From Ice to the Diamond
South Carolina Softball’s Arianna Rodi swings a big stick. Fortunately for the Gamecocks, she is still swinging a bat instead of a hockey stick.
The junior first baseman, who transferred from Charlotte last summer, was a three-time high school state champion hockey player in Rhode Island and also won a state championship in softball. Giving up one sport to pursue the other wasn’t an easy decision.
“What I liked about hockey is that everyone in my family played it,” said Rodi, who started playing both sports when she was four years old. “My brother, my sister, and my dad played it. Hockey was something in my family that got us all involved. I just liked the drastic difference between softball and hockey. It was a nice break in the wintertime to go to the ice rink and work out some different muscles in my body. The balance between softball and hockey was really beneficial for me. I still watch it on TV sometimes and think, ‘Wow, I used to play that!’”
Rodi noted that playing different sports prevented burnout.
“What helped me most was mentality-wise,” Rodi said. “Hockey is such a draining sport. You’re continuously moving and it’s a lot more physical. That toughness has helped as I moved over to just softball.”
When she decided to drop the hockey gloves, not for a fight of course, and keep the softball glove, she looked for warm weather, beginning her career at Charlotte.
“I wanted to be in a place where I wasn’t limited by external factors,” Rodi said. “There was a time where I started getting some interest to play college hockey, but I always knew that softball was my sport.”
Rodi was a defenseman in hockey, and while she’s a solid defensive first baseman in softball, it’s her offensive numbers that jump out. She earned first team All-American and All-Conference honors last year, hitting .353 with 22 HR, which ranked fifth nationally, and 55 RBI.
“After my freshman year and my welcome to the big-league moments, I figured I needed to be more consistent with defense and getting on base,” Rodi said. “The biggest shift was learning to be consistent in all aspects of the game and that every at bat matters.”
“I like the atmosphere that the whole university has. The support that the outside world has for this athletics program is huge.”
When Ashley Chastain Woodard was hired away from Charlotte to become South Carolina’s new head coach last spring, Rodi knew she wanted to follow her to Columbia.
“Once I found out she took the job, I told her, ‘I want to come with you,’” Rodi said. “It was an easy decision from there. The entire coaching staff has been with me since I committed in my junior year of high school, so the trust factor has always been there. Maybe it was a sign that I was meant to be here.”
Several other Charlotte players transferred to South Carolina as well.
“The friendships made it a lot easier to come here,” Rodi said. “Before we made our decisions, we talked about doing this together. Some people put the label on us as ‘the Charlotte transfers.’ The biggest breakthrough we had was breaking those labels as a team. We all came from different places, and now we all have the same uniform on. We all have the same goals as a team – win an SEC Championship and make it to the Women’s College World Series. It was good at the beginning to have all those others from Charlotte, but now I have so many more friendships. I like the atmosphere that the whole university has. The support that the outside world has for this athletics program is huge.”
Rodi would like to work in a university athletics department some day in strength and conditioning, perhaps working with a softball or hockey team.
“Hopefully, one of those two,” Rodi said with a smile. “I’m open to any other sport though.”