SAN ANTONIO – When the second season of one of young Cheyenne Rowe’s favorite anime wasn’t available in English, she came up with a simple solution. She would learn Japanese on her own.
“I decided to teach myself Japanese so I could finish watching it,” Rowe said. “The manga where the anime came from wasn’t translated to English either. I would say I was in grade four.”
There may be no better story that captures the essence of Rowe, UTSA’s 6-foot-2 forward from Ajax, Ontario. A cerebral hard-worker with a perfectionistic streak who embraces the opportunity to do whatever is asked of her on the court, in the classroom and for her teammates.
What’s Rowe’s biggest focus in games? It’s not taking the most shots or garnering the spotlight.
“Productivity,” she said. “I may not score the most points, but I will get on the floor, I will get a rebound and I’ll play defense.”
Rowe, who joined the Roadrunners last season as a transfer from James Madison, has been an important contributor for UTSA, which is in the midst of a historic season at 17-2 overall and 8-0 in the American Athletic Conference.
* * * * *
Rowe has been to the destination that the Roadrunners are targeting. Playing for the Dukes as a freshman in 2022-23, she helped her team chart a 26-8 overall record, and claim a Sun Belt Conference Tournament Championship and an NCAA Tournament berth. She has used her experience to help her teammates visualize what reaching their end goal would look like.
“I always ask those questions of our team: Who’s won a championship? What did it feel like? And what experience did you have?” UTSA head coach Karen Aston said. “I’ve asked them who has held up a trophy and who has cut down a net? It’s very, very helpful for them to share their wisdom and experience. Cheyenne is definitely one of those who can spread that.”
As grateful as Rowe is for the experiences she had at James Madison, the opportunity to win a championship and advance to the NCAA Tournament while at UTSA would be that much more satisfying.
“I want a ring on this team so badly. Oh, I want it so bad,” Rowe said. “There’s something different about the NCAA Tournament and being on a winning team is just something else. You have to put something more into every single day and that’s what I learned from it. Being on this winning team with my new-found family, putting in something more every day is amazing.”
What initially brought Rowe to San Antonio to play for the Roadrunners was her search for a home. She was seeking a place where her role would be defined and her possibilities endless. It didn’t take long before Rowe found what she was looking for.
“When the coaches reached out to me, they were very kind,” Rowe said. “They made it seem like a family and, when I got here, it was. There was nothing that was hidden. Everything was at face value and that’s really what I care about. That’s definitely what drew me here.”
The family atmosphere has only grown since Rowe’s arrival and the team’s common mission, she believes, has been a driving force behind the team’s success.
“It’s a found family,” she said. “Everyone is great. I love being on this team; we all want the same thing. We all work for it. We’ll even get on the ground in practice and that is something I really admire about this team.”
Aston initially recruited Rowe to fill a personnel need on her team entering the 2023-24 season, knowing that she had the potential to fit the team’s style of play. In Rowe, Aston got much more than just a role player.
“When you’re looking at film on people in the portal, you try to look at who you potentially see in your system,” Aston said. “She had some qualities as far as post play that fit the way we play. We did know a coach in Canada who was able to give us some feedback and it was very positive. We received glowing reports on her character and her academics. I loved what Cheyenne’s vision was for her own self. I knew that she had something really special in her.”
* * * * *
Family has always been one of the central themes in Rowe’s life.
Her parents Waine and Hilary both had played basketball and encouraged their daughter, who first got into sports as a soccer player, to try basketball when she was in the sixth grade. As she began to develop a proficiency in the sport, her parents pushed her to take it seriously.
“My father would take me out and tell me to shoot baskets before I could play video games inside,” Rowe said. “My father has been a big part of my basketball career. And then my mother was always there on the sidelines, supporting me and driving me around everywhere.”
Rowe said the possibility of becoming a collegiate basketball player in the United States first entered her mind as a high school freshman at Bill Crothers Secondary School. As she prepared for the next level, Rowe gained valuable experience playing for Team Ontario beginning at age 14. She was named a First-Team All-Star at the U17 Canadian National Championships in 2019.
Rowe was selected for Team Canada’s U18 National Team that competed at the 2022 FIBA Women’s Americas Championship, helping her country to the silver medal. It was an opportunity that she believes, to this day, benefits her as a member of the UTSA squad.
“It was really cool seeing different styles of play by the different teams internationally,” Rowe said. “I think I was able to take a piece of that from every single team and bring it to my game. Also, the experience of defending all these different play styles helps me now with learning how to defend each player that I face.”
Her parents have been there for her every step of the way as she’s navigated each level of basketball.
“They’re definitely a different set of eyes,” Rowe said. “Knowing me and knowing how I’m more of a perfectionist, they’ll be like, ‘Okay, you did this, you can look at doing this better.’ And we bounce ideas back and forth of how I need to improve.”
