ESPN’s Holly Rowe explains deleted post about Danny White, Lady Vols basketball
ESPN reporter Holly Rowe has explained the reasoning behind her now-deleted social media post that was critical of Tennessee athletic director Danny White.
Rowe made the post after Lady Vols basketball freshman Jaida Civil announced she was entering the transfer portal, leaving no returners on Tennessee’s roster.
“What Danny White is allowing to happen to @LadyVol_Hoops is making me so sad. Gut wrenching to watch him let one of the greatest programs in women’s sports history disintegrate. I am devastated,” Rowe wrote on X.
Rowe deleted the post a few hours after it was posted.
Rowe told Front Office Sports in a story published April 9 she woke up the day after the national championship “exhausted” and the first thing she saw was that Tennessee had “zero players” on the roster.
“My strongest reaction was just one of grief. I covered Pat Summitt and that whole era of Tennessee dominance so closely, and I just hosted this beautiful Pat Summitt reunion special that was just put on by Peyton Manning and Omaha Productions,” Rowe told FOS. “To see what’s going on at Tennessee, I’m sad.”
Rowe said the reason she took the post down was because people twisted it into “something ugly,” and Tennessee fans were getting into debates about which sports should be getting more NIL money.
“I know better than to tweet when you’re emotional. I took it down because I just thought it was getting turned into something yucky, but I do stand by what I said,” Rowe said. “I do feel very sad about what’s happening there.”
Rowe recounted the time when the Lady Vols were the “preeminent program” in all of sports. They were the first to endow scholarships, Summitt had the “nicest locker room, the best facilities, the best recruits,” Rowe said, and Summitt had built something so special that everyone was trying to copy her.
“So it’s really hard to watch it now as we mourn her,” Rowe said. “I’m still grieving her frequently, and to watch that legacy getting reduced to something that’s not special is hard to watch. I do think I can be more productive with how I express that, and talk to the AD and the people at Tennessee directly, because it does make me sad. I want them to retain her legacy and continue to be a strong program. There’s more productive ways to do that than on social media.”
