The kid’s name was Ben. Paul Rowley will never forget him or the lesson learned that day.
It was back at Loudoun Valley High, and Rowley’s shin splints had him in a foul mood. Ben, the basketball team manager, was confined to a wheelchair. He rolled up to Rowley, smiling as always, with a greeting.
“How’s it going?” Ben asked.
“Well,” Rowley replied, “I’ve had better days.”
Ben glanced at the ice bags on Rowley’s shins. “You know,” he said, “it’s days like these I’m glad I can’t feel my legs.”
To say that moment changed Rowley’s life might be overstating it. It was, however, a stinging reminder of how good he had it.
“You know how many (laps) he’d love to run?” said Rowley, William and Mary’s junior forward. “You know how many times he’d love to have Coach yell at him? I just feel so lucky to have this opportunity. To be healthy and in such a great place.
“That moment stuck with me. Some days are hard, but at the end of the day, what a great opportunity I have. The least I can do is appreciate it.”
That he does. Good health, Rowley knows, is often luck of the draw. But “living the dream,” as he puts it, came with hard work and sacrifice — mostly, he insists, from his parents, Sean and Ellen.
Though he shot hundreds of 3-pointers every morning before school began, he thanks them for driving him there. Though he graduated in only three years and is now attending William and Mary Law School, he credits them for providing a gentle nudge.
And though he’s balancing a hectic schedule these days, Rowley asks for no sympathy. He already has a degree in finance and computer science. In two more years, he’ll be a law school graduate — and go into the real world with no debt.
“I’ve got the best job in the world,” he said. “I get an education paid for, which I think we don’t always appreciate enough.
“I don’t know what I wanted out of college basketball when I came to William and Mary. But once I got here, I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere else.”
A 6-foot-8 junior, Rowley has played in 54 games, 13 of which he started. Generally the first player off the bench this season, he’s averaging 6 points and 2.9 rebounds a game. He scored a season-high 13 points in W&M’s comeback win over James Madison Thursday night.
Rowley is a “stretch four,” a power forward who can shoot the 3-pointer. He’s hitting 44.7 percent (63 of 141) from the arc in his career.
For that, he thanks Reginald Kitchen, his first organized basketball coach. Though Rowley was usually the tallest player on his team, Kitchen insisted he learn how to play the perimeter.
“If that didn’t happen, I don’t play college basketball,” Rowley said. “Quite frankly, I’m probably not athletic enough to play college hoops at 6-foot.”
He set the career record for 3-pointers for Loudoun Valley with 148. Nine of those, another school record, came against John Champe High. He graduated third in his class with a grade-point average of 4.51.
Rowley’s first scholarship offer was from Mount St. Mary’s, whose coach, Jamion Christian, is a former assistant at W&M. Harvard and Bucknell also wanted him. But it was the Tribe’s offensive style that lured him.
As a freshman, Rowley planned to take the normal 12 credit hours in his first semester. His parents saw a quicker path if he simply took one more class.
“I told him he could get out in three years if he took a full load plus the summer, because they bring them in for summer anyway,” Sean Rowley said. “‘Why don’t you try taking 15 credits and see how it goes? You can always drop a class.’
“His time management skills are exemplary. He gets that from his mother. He just doesn’t waste any time. If he’s got 15 minutes before the bus leaves, he opens up a book or his laptop.”
Rowley began college with 18 AP credits, which translates to a busy semester’s worth. By taking one extra class every semester and staying for both summer sessions, before he knew it, Rowley had graduated in three years with a 3.73 grade-point average.
And he double-majored. Rowley also became the Tribe’s first men’s basketball player in more than a century to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa, which according to the college’s website “is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious collegiate honor society.”
Rowley redshirted his freshman year after spraining his ankle, so after graduation he still had two seasons of eligibility remaining. He could have gone the grad- transfer route, as many do these days. Instead, he chose a different route.
His sister, Tess, was attending W&M Law School when he arrived on campus. He hung out with her, met her friends and became interested in law. He’s in the first of a three-year program. The first two will be as a player, and he hopes the third will be as a graduate assistant coach.
Rowley, 21, is one of two players in Division I men’s basketball currently attending law school. The other is Pepperdine’s Kevin Hempy, a former walk-on who graduated in four years.
You’d think Rowley averages three hours of sleep and needs a coffee IV to get through each day. Instead, he says he gets eight hours of shut-eye on most nights and avoids caffeine. His goal is to do all his work in the library and bring none of it home.
“Law school has cut into playing video games,” Rowley said. “But I enjoy it.”
He makes it sound so easy. But the schedule and time demands are wearing.
“I do think there have been times this year Paul’s looked really worn out,” W&M coach Tony Shaver said. “You do worry about that a little bit, but I think he’s getting that under control now. He’s carrying a heavy load, that’s for sure.”
He is. And for that, he’s grateful.
“There’s a quote, ‘If I have seen further, it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants,'” said Rowley, reciting Isaac Newton. “And that’s how I feel. I’ve been so lucky.”
Johnson can be reached by phone at 757-247-4649. Follow him on Twitter at @DaveJohnsonDP.
