Jeff Rowland's not fast.
The funny thing about this season's leading scorer and National Player of the Week is that he accepts his lack of speed. Strike that - he embraces it.
"I'm one of the slowest players out there," he said. "But I play to my strengths, and those make up for it."
In a game that rewards forwards for their speed, Rowland is not just smart - he has a 3.76 GPA - he's brighter than a UV tanning bed. He sees plays before they develop. Watch him in a game and his head is constantly scanning the field, looking for where he can abuse teams from next.
Head coach Jeremy Fishbein says Rowland's intelligence is as much an attribute as his physical ability.
"He's a really smart player," he said. "And if you add that to his knack for scoring goals, you are going to have great success."
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His clairvoyance is only half of the key to his propensity for finding the net. He prides himself in fighting harder - "scrapping" as he calls it - than anyone.
"I work my butt off, because it's not like it comes easy to me," Rowland said. "That's the attitude that I have to play with."
Opposing defenses have Rowland's number. They have to. Yet he still scores goals as if he were stockpiling for the winter.
In just six games, Rowland eclipsed his goal total from last season when he was the leading scorer on the team. With eight goals, he's fifth in the nation in goals scored and six ahead of the second-highest scorer in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Now here's the best part - Rowland wasn't even recruited by UNM. Actually, he wasn't recruited by anybody.
"I didn't have an offer from anyone - not a single one," Rowland said.
When Rowland finally did try out for UNM, he was positive he was going to be cut. He said the team already had 26 players and no reason to take him.
"The coaches were going to cut me, because I didn't impress them enough," he said. "But I told them that they would be making a huge mistake if they let me go, and that I would do anything to stay on the team."
Fishbein said he saw the heart Rowland was willing to give and decided he was worth the chance.
"He was determined to succeed," Fishbein said. "We didn't recruit him, but he didn't care. He was going to work as hard as he could to make it."
Rowland has had to show a lot of people he is capable of playing at this level. He knew it when he came to the team, and he knows it now.
"It's always been my goal to keep playing soccer," he said. "I knew I could always do it and that I would succeed if I could just step up and prove it to myself."
Rowland loves soccer - he would even say he yearns for it. "My passion is soccer," he said. "It's my No. 1 priority. The most important thing for me to do is to go out there and have fun."
Just one month into the season, it's safe to say the fun is just beginning in this Cinderella story.
