Hannah Smith, a communication major at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, took the words of her mother to heart when she was recently recognized for her generosity in front of a national audience at a premium sports awards show.
On July 11 in Los Angeles, Smith was honored as a winner of the Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award at the 2024 ESPY Awards for her efforts to create opportunities for athletes with disabilities in and around her hometown of Richmond, Virginia.
“My mom always told me — if you see a need and have the means, fill it,” Smith said. “There was a need (for growth of accessible opportunities) on the East Coast.”
Smith was recognized on the ESPYs stage alongside two other award winners by women’s tennis legend Serena Williams, who hosted the annual awards show.
When Smith learned she had won the award about a month before the ESPY Awards, she was “shocked and grateful.”
Attending several pre-show events in Los Angeles, Smith met sports celebrities and several champions of accessibility and inclusion in sports, including the person who started American sign language broadcasts for National Hockey League games.
“I was so excited to meet everyone at the red carpet at the ESPYs, but what was equally as meaningful was meeting my role models — other people with disabilities who have paved the way for me to even get an award at the ESPYs,” she said.
Drawing on her own experience playing youth wheelchair basketball, Smith teamed with Sportable, a Richmond-based organization that creates sports and recreational opportunities for individuals with physical disabilities and visual impairments, to launch wheelchair basketball camps and clinics and an adult women’s wheelchair basketball team. In 2023, she started the “See It, Be It” social media campaign, which highlights individuals with disabilities succeeding in sports, careers, and everyday adventures to inspire youth with disabilities and those with new injuries or diagnoses to pursue their dreams.
Smith became a part of Sportable when she was 11 and began competing in wheelchair basketball two years later. She remembers playing in her first national tournament at age 13 in Louisville, Kentucky, and feeling a sense of belonging.
“It was a giant building (with) 12 basketball courts, and there were more people with disabilities or using mobility aids than people who weren’t,” she said. “For the first time in my life, for the entire week, no one asked me ‘what’s wrong with you?’ or ‘what’s your disability?’ or ‘why are you in a wheelchair’? They looked at me as competition, not as different. That meant a lot to me.”
As a high school student, Smith immersed herself in wheelchair basketball, playing and coaching with Sportable and speaking at local schools as a champion of inclusivity. During the pandemic, she trained in Richmond with Cor’Rales Dupree, who played for the men’s wheelchair basketball team at UW-Whitewater and graduated with a degree in communication in 2021.
Smith attended wheelchair basketball camps at four different colleges, including UW-Whitewater. She was impressed by the hospitality and care shown by the coaching staff, which at the time included head women’s coach Christina Schwab and head men’s coach Jeremy “Opie” Lade, as well as the other camp coaches, including Warhawk alum Lindsay Zurbrugg, a member of the Team USA women’s wheelchair basketball team playing for Schwab at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
Smith also noticed the way the community supported the wheelchair basketball programs — she saw a schedule poster posted at a local restaurant and knew Whitewater was a place where she would be valued.
Since joining campus, Smith has been a member of UW-Whitewater’s Campus Crusade for Christ and Delight Ministries chapters. She was a member of the Warhawk women’s wheelchair basketball team from 2021-23, earning National Wheelchair Basketball Association All-Rookie Team accolades as a freshman and Academic All-America honors as a sophomore, and was a peer mentor with the First Year Experience office in fall 2023. She has also worked with students in the Pathways for Success and LIFE programs on campus.
After starting as an elementary education major, Smith switched to communication while maintaining special education as a minor. She cited several faculty members who’ve supported her academic journey, including communication faculty Corey Davis and Kathy Taylor and special education professor Rowand Robinson. Smith specifically called out the support of Taylor, who she took a class with in cross-cultural communication.
“Being at Whitewater proves to me every single day that this is where I belong,” Smith said.
This fall, Smith plans to work with the American Sign Language Club to improve her communication skills with those who are deaf and hard of hearing.
She is on track to graduate this December with a B.A. in communication and a minor in special education and a certificate in event planning and promotion.
After receiving her degree, Smith plans to return to the Richmond, Virginia, area — where she’s already made a giant impact — to seek a job incorporating communication and her desire to work with people with disabilities.
Smith looks to continue working with Sportable in wheelchair basketball, including joining the women’s team she helped start. She also hopes to expand the “See It, Be It” project to connect people with disabilities to opportunities for career exploration and athletic development.
For the next year, Smith will engage in the Sports Humanitarian leadership program with current and past winners of the award with the goal of raising awareness and support for her work in accessibility.
Written by Chris Lindeke | Photos by Craig Schreiner and submitted
