Cowher blazing her own path

Her father was an MVP linebacker at North Carolina State and is now entrenched in Pittsburgh, the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL. Her mother and aunt are twins who played professional basketball for New York in the Women's Basketball League. Her aunt went on to coach basketball at the collegiate level.

For anyone else, this might seem like a lot to live up to. But freshman forward Meagan Cowher is a star in her own right.

Cowher leads the women's basketball team in scoring and rebounding with 12.8 and 5.7 points, respectively. She sits No. 1 in the Ivy League in field goal percentage and has earned Rookie of the Week honors four weeks out of seven.

But given her pedigree, the success is not all that unexpected. A look at the Cowher family tree would test the resolve of anyone claiming athletic genes don't exist.

"We're pretty competititve," Cowher said. "We've had some matches in the driveway that were pretty intense. My mom played professionally. My dad played in high school, but my mom was probably my mentor growing up."

It's not just Meagan who the talent has been passed on to. Younger sister Lauren, a senior in high school, is a point guard currently being recruited by Princeton.

Heralded Recruit

Although the choice does not seem like a choice at all now, Cowher had trouble deciding between Georgetown and Princeton for college. The Tigers have spent the last few seasons in the cellar of the Ivy League, while the Hoyas play in the powerful Big East Conference.

Ultimately, she chose to become a Tiger precisely because of its deemphasis on sports and because it was rebuilding the team.

"Princeton hasn't done so well the past few seasons, and this season was supposed to be the year to set up. I really wanted to be a part of that and find where I can fit in," Cowher said. "And I'm very, very happy with it. It's been great socially, academically. I'm a person first, not a basketball player."

But like any freshman, the transition was not without its share of difficulties.

"One of my biggest worries was finding my role on the team," Cowher said.

Cowher's fears were well founded, considering the Tigers returned all five starters from last season. But it didn't take long to see that Cowher belonged on the court.

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Standing 6-foot, 1-inch tall, Cowher bring a rare combination of height and athletic ability to the court. In her high school career, she scored 1438 points and grabbed 602 rebounds, both second-best in her school's history.

"I think I bring athletic ability to the team," Cowher said. "Run, jump, etc. We haven't really seen a lot of talent in the past couple of years. We're all kind of guard-slash-forward-slash players."

In her collegiate debut, she earned her first double double of the season en route to a 57-52 win over Monmouth.

She's been on a roll ever since, including a performance in which she broke the previous freshman scoring record in a home game set in 1976 by putting 28 points on the board against St. Peters. Junior guard Becky Brown holds the freshman record in an away game, with 31 points against Columbia in March of 2003.

Princeton (7-5) has needed every bit of her production. The Tigers suffered through a shaky start to a much-anticipated season. Picked to finish only seventh in the league, they'd hoped their talented freshman class would help them exceed expectations. In its first seven games, however, Princeton only managed two wins.

"We started out pretty tough," Cowher said. "We played two ACC teams. We played Rutgers, who's now fourth in the country. Now we're better evenly matched."

Indeed, the Tigers are now sitting on a five-game winning streak, pulling them to a 7-5 record — good enough to currently place them third in the league.

"Before we went out there afraid to lose," Cowher said. "Now, we're out to win. I'm glad we got to play the tough competition early in the season. Against good teams, our weaknesses are pretty blatant. We found out where we stood really quick."

But the work is far from over.

"We definitely have high expectations," Cowher said. "I haven't played against an Ivy League team yet, so I'm really excited about that. We've already reached our total wins from last season, and we're not going to do anything but get better. We expect to be contenders."