It was Fairfield before Richmond, and traveling northwest to Notre Dame and finally landing in Kingston that defined Jenna Slowey’s journey.
The University of Rhode Island’s brand new women’s lacrosse team brought in Slowey to head the Rams team that will begin play in 2025.
The team hired Slowey in July of 2022, three years before competition.
Slowey began her career playing lacrosse as a child before playing throughout high school and into college. Slowey played her collegiate career at Fairfield University from 2010-2014, where she was a team captain while earning all Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference honors in her final season.
Following her graduation from Fairfield, she became a sales associate in New York before beginning her coaching career with a select lacrosse club in her home town of Moorestown, New Jersey.
She moved her way up the ranks before landing at one of Rhody’s Atlantic 10 rivals, the University of Richmond. In Richmond, she began as an assistant coach under Alison Kwolek . With the Spiders, Slowey and Richmond had a 64-16 record, while winning two A-10 conference titles along with two National Collegiate Athletics Association tournament appearances.
Following the 2021 season, Slowey took a job at the University of Notre Dame as the offensive coordinator and the draw coordinator for the women’s lacrosse team. During the time, Slowey ran the Fighting Irish offense. The team ranked 20th in offense across the nation.
While Slowey was at Notre Dame, Rhode Island was searching for candidates to head their new lacrosse program.
Slowey was chosen due to her offensive mind and leadership characteristics, according to athletic director Thorr Bjorn in a release on gorhody.com – something needed when building a program from the ground up.
“It’s been a lot of work, we’re really busy,” Slowey said. “I think the biggest challenge is trying to paint a picture of what we’re trying to do and the message to recruits of what we’re trying to do here.”
Aislinn Sweeney is a fifth-year goalkeeper who transferred from the University of Albany this summer to join Slowey in the process. Sweeney was an America East All-Conference Second Team player in 2022 while being a team captain. She has acknowledged the challenge of the build-up and what needs to be done.
“It definitely has some challenges coming in, with only 15 people when a normal roster is 40. It’s a unique experience not many people get to have,” she said. “The coaches have the opportunity and all of us on the team have the opportunity to make the program our own thing and put a stamp on it.”
Sweeney has seen the growth of the team and how Slowey and her staff are growing the program.
“I think she’s doing a really good job,” Sweeney said. “She has a lot of experience at Richmond and then she was at Notre Dame so she has the experience of what it’s like to be at a top-25 program. She makes us work hard and is pushing us every single day to be better.”
Slowey has seen her team’s effort levels at practice and why the team has been so receptive to getting better every day they get on the field.
“Everyone’s eager, everyone’s excited to be there,” she said. “Everyone wants to get better, a full roster is around 36-38 so with 15 kids there are limited things you can do in terms of running a full fledged practice. We’re really focusing on the fundamentals, footwork, stick work and getting stronger in the weight room.”
The program is inching towards their spring 2025 inaugural season, but for the time being, Jenna Slowey and her staff have more work to do before the team hits the field.