The University of Rhode Island women’s rowing team has won two Atlantic 10 championships over the past three years, and a member of both championship teams has been fourth-year Hailey Pardi.
Pardi was named to the 2023 Atlantic 10 second team; she has been rowing in the Varsity 8+ boat since her first year at URI. Along with having been in stroke seat in the past, Pardi has been a crucial part of URI’s success on the water according to URI Head Coach Shelagh Donohoe
“I’ve seen Hailey grow tremendously from when she was a senior in high school until now,” Donohoe said. “Every year she’s progressed and this year she’s a captain of our team and she does a great job of leading the team.”
Pardi grew up about an hour away from Kingston in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She attended Marine Science Magnet High School in Groton, Connecticut, where she won rowing team MVP in 2019 and set her school’s two-kilometer record.
“I played sports all throughout middle school,” Pardi said. “But my brother was the captain on our high school team for rowing and said, ‘you should try this,’ and once I found out I was pretty good at it and I started looking at colleges for it.”
Pardi had a unique recruitment process that was impacted by COVID-19 guidelines that were still in place for most of it. This limited Pardi’s ability to be able to visit schools in person along with coaches having to do most of the recruiting virtually.
“I really fell in love with the team,” Pardi said. “I knew I was gonna be able to succeed here, just seeing the mindset from the team and coach Donohoe, [I knew] that I would be able to push myself here.”
Pardi will be a team captain for the second year in a row this upcoming season. Out of the 47 members of the team, Pardi is one of only six fourth-years and is considered a leader on what is a team consisting of mostly underclassmen.
“Hailey is somebody who isn’t afraid to use her voice, which a lot of people that age are not comfortable doing,” Donohoe said. “Hailey can do both, she can lead by example. She is consistently one of top finishers on the rowing machine. But If something hard needs to be said she’s not afraid to step up and say it, and that’s a skill.”
With all of the team’s success under coach Donohoe over the last 18 years, including 10 A-10 championships and nine A-10 Coach of the Year honors, a winning culture seems to have been built at URI, one that Pardi wants the younger teammates to understand and buy into.
“Good teams are coach-led, great teams are athlete-led,” Donohoe said. “We have a legacy with the program, there’s an expectation that comes with that. I think the older ones teach the younger ones how they can continue to get the championships to come back to Rhode Island.”
Pardi will be looking to cap off her collegiate rowing career with her third A-10 championship in the spring, as the Rams will try to defend their A-10 title. The next time the Rams will be in action will be this Saturday at the Henderson Boathouse in Boston, competing in the Foot of the Charles to close out the fall season.