his thoughts and feelings.
“It’s important just because it’s one of the few things that kind of relates to us,” Staley said. “It’s the high school sports and the stories that we want to read and stuff coming from someone who likes the same things we do.”
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The fans have risen to their feet. On opposite sides of the gym, Mountain View Christian and Pahranagat Valley boosters trade verbal jabs. Their cheers and jeers nearly drown out the sound of 10 pairs of shoes pounding the polished floor.
The teenagers on the court don’t want to let their teammates down. On the Alamo side, they want to snag a win for watching friends and neighbors.
And in the bleachers, Ben and Robin Rowley are here to record the excitement. For more than three hours, Ben Rowley scribbles statistics in his reporter’s notebook and posts live updates to his blog via cell phone. His wife captures video footage of big plays.
To Ben Rowley, talking to the losing coaches is the most difficult part of his job. And on this night, the challenge is particularly painful. Alamo’s boys went down by 3 points after leading most of the game, and Rowley must interview his old coach, Brian Higbee.
“Hey, Coach,” he says, reaching out his hand to greet his old mentor.
Higbee, who grew up in Alamo, says Rowley’s blog gives rural athletes and their parents a place to voice opinions and talk to one another.
After the 3A state championship football game between Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley teams, Rowley’s blog got 500 hits and 11 comments from spirited fans.
He hopes his site can become a hub for discussion of sports at the state’s smaller schools.
In a message to readers, he writes, “Send video, send pictures, send articles. We have all the tools necessary to make the Nevada high school sports community as cool as we want to. So let’s do it!”
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At night on Nevada’s rural highways, approaching vehicles look like airplanes drifting in a black sky. In some places, the absence of light is so complete not even shadows survive.
Taking these roads to cover games, Rowley thinks about the emotions he felt traveling the state’s desert highways as a young athlete: “We would drive hours at a time on these buses and stuff, going to different games. And when you’re doing it, you’re thinking about the wins and losses and how you played, and that’s still something vivid in my mind.”
In a blog entry titled “Driving Through the Darkness,” he shares thoughts about his journeys: Driving a truck that night, he writes, it “glides along a dark path called Interstate 15 between Glendale and Las Vegas. On both sides of me there is desert and the shadows of rocky hills. The sky is illuminated by the dim, white light of a full moon hanging high in the eastern sky.”
Most Las Vegans know little about places such as Alamo and Caliente, Mesquite and Tonopah, Rowley said. But as he reminds us via his blog, the lights of small towns lie scattered across the Nevada wilderness.
“Each dot of light is a little different, but they share the most important qualities,” Rowley writes.
“Each has teams of young people and a community that supports them. They each travel through the darkness weekly from one dot to the other. And they each are learning about victory, defeat, teamwork, and themselves.”
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