Better Know A Buckeye: Shawntel Rowell
In the 9th installment of our 20 part Better Know A Buckeye series, I decide to take a look at one of the truly unknown recruits in the 2008 class: defensive lineman prospect Shawntel Rowell. While Shawntel Rowell lacks the name recognition of Michael Brewster or any one of the numerous Army All-Americans that grace our class, his commitment was important for one notable reason: He was the first Tarblooder to sign on to the class, thus guaranteeing the Glenville-Ohio State connection that seemingly started with Troy Smith in 2002 would continue uninterrupted. Jermil Martin would eventually decommit from Iowa and commit to Ohio State, but Rowell’s commitment in mid December was refreshing given that Ohio State had struck out on Cordale Scott before him. Moreover, while the recruitment processes of Terrelle Pryor, Zach Domicone and Etienne Sabino have elsewhere been demonstrated to be fanciful and exciting, Rowell’s recruitment process is an interesting story in its own right.
Height: 6’4
Weight: anywhere from 300 to 330lbs, depending on what you read.
GPA: Apparently finished at 2.8
His Recruitment: An early story on a then 15yr old Shawntel Rowell popped up when he had just finished his freshman year at Warrensville Heights HS, where he first attended HS. Naturally, you could take a guess what the story centered around: a 15yr old kid who measured in at 6’3 330lbs could very well be the most sought after lineman product from Ohio by time he was a senior. The story in question here also made reference to his brother Chris, who had committed to Iowa, some of what Rowell expected from himself going into his sophomore year at Warrensville Heights, and, of course, how much he loved the Buckeyes even with his brother signing on to another Big Ten school.
After his sophomore campaign, he transferred to Glenville in Cleveland in time to play his junior year with the Tarblooders. Reasons why are foggy. It’s not uncommon for a kid to transfer to a school like Glenville in order to get better exposure; perhaps Warrensville Heights isn’t the hotbed of recruiting in the Cleveland area (even though David Patterson came to Ohio State from the same school). Nevertheless, Glenville certainly does have the higher profile. I do know that his HS coach at the time — Mooney grad Devlin Culliver — took the job at Painesville Harvey (same HS of incoming ’09 WR Chris Fields) around the same time too. The exodus from Warrensville Heights was not limited to Rowell however. Indeed, at least 5 other kids transferred with him to Glenville from the very same high school, including hopeful walk-on Dawawn Whitner. A message board post on the matter here cried shenanigans at the time, citing promises from Ginn Sr about easier courses to inflate the GPA in order to get those prized D1 scholarship offers. Of course, while everything everywhere should be taken with a grain of salt, this does coincide with what I know would become a latent issue with Rowell: academics. Where he started off at a 2.95 as a freshman at Warrensville Heights, he would slip down into that foggy 2.5 area if my reading is correct, where no level of athletic prowess could earn him a scholarship anywhere. Moreover, he would have to retake the ACT at least once that I know of.
Another issue would become apparent with Rowell: his weight. The 6’3 330 15yr old 
transferred to Glenville at an enormous 370lbs, while adding no more than inch in height. Naturally, none of the mass he added was particularly healthy. Around the Oval best captured the weight problem plaguing Rowell in image included in this post. The weight issue became so problematic for Rowell that it was compromising his playing time in his junior season and threatened to seriously jeopardize it for his senior season, by which time he was playing exclusively on the offensive line. In order to get him back on the field for meaningful stretches, Ted Ginn Sr laid down an ultimatum: lose 70 pounds. Ted Ginn Sr wanted Rowell at around 290-300; coincidentally (or perhaps not), Ohio State wanted him at the same weight in order to give him a scholarship.
These latent problems in Rowell’s development probably cost him much of the fanfare that was expected for him by time his senior year started. Rather than come near the top of the top 20 in Ohio, he was situated at no. 37 by Rivals for the state and no. 58 overall in position in mid 2007. Schools were also reticent to extend him offers. He did pick up an offer from the Illini in March of his junior year1, his first such offer if what I read is correct. Miami of Ohio would offer 3 weeks after the Illini offer. Around mid April, he started to hear from all of the Big Ten schools, and even received some calls from Florida and LSU. Few schools would actually offer, though. By July, his offer list consisted mostly of MAC schools like Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, Toledo and Purdue2. More offers would follow from Boston College, Oklahoma State (Tim Beckman), WVU and North Carolina.
