Hailey Pardieck, New Palestine Junior High student, was named the Indiana state youth female referee of the year by the Indiana State Referee Association (ISRA)
Hailey Pardieck, New Palestine Junior High student, was named the Indiana state youth female referee of the year by the Indiana State Referee Association.
NEW PALESTINE — When she’s not slinging arrows for the archery team or running track and playing soccer for the Dragons, Hailey Pardieck, an eighth grader at New Palestine Junior High School (NPJHS), is working hard at being a referee.
While those around Hailey say she excels at pretty much everything she takes on, she was recently recognized in a field not many know she’s even a part of. Hailey was recently honored for her outstanding work as a soccer referee.
Due to her hard work, attention to detail and willingness to learn, Hailey was chosen as the Indiana state youth female referee of the year by the Indiana State Referee Association (ISRA). She picked up her award Saturday at the annual awards gala.
“I was really surprised to win the award because I’ve only been a referee for a year,” Hailey said. “But, I’ve been working really hard to improve my game, and just being able to earn that award shows me how hard work really does play off.”
The hardest part of being a referee, Hailey noted, isn’t making tough calls in close games with players who are older and bigger than she is, but it’s when she has to tell the players the game is over.
“I always want to keep the game going because it’s so much fun out there,” she said with a laugh.
Tony DeLois, State Director of the ISRA, noted it’s great when young people want to get involved in being a ref, particularly young girls because soccer needs more female referees.
“When we see someone like Hailey, who has that desire to get out there and ref, we want to work with them and train them the best we can,” DeLois said.
DeLois noted that while Hailey is often one of the smaller athletes on the field when she’s playing, it’s different when she’s on the field as a ref where she actually stands out.
“She walks onto the field and she’s in control and kind of bigger than life,” DeLois said. “It’s amazing how someone that small can demand such presence, but she does.”
While Hailey has excelled on the NPJHS soccer team — and also plays on in a Premier soccer league for the FC Pride Club — Steven Pardieck, her father, who is also a referee, got Hailey into being a ref and said Hailey has learned everything about what it takes to be a good referee and, to no one’s surprise, she has excelled.
“She controls a game like no one I’ve ever seen,” her father said.
Before, after and in-between club and tournament soccer games, the family can always find Hailey on the fields carrying out referring duties. While Hailey will never be the biggest athlete on the field, she’s always going to step up and take control as a referee or player, her father said.
“Hailey was refereeing a match between older players, but somehow she didn’t even let that bother her,” he said. “She instead did her job and called a great game.”
He noted it was impressive to see how she wasn’t intimidated at all by the older players.
“She’s just got this determination about her when she decides she wants to do something, and being a referee is no different,” her father said.
An example of this is when Hailey was younger and playing basketball with her dad as coach of the team. Hailey was far too small to try and shoot a 3-point shot and her dad told her so. But, the message didn’t sit well with Hailey. She spent the offseason working with a heavy medicine ball to build her strength so when the next season started she could walk onto the court and drain a 3-point shot, which she promptly did.
“That next season, she came out and started firing away with 3-pointers,” her dad said with a laugh. “She did it all on her own too.”
Her principal at NPJHS, Jessica Neill, said while she knew Hailey was a good student and a great part of the junior high, she didn’t know Hailey was as accomplished as she is in pretty much everything she does on the field.
“I do know that she is an amazing kid,” Neill said. “We love her at NPJHS because she works so hard at everything she does.”
When it comes to either playing soccer or being a ref on the soccer field, Hailey admits that she likes them both and plans to do both when she heads to New Palestine High School next year.
“I want to play on the high school team, but then also be a ref at the middle school level,” Hailey said.
Her long-term goal is to play and referee soccer all the way through college and then maybe end up as a ref at the professional or even the World Cup level.
“That’s the goal,” Hailey said.
