Growing to 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), Rowe was an all-around athlete, receiving all-state football honors as a quarterback, competing in over 100 professional boxing matches, and playing for the Brown Paper mill basketball team that advanced to the semifinals of the national A.A.U.

In 1932, Rowe began his professional baseball career with the Beaumont Exporters, the Texas League affiliate of the Detroit Tigers.

[2] The 1932 Exporters won 100 games and the Texas League championship, with Rowe pitching and future Detroit Tigers teammate Hank Greenberg leading the team in batting.

[5] His rookie season was cut short in July by a shoulder injury sustained while throwing to first base after fielding a bunt.

The team's new player-manager Mickey Cochrane threatened to send Rowe back to minors if the arm did not improve.

[8] He remained with the Tigers but performed poorly early in the season, giving up nine earned runs in 5-1/3 innings in the month of April for an ERA of 15.19.

He began to hit his stride in late May and registered an American League record 16 consecutive wins from June 15 to August 25.

[10] Schoolboy finished fourth in the American League's 1934 Most Valuable Player voting behind teammates Mickey Cochrane, who won, and Charlie Gehringer.

He was known as a superstitious player who carried good-luck charms,[11] including "a magical US Eagle ten-dollar coin" as well as "enchanted copper pieces from Belgium and The Netherlands, a fortunate black penny from Canada and a chipped but still powerful jade elephant from the Orient.

[13] Rowe was loved particularly by female fans for his good looks and public devotion to his high-school sweetheart, Edna Mary Skinner.

During a September 13, 1934, nationally broadcast interview on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show, Rowe asked his fiancee, "How'm I doing, Edna honey?"

The line became famous and the incident endeared Schoolboy to women across the country, but led to relentless heckling from fans and opposing players, who enjoyed taunting him with his own words: "How'm I doing, Edna?"

During his 16-game win streak in 1934, a reporter asked him for his secret, and Schoolboy responded that he would "just eat a lot of vittles, climb on that mound, wrap my fingers around the ball and say to it, 'Edna, honey, let's go.'"[who?]

At the conclusion of the 1934 World Series, Rowe and Skinner were married on October 11, 1934, in a small ceremony in a suite at the Detroit Leland Hotel.

When Rowe appeared the prior day at the County Building to secure his marriage license, he was met by a crowd of fans and reporters and was forced to seek refuge in the chambers of Judge Lester Moll.

He finished the regular season with a record of 19–13 with 21 complete games and a league-leading six shutouts and was selected for the American League All-Star team.

In his first game of the season, he defeated Bob Feller and the Cleveland Indians, holding the Tribe to five hits and two runs in nine innings.

[7] In the 1940 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Rowe lost two games as he gave up seven earned runs in 3-2/3 innings pitched for an ERA of 17.18.

He was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station where his former manager, Mickey Cochrane, put together an All-Star baseball team that included Rowe, Bob Feller, Johnny Mize and Billy Herman.

[25] In one memorable game in August 1944, Rowe hit a double, a triple, and a home run for the Great Lakes team, and the local newspaper reported that "...it was his circuit clout which brought deafening roars from the 6,000 park customers.

The 'Schoolboy' teed off on one of (Gerard) 'Slim' DeLion's slow curves and drove the horsehide straight over the center field fence, a tremendous wallop of at least 450 feet."

[26] Admiral Nimitz threw out the first pitch, and Rowe's Navy team swept the first six games and finally won eight while losing two and tying one.

"[30] Rowe's comeback was cut short in early August when he tore a muscle in his right leg while trying to field a ground ball and was carried to the clubhouse on a stretcher.

I have been laid up with sore arms, pulled shoulder muscles, groin, back, leg and thigh injuries and I also had arthritis.

When he came to the plate in the eighth inning, Rowe ignored manager Ben Chapman's order to take three strikes and sit down, instead swinging the bat with his right hand and pounding a line drive into left field for a single.

[40][41] During his stint as a one-handed batter, Rowe had three hits in five at bats "and was robbed of another blow by a great piece of defensive work.

[4][48] After his playing career ended, Rowe spent the 1952 and 1953 seasons as a roving minor league pitching coach and scout for the Tigers.

[53] Later, Rowe worked as a Tigers scout assigned to cover Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and East Texas.

[54] In March 1957, while helping as an instructor at the Tigers' spring training camp in Lakeland, Florida, Rowe had a heart attack.