AKRON, N.Y. — To be on the cover of an edition of Sports Illustrated? That’s pretty cool, but extremely hard to pull off. No less important, Sports Illustrated is putting out a March sub-edition in March and a 10-year-old from New York is your official cover athlete for it.
After Super Bowl weekend, a girl named Honor Smoke’s life has changed forever.
“A lot of people come up to me and say, like, ‘are you that wrestler?’ ” she said.
The cover athlete for a Sports reIllustrated, a project by SI and Dove, Smoke has more than moves on the mat.
“I do cheerleading, soccer, basketball and wrestling,” she listed.
But laced up one-on-one is where she really excels.
“It challenges me and it encourages me kind of to do my best in things,” she said.
Honor has a whole arsenal of maneuvers but we wanted to know her go-to against the competition.
“The three-quarter [nelson]. That’s my one of my favorite ones,” she said excitedly.
“It was more so just showing off her move and then challenging her to hit it in a mat,” said her coach among others at the Akron Wrestling Club, Jason Chase.
“She tried it and didn’t succeed. She was like, ‘what am I doing wrong?’ ” Honor’s mother Brittany remembered. “So coach pulled her aside and said, ‘this is how you do it.’ She did it, she jumped up and down and couldn’t believe that she did it.”
Coach Chase may have helped her nail the nelson but also saw potential early on.
“Honor had some skills that would definitely help her in the sport of wrestling,” he said. “Her toughness, her willing to compete and her ability to learn moves.”
Brittany saw the potential well before Honor ever put on a singlet.
“It means everything to a small child that is running around the whole house, especially in the winter,” she said. “There’s nothing to do so it’s a perfect outlet for any young age to get out some of that energy.”
The whole process putting Honor’s name up for consideration and Sports Illustrated heading to Western New York to highlight a bright young Indigenous athlete.
“It’s been big for our small town of Akron, our reservation. It’s been amazing,” Brittany said. “I don’t want to say it’s been a lot, but, a lot — a little overwhelming.”
It’s something that Honor will take a few years to fully understand what these images and the extra attention means for those here around the country.
“She’s happy to share her overwhelming love and passion for wrestling,” said Brittany.
“Even since Honor’s article, we’ve had some more girls kind of reach out and try to join the club, The numbers in wrestling are really, really good,” said Chase.
“It feels good that I’m able to help other girls and other boys or whatever to know that they can do their very best and never give up,” said Honor.
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