WNY Girl Youngest Person On Cover Of Sports Illustrated

A 10-year-old girl in Western New York is the youngest person to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I love to see young people from WNY honored, especially by such a huge platform like Sports Illustrated. She was one of 10 young ladies featured during the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Dove and Sports Illustrated created 10 Sports reIllustrated covers featuring each of them, which were then given out during the Super Bowl and featured online.

READ MORE: 32 People Were Arrested In Niagara County This Week

Credit: WKBW TV | Buffalo, NY via Youtube

Honor Smoke, a 10-year-old girl from WNY was featured as a partnership between Sports Illustrated and Dove. At 10, Honor is the youngest person to make the cover of Sports Illustrated, which has been around for 70 years. Honor is from the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, which is an Indian reservation of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation located here in WNY.

Honor's sport of choice is wrestling, and she is really good at it (obvi, that's why she is on the cover of Sports Illustrated). She has been wrestling for 3 years and is the New York girls' state champion in her weight class. As if being a wrestling champ isn't enough, Honor also plays basketball and participates in cheerleading, according to Dove. Honor usually trains with and competes against boys in wrestling. Honor doesn't have an issue with wrestling against boys, it's par for the course,

“If there’s a girls' bracket, then I normally wrestle in that bracket, too. But I normally wrestle in the boy’s bracket.”

READ MORE: Trump Is Suing New York Over Immigration

Honor says she plans to continue wrestling and even wants to represent the United States at the Olympics one day. Honor is already on her way; she won first place at the 2024 New York Wrestling Association for Youth State Championships. Her mother Brittany Smoke says,

“Our community is very supportive of Honor and all of her achievements. They’re always rooting for her and asking when her next meet is.”

Get our free mobile app