And it’s not just basketball that runs in the Rowe family. Her father, Waine, shared with her a love of reading.
“We were at a bookstore one time and he picked up a book and said, ‘I think you would like this,’” Rowe said. “It was Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. And I loved it. I love fantasy, horror, science fiction, mystery and all of those things. I read every day.”
Rowe’s penchant for reading is well known by her teammates. In fact, for Rowe – who lists The Perks of Being a Wallflower as her favorite book – UTSA’s team trips provide one of the most productive reading opportunities.
“I will take one to three books with me on every trip,” Rowe said. “If I bring three books with me, I’ll finish at least two.”
* * * * *
For a student-athlete who seemingly possesses all the tangible and intangible qualities for success, Rowe – until recently – was missing one major component: confidence.
In her first season with the Roadrunners, Rowe appeared in 30 games, averaging 2.3 points per game and 2.4 rebounds per game. Both Rowe and her coaches believe that her biggest area of growth entering the 2024-25 campaign has been the development of confidence.
“She wasn’t very confident when she got here,” Aston said. “To me, an essential part of why she’s so much better is that we were able to show her what needed to be done to improve. We gave her the tools and she was the one who did the work. Confidence comes from work; it’s hard to get around that.”
As a highly intellectual individual, Rowe benefited from seeing data that supported her performance, good or bad. During the offseason, Aston and her staff keep track of a number of statistics and maintain a leaderboard of which players are making the most shots and what their shooting percentages look like. This past summer, Rowe took more shots than any of her UTSA teammates.
“Numbers make a big difference to her,” Aston said. “Every week, we gave them an update on who is shooting the best and who is getting the most shots up. As cerebral as she is, that really resonated with her. She was able to equate that she wasn’t going to get any better if she didn’t do the work. She was able to gain confidence through her work. Slowly but surely, she is seeing the rewards through the analytical side.”
Rowe credits her coaches for their individualized approach and finding a way to help her break through her confidence block. On the court this season, she has felt the impact of increased self-assurance.
“I’m a very logical person and I like stats, so my coaches would show me the stats and say, ‘Hey, look at this. You’re being productive. Be confident in yourself,’” Rowe said. “Now I’m looking to the basket and I’m actually making passes that I didn’t think I would be able to make before. I’m more willing to do more things now.”
Rowe’s development, Aston says, is a result of her receptiveness to the feedback the coaching staff provided and her commitment to following the process they detailed for her. This season, Rowe has played in each of her team’s 19 games, is averaging 14 minutes per game and has elevated both her scoring average (5.3 ppg) and rebounding average (3.4 rpg) from a year ago.
“She was able to take those ideas that we gave her and she ran with it,” Aston said. “She took it extremely serious and was in the gym non-stop. She is a lot responsible for her own improvement.”
* * * * *
Born with a natural inquisitiveness, Rowe is constantly learning but brushes off the notion that she loves being studious. She says she is driven more by the perfectionistic desire of “getting As” than she is drawn to the classroom.
Rowe is majoring in psychology and minoring in Japanese. She has read extensively about Japanese culture since first learning the language and has immersed herself in the culture as much as one can while living in America.
“I can cook any of the foods,” said Rowe, who lists her favorite Japanese food as Tonkotsu Ramen. “If I was lost in Japan, I would say that I could find my way around.”
Watching Criminal Minds, the CBS series about criminal profilers who work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, while growing up, Rowe was immediately drawn to the field of psychology and knew right away what path she would take following her playing career.
“Oh, that’s a job?!” Rowe said recalling her initial reaction to watching Criminal Minds. “I thought, ‘That’s cool, I like that.’”
She plans a career as a psychologist and says her “big, big dream” is to be a psychologist for NASA.
“At first, I started with an interest in forensics and crimes and then branched out and realized that there’s so much more to psychology,” Rowe said.
* * * * *
In the midst of her second year at UTSA, Rowe has found the home she sought when she first transferred to the Roadrunners. In every sense of the word, it feels to her like a family, including her relationship with Aston.
“Every once in a while, I’ll just pop in her office and steal some of her snacks, so I think it’s a pretty comfortable relationship that we have,” Rowe said with a laugh.
Just like all of her teammates, Rowe has only the ultimate goal in mind. The Roadrunners are focused on winning an American Athletic Conference Championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. To this day, she still viscerally feels the emotions associated with UTSA’s narrow loss to East Carolina in last season’s AAC Tournament semifinals.
“I’m still mad about it,” Rowe said. “That’s the biggest fire I have in me. That’s how much I want it.”
With each game, UTSA seemingly hits a new milestone or breaks a years-old record. Still, Rowe believes that she and her teammates haven’t yet reached their peak.
“We’re not even close to where we can be,” she said. “We’re at a really good point right now, but I feel like we can go so much higher. We can build on every single game. As we have more experiences, we have more knowledge and more tenacity to want to keep going.”