The ESPN reporter, a familiar face on the sidelines at Kansas University’s Allen Fieldhouse and countless other college venues, was one of the keynote speakers on Friday at “The Business of Sports: Brand Matters,” a daylong seminar at KU organized by the KU School of Business and Andrea Hudy, assistant athletics director for sports performance at KU Athletics.

“I think I’m the smartest person in this room, because I’m getting paid to watch sports,” Rowe told the audience in KU’s Capitol Federal Hall. “It is a joy.”

Rowe said love and passion for sports is powerful, and that the business community is smart to latch onto it. Her talk covered her own career as a sports journalist, as well as the importance of sports to universities’ brands — KU included.

On where she’s from:

Bountiful, Utah, which Rowe described as being just like you’d imagine: a small town full of smiling people. Her father was a sheepherder.

On how she fell in love with sports:

Her father also was “obsessed” with sports, Rowe said. He lettered in 12 high school sports, loved all sports and took her to her first college football game when she was just 5 or 6 years old.

“And I really believe college football is my one true love,” she said.

On how she climbed the ladder of sports reporting:

Rowe, since childhood, knew what she wanted to do and never changed her mind, she said. In the early part of her career she did a lot of what she described as creating opportunities for herself.

For example, she bought her own air time to call the University of Utah women’s basketball games, which she said became the first women’s sports broadcast in Utah.

She called up a producer at ABC and offered herself as a sideline reporter, flying on her own dime to get wherever she knew they needed someone.

“I was basically losing money but gaining experience,” she said, adding that on top of that, the boss back in New York saw her work.

On being prepared:

“It’s what sets you apart,” she said.

Rowe said she watches film of a team’s every matchup leading up to a game she’ll be covering. She heads in with “600 story ideas,” ready with background knowledge to branch into any of them depending on how the game goes and who does what.

During an interview with legendary — and legendarily hot-tempered — Indiana University men’s basketball coach Bobby Knight, the coach bluntly told Rowe to lay off the “typical media (BS).” Thankfully, she’d read his book. She dropped her list of prepared questions in favor of things she was just plain curious about.

Rowe said Knight told her afterwards, “You ask good questions, kid. You’ve got a good way about you. Don’t ever change.”

She went on to enjoy a good relationship with Knight where many did not, Rowe said. “Because I was prepared and because I wasn’t intimidated, he and I connected.”

On the importance of sports to universities’ brands:

Sports are huge, Rowe said.

She pointed out that the football powerhouse University of Alabama has been at max enrollment during coach Nick Saban’s success. People all over the world recognize the KU Jayhawk, which she described as another “powerful” brand thanks in large part to the men’s basketball team.

“Football and sports success brings students to your campus,” Rowe said. “Brand and winning and athletics all goes together.”

On media threats to university brands, and why transparency is critical:

When bad news originates from a university athletic program, the media can be very dangerous to that university’s brand.

It’s critical for universities to handle situations with transparency, and then for the media to get it right, Rowe said. As a journalist, she said, she basically wants to know “who knew what, when, and how can we fix it?” When a university doesn’t answer that simple question, she said, media inevitably end up “writing their own story.”

“The truth always comes out,” Rowe said. “And if you’ve been found to be backpedaling and lying, it’s worse.”

Rowe cited ongoing reports of sexual assault cover-ups at Baylor University, where the football coach was fired. She said Baylor, a private university, has not allowed the public to see its investigatory report.

“We don’t know the truth,” Rowe said. “Because they weren’t transparent, I think it’s backfiring.”

On her personal brand:

As an ESPN personality, she puts the ESPN brand first and her personal brand second, she said. In recent years she’s tried to refine that personal brand.

“I decided that my brand as a reporter is fun, fair, accurate and kind,” she said.

On the story she’s most proud of:

A feature on former Baylor basketball player Isaiah Austin. Rowe said it took her a year to convince producers to pursue the story on the 7-foot-1 center, who’d been playing unbeknownst to most with a prosthetic eye since middle school.

After her story did air, Rowe said it was neat to see how the coverage and ensuing positive support changed his life.

She said it’s an example of the “basic recipe” for what she thinks are the best sports stories: compelling people who overcome adversity and go on to succeed.

It’s the media’s job to present the “powerful and wonderful” stories that sports offers, Rowe said. “We’re not just covering the results and the wins and the losses anymore.”