However, from the very beginning, Rowell’s eyes were set on the prize: the coveted Ohio State offer. Ohio State’s staff would remain in close contact but place somewhat rigid conditions on his chances of getting an offer: meet the 290-300lb threshold + improve grades + improve ACT = get an offer. With that in mind, and at least judging by results3, Shawntel Rowell put forward the kind of work ethic necessary to meet these goals that would’ve made me look lazy and uninspired at a similar age. By time his senior season started, Rowell was down to 320 from the 370ish he topped out at. The difference here can be easily discerned in photos taken at a 7 on 7 workout in Akron in August. By late September, Rowell was apparently down to 310. By mid November, Scout.com ran an article that listed him at 305. Rowell would say in an interview with the Plain Dealer that it was rather easy to do when he realized what exactly he was eating. In his words: “garbage”. Rather than pounding his face with fast food and fried food, Rowell’s diet became predicated on green beans, fish, baked chicken, 100% wheat bread, some steak and little carbohydrates. He would also say the transformation of his diet had implications for his leadership qualities on his Glenville team, where he started to stand more upright in the huddle and tame his language around company and otherwise just grow into a man (in his words). At the same time, his GPA was around 2.7, a passable mark for college admissions, and was working on retaking the ACT to further his chances at making the grade for admissions.
Only around this time did Shawntel Rowell get around to scheduling official visits. He expressed interest in checking out Oklahoma State to requite the attention the coaching staff there had given him, but did admit to Scout.com that he wanted to be within a 5hr driving distance of his Cleveland home. He also wanted to look at WVU, where his brother had almost committed, and take a visit to Illinois, the program that gave him his first offer. He did ultimately work out a visit with Ohio State, going down to Columbus on December 8. Afterwards, he expressed interest in going to Illinois the next week, ultimately making the trip on the weekend of the 15th and 16th. He planned on making a decision by National LOI Day.
His Commitment: On December 17, Rowell surprised just about by everyone by committing to Ohio State, becoming the 15th member of the 2008 class. The surprise here was on a couple levels. First, he committed to the Buckeyes before anyone in the recruiting world knew he had an offer. Rowell would tell the Plain Dealer that Ohio State had offered him a little while ago, but Rowell and family kept news of the offer quiet. With the little hype that Rowell received surrounding his recruitment, no one asked and Rowell himself never brought it up. Second, no one expected Rowell to commit when he did. Most everything Rowell had said to that point suggested he wanted to enjoy the recruiting process, consistent with what Ted Ginn Sr preaches about pursuing all options, ultimately leading to a February decision. Instead, Rowell comes back from the Illinois visit and, within 24 hours, commits to Ohio State. Rowell would tell the Plain Dealer that he had grown weary of the questions from friends and family surrounding the recruitment process, knew he was a diehard Buckeyes fan and that the Ohio State offer was the one he coveted the most, ultimately put two and two together and pulled the plug on his recruitment. Third, even though he would say from the very beginning that Ohio State is his dream school, the kind of stipulations put on him by Tressel and staff regarding weight and grades led many to believe he would go to a place like Illinois or WVU, where there were no stringent benchmarks for him.
Looking beyond the surprise factor in his commitment, Rowell’s signaling of his intent to play for the Buckeyes should be welcome on two levels. First, with Ohio State wanging on Cordale Scott4 and facing the prospects of a Tarblooder-free recruiting class for the first time in forever, Rowell’s commitment was the guarantee that the pipeline would continue uninterrupted. Given how good Glenville has been to Ohio State football (Troy Smith, Ted Ginn Jr, Donte Whitner among others), Rowell’s commitment was a sigh of relief on that merit alone.
However, the bigger story for me, at least, is that Rowell’s offer and commitment is one of those rewarding stories of a kid having a plan and executing it to perfection. I don’t mean to paint Rowell as a bad kid, and nobody would say he was ever a delinquent, just that he apparently had fallen behind on academics and fitness. To be clear, though: if Rowell doesn’t meet the stipulated benchmarks, he does not get an offer. Yet, Rowell clearly identified what he needed to work on (grades, ACT, and weight first and foremost) in order to get the Ohio State offer and passed all benchmarks to get the offer from Ohio State’s staff. He carefully monitored his diet beginning his senior season, ultimately dropping around 70 pounds. He committed himself to retaking the ACT to get a passable score and, lastly, put more effort into his academics to bump up his GPA from (at least as low as a) 2.65 (from what Rivals.com reported) upwards to a 2.8, which is that B- average that’s passable for college admissions. Only after tying up these loose ends did he focus on colleges and only after making strides in these did he get the Ohio State offer.
Where He Excels: Rowell was almost exclusively an offensive lineman for his junior and senior season, so finding where he excels as a defensive tackle (where he projects to at Ohio State) is tricky. That said, with some additional conditioning, Rowell could very well become that nose tackle that can take on two guards. I doubt this will happen, but Rowell looks the part and could be the nose tackle Ohio State needs if the defensive coaching staff wants to transition to a 3-4 defense. He’s pretty nimble for a kid his size, and even when tipping the scale over 330, he shows pretty good agility. He has natural athleticism that’s really hard to teach to a kid with that much mass, and could very well develop into the interior monster that, I think, Ohio State has been lacking on the defensive line. I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the line and have to deal with his first step.
