KU Scholar Athlete of the Month: Haley Todd
Haley Makes Big Splash In Pool and Classroom
School: Lafayette High
GRADE: 12 Sports: Swimming
Academics: Haley has a 4.8 weighted GPA, scored 33 on the ACT, has taken 5 A.P. classes, is a Governors Scholar and a member of the National Honor Society.
Parents: Samantha & David
The 18-year-old senior has already accepted a swim scholarship to Bellarmine University in Louisville where she will train as a biochemistry-molecular biology researcher. All star swimmer Haley Todd of Lafayette High is nothing if not diversified.
In fact, she’s already a researcher. As part of the Experience Based Career Education program at school she shadows researchers at UK.
Take a look at her accomplishments: 4.0 student (4.8 weighted GPA), 33 on the ACT, co-president of the Beta Club, Governor’s Scholar, three-year member of the Student Council, peer tutor for freshman English students, member of the National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta (a math honor society), and she’s active in the Calvary Baptist youth group.
Haley is connected to her creative side. An avid reader of fantasy books, she’s also a landscape photographer.
Her first two years at Lafayette, she was in both pre-engineering and the SCAPA creative writing program.
Her studies now are loaded with challenging math and science classes like A.P. chemistry, A.P. calculus and advanced physics. In all, she has taken five A.P. classes.
She maintains this academic schedule while swimming for both Lafayette and the Lexington Dolphins club team.
Mondays and Wednesdays she swims 4:15-7 p.m., Tuesdays and Fridays call for a 5-6:30 a.m. session, Thursdays are 4:45-6:45 p.m., and Saturday mornings cap off the week with 8-10 a.m. session.
Sundays are off, unless there’s a meet, of course. Obviously, Haley is organized and a good time manager.
“She is disciplined, a very hard worker and it all comes from her,” said her mother, Samantha.
“You should see the way she studies. She reviews all her notes, highlights them and then goes back to annotate her previous tests and quizzes.”
Said Haley: “I keep a day planner. With swimming, I’ve never really had much free time, so whatever time I have, I get all my work done.”
Her hard work has paid off in the pool as well. A varsity swimmer since eighth grade, she has advanced to the State meet as an individual and on a relay team every year.
As a freshman, she swam on the 200 freestyle relay team that set a Region 5 record.
In club swimming, she has posted times to qualify for Sectional meets in the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke.
She’s excited about training even harder in college after a strong finish to her high school career.
“I just want to perform the best that I can,” she said.
Seems like she’s already done that.