By Mary Lynn Bahr
He’ll tell you he just wants to play basketball. He’ll tell you stories from his LDS mission to Germany. He’ll admit that, like many young men, he is fascinated by weapons and military history. And then, if you ask the right questions, he will recite lines from Chaucer, recount the Battle of Maldon, and explain his honors thesis research on Anglo-Saxon axes. Perhaps the main thing that sets Ryan M. Rowberry apart from other BYU students is his passion for medieval England.
Well, that and his Rhodes Scholarship.
On Dec. 5, 1998, Rowberry, a senior from Henderson, Nev., became the 10th BYU student ever to win the award, which is given to 32 Americans every year. Established in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes, the scholarship covers expenses for two years of study at Oxford University in England. And Oxford’s libraries house a wealth of medieval manuscripts.
An English major, Rowberry has loved medieval literature since he was in 7th grade, when a filmstrip about Geoffrey Chaucer sparked his imagination. So it is natural that at BYU he works with Paul R. Thomas on the Canterbury Tales project, an effort to translate and correlate all extant manuscripts of fragment seven of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. “This has been something I’ve always wanted to do,” Rowberry explains. “I actually have had the chance to see the real thing, to read it, and to not have somebody else tell me what it says.” The job has prepared him well for study at Oxford, where he will pursue an MPhil in “English Studies to 1100.”
Yet Rowberry, an avid athlete who loves to socialize, doesn’t look or sound like a stereotypical medievalist. “I don’t think he comes across as the classic intellectual,” says Barbara Christiansen, a senior English major from Littleton, Colo., who works with Rowberry. “He’s always doing his intramural games and having little social get-togethers. He’s not someone who just spends time with his nose to the grindstone.”
That kind of balance is important. Rhodes intended the scholarship for those who would “fight the world’s fight,” and candidates must have outstanding ability in athletics, leadership, and service, as well as in academics. “I’m a person that has to be with people,” Rowberry says. “And I think that’s one of the things they were looking for.”
Thomas, an associate professor of English, can vouch for Rowberry’s ability. “The Rhodes honor is given to those people who will make a difference,” he says. “And Ryan is one of those people.”
But Rowberry doesn’t want to be a celebrity. The weeks after the award announcement were a bit uncomfortable because, he says, “I didn’t want other students to view me differently because of this. I didn’t want them to think that I thought I was better than them in any way. I didn’t want people to ask me academic questions. I just wanted to play basketball.”
Though he had spent months preparing, he hadn’t fully anticipated how it would feel to win the most prestigious scholarship in the English-speaking world. “A feeling of complete humility and responsibility came over me,” he explains. Most humbling is the divine help he feels he received in securing the scholarship. “In Las Vegas, I knew after that 30-minute interview that I was right with God and I was right with me, that I had done my best,” he says. “I would gladly give up the award if I could keep that feeling with me.”
Rowberry also believes he was fortunate to encounter interviewers who shared some of his interests. The chair of the Nevada state committee was a Chaucer specialist. The regional committee included a man whose professional mentor is LDS; a man whose career focuses on Germany, where Rowberry served his mission; and the woman who roomed with BYU’s last Rhodes scholar, Rebecca Thomas Tingle. “I don’t think anyone can tell me that’s coincidence,” he says.
Not surprisingly, Rowberry feels his scholarship carries a commission: “Wherever I go, I’m the Mormon Rhodes scholar. And I was a bit nervous because now it seems like there can be no level of mediocrity in my life any more.”
Of course, his 3.99 GPA and the praise from professors and coaches suggest that he has never been mediocre. Still, “Rhodes scholar” is a heavy title.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m good enough,” he says thoughtfully. “I know that God wants me there for a reason or I wouldn’t be going. It’s not necessarily to study a manuscript. But maybe it’s to help somebody who because of this award will respect my viewpoint. It feels again like a mission call–like I got called on a different type of mission to Europe.”
Rhodes scholar, missionary, point guard, friend: Rowberry is a regular guy with uncommon gifts and, it would seem, the beginnings of wisdom. “It’s not just for me, and it’s not about me, and that’s the point,” he says. “It’s about what I can do with it to help other people.”