Must Work On: Just about everything. I know, I know. I just praised him for a few of the things he’s done well, but with 2 years of offensive line play wrapped in weight management issues, Rowell is a very raw product at the moment. The commitment to lose weight was great, but he’s got a lot left to do to become even more fit for high-end college football. It’s fun to draw attention to him running over people at the second level, but much of this might be a function of him being 330+ while most HS front 7 players on defense top out at 230 or so. Will probably be extensively counseled by Heacock over the years in all things technique. Nevertheless, it should be interesting to watch him, Mobley, Goebel and Simon make life hell for offensive guards in the future.
Redshirt? I don’t know what he will choose, but I really, really think he should redshirt for 2008. Scout teamers end up working the hardest during game preparations, and it’s precisely this type of work that Rowell could benefit from in finetuning his craft. It’s not just technique, either. While Rowell has made incredible strides in conditioning, a full year of conditioning work with Eric Lichter should increase his killing power exponentially. If he’s at or around 300 right now, a full year fixated on conditioning should put him around 310 (of good mass too) and make him a very mean man in 2009. I’m talking about the kind of bad bad man that your mom warns you about as a kid, the one that makes you want to hide under your bed. I think there’s more to be gained for Rowell in redshirting and probably starting his freshman year with (presumed) true freshman John Simon in 2009 while Goebel and Mobley enter the defensive line rotation in 2008.
Highlights: Scouting Ohio again saves the day.
Miscellany: Nickname is “Shaq” as in the hoops star currently with the Phoenix Suns. So nicknamed around the young age of 11 because of his height and size relative to his friends and the idea that he looks older than he is… Older brother, Chris, is currently a secondary player for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Shawntel credits his older brother generously with getting him into football… Worked his way up to the no. 18 rated player in Ohio by the end of his senior season… Had 8 pancakes as an offensive guard and a blocking efficiency of 95 percent… When on defense for his senior year, Rowell tallied 22 tackles, 5 TFLs, and two sacks… Played varsity basketball and participated in shotput and discus at Warrensville Heights… Helped the Tarblooders to a 10-2 record in league, advancing as far as the third round of the playoffs. Had a part time job in his junior year of high school making pizzas at Giorgio’s Pizza in Cleveland (that’s on West 69, right? My memory of Cleveland is a bit hazy.). Admitted that the process of making pizzas made him reticent to eat them himself.
The Quotable Shawntel Rowell Fluff Piece: Sadly, these are hard to come by with most recruits as either they’re just not sourced enough, or they just don’t say enough really cool things to merit me having one of these. Yet, upon his commitment, Shawntel Rowell arguably had the best quote of all members of the 2008 class:
“All the people who were asking me where I was going to play in college will now be able to come down to Columbus and watch me play… I want to show the younger players coming up, and not just the ones at Glenville, that if you live in Ohio, there’s no other place to play than OSU.“
AMEN. Our honor defend, Shawntel.
In the same breath:
“I had a good visit at Illinois, but I feel Ohio State is right for me. I’m from Ohio, so that’s where I belong.“
Elsewhere…
“I love the tradition at Ohio State… I grew up a Buckeyes fan and my whole family would always watch them play.”
So, again, to one of the truly unknown guys in Ohio State’s 2008 class and a guy who almost assuredly does not read this crap, consider yourself Better Known, or something.
- Granted Rowell would justify his offers with his later work ethic, but I still can’t figure out why Zook offered when he did. I’m not sure if there is much a rhyme or reason to his Ohio offers [↩]
- Oh that’s right, I said it. And I’m not taking it back. That said, Rivals said he picked up an offer from the Boilermakers, but Bucknuts says he didn’t. I’m siding with Rivals on this one, though, mostly for the sake of burning Purdue by association. [↩]
- problematic I know, but I don’t feel I’m way off base in praising Rowell here [↩]
- from what I understand: Scott wanted to play WR, Illinois would let him play WR, OSU wanted him at safety [↩]
holy cow, has it been 9 of these already? If what you tell me is true and that these average about 7 pages single spaced, and therefore about 14-15 double spaced, you would have then, what, about 130ish pages or so of 2008 recruiting class ramblings? That’s approaching book manuscript length.
But enough about the Buckeyes, when are you going to talk about you getting chewed out by that trashed single mom at the bar last night
we’re not talking about that. This blog is titled Our Honor Defend, indicating some coverage of the Buckeyes. This is not titled Trials and Tribulations of Vico’s Southern Living.
Come to think of it, I probably will have to start archiving anecdotes of the Alabama experience because a lot of them defy rationality.
Vico, we’re sending you a hooker for your next birthday. But until then, please continue with tales of Southern single moms chewing you out.
I would really like to hear the story about the bar the other night. You could title it “Better Know a Trashed Southern Single Mom.”
I guess I’ll have to say it, because I know Vic won’t talk about it because he’ll be weirded out about it for a while. So I finally force him last night to do something social, we find a bar we haven’t been in yet around Greenbow (which we lovingly call where we live) and have some drinks and some greasy food to go with it. We’re chatting, having a great time, I go to the restroom and when I come back, I notice there’s some little lady chatting him up.
Turns out they were agreeing on most everything and, for once, he didn’t resort to talking about the Buckeyes or his job to try to stimulate conversation. I was proud of him. They were chatting on some miscellaneous things like art and movies or some random stuff. I didn’t pick up on all of it because I was doing my best to eavesdrop without making it too obvious that I was listening in. It took me awhile to figure out that she was hammered (as Vic would tell me later that she indeed reeked of booze), and having a hard time standing in her heels in her inebriated condition.
About an hour later and a couple jager bombs for her later (I think I counted 6), her friend grabs her and says they should probably head out. The lady in question gives Vic her digits and Vic says he’ll call and that they can go out on a date some time later. The lady’s friend then says to her “okay, are you ready to go pick up your kids now?”
Vic uncontrollably and kinda incredulously blurted out “wait, you have kids?”.
And then everything goes to hell.
She whipped around and asked if there was a problem with that, and Vic kind of innocently and politely said that he doesn’t feel like he’s ready to be a father figure to any kids at the moment given that he’s only 23, just started getting into the college loans deal, feels that he has some final maturation that he needs to do for himself and doesn’t make a great deal of money in order to commit himself 100 percent to being a father.
After that, this woman unloads on him in the angriest, hatingest, slurred tirade I’ve heard yet. She calls him a godless heathen for not going to church, and says she’s not asking any guy she dates to be a father to her kids, but just be a “positive role model who gives advice and shit” (I remember that line clearly) and not be some godless heathen “with a potty mouth and no sense of religion or values”, even though all obscenities I heard in conversation were from her since Vic is a rather quiet guy. She scolds him for thinking it ridiculous that he’s not ready to be a father at 23 when she’s a 22 year old divorced mother of a 5 year old and 3 year old (the 5 year old thing had Vic’s jaw hit the floor… mine too.) and doing it just fine on her Piggly Wiggly money. She lunges at Vico’s hand and rips away the piece of paper she wrote her phone number on, tears it up and throws it on the ground ultimately saying how judgmental he is and how he will pay for it in the afterlife. She finished it with “God Bless” and her and her friend stormed out of the bar.
Of course, by that time, everyone was looking at him like he had made some kind of suggestive gesture at her, whereas only I and the bartender heard what happened. The look on Vic’s face was priceless. The best way I could describe it is that look a cat gets on its face when it smells something really funky. He was weirded out and stone quiet the rest of the night.
I don’t think we’re going back to that bar, though. And I know Vico will probably try to delete this comment, but I’ll just keep putting it back. It’s too damn funny.
sigh…
In my defense, I said that because I just kind of think the sole purpose of dating is to establish something long term and that I should be upfront and say that I’m just not ready for that kind of thing. I wasn’t trying to be judgmental, I wasn’t looking down on her for being a mother (I was kind of shocked that she would be going home that drunk to her children, hence the surprised tone when I asked) at her age, I was just trying to say that I wouldn’t want to waste her time if I knew I wasn’t ready to play a role in her children’s lives. Am I wrong?
Also in my defense, isn’t being a positive role model who gives advice (and shit) called… oh I don’t know, being a father (and shit)?
Bah, that sucked. And a lot of help you were Gabby. Btw, she did reek of jager, so I’m guessing there were more jagerbombs before what you or I saw.
The 22yr old-5yr old kid thing still creeps me out.
Anywho, yay Shawntel Rowell. Let’s talk about him and not the endless series of culture shocks that is my Alabama experience.
Classic. And shit.
Nah, as father myself, our job is to scream at them when they are doing something stupid, and slap them upside the head when they aren’t listening to you. I’m from the Ahnold school of child rearing: “Stop Crying!”.
Gotta love that Souther hospitality.
Vico, a bit of advice……next time, don’t say anything and let her leave. As long as you didn’t give her your number then it would have been your choice to call her or not (not to call being the better choice in this situation).
Uhhhmmm….. Shawntel Rowell…..and shit.
lesson definitely learned on that regard: keep my fool mouth shut. But again, in my defense, it was a totally involuntary kneejerk reaction to ask if I heard that right and that she had kids. She looked no older than me and she was clearly intoxicated… and was going back to pick up her kids. Yikes.
And, of course, she doesn’t have my number nor does she know anything that I do other than knowing my first name. So I feel safe in that regard.
Yeah, I probably would have been surprised that someone would get that trashed when they knew they had to pick up their kids. But then again thats probably how she got her kids.