One of Garland County's top basketball players is returning to take the hardwood in Garland County as a member of the National Park Nighthawks.
Imani Honey, who helped lead the Hot Springs Lady Trojans to their fifth state title, recently signed to join head coach Marvin Moody's Nighthawks.
The Mountain Pine native said that she gets frustrated about the fact that people say that she is from Hot Springs.
"I love Hot Springs," she said. "There's nothing wrong with it, but I'm from Mountain Pine, Ark. ... That is where my heart is -- all the way. I will always be a Red Devil at heart."
Honey originally signed to continue her basketball career at Harding, but things did not work out the way she planned.
"I just didn't feel like I fit there," she said. "I wasn't making very many friends, and I was just really emotional. I don't think it was the being away from home part. ... I missed home, but I feel like if I would have made the friends that I needed and had people that I felt like were there for me, then it would have been better.
"I just didn't feel the fit. That's pretty much what it was. When you're crying yourself to sleep every night and sad, you know, 'This isn't right for me.' I couldn't be miserable trying to focus on school. Because school is the big part of it. If I can't focus on school, then there's no reason for me to be there."
While basketball has been a big thing for Honey, she is more focused on an education because "basketball might not work out for me in the long run."
"There's no guarantee that I can play professionally and get paid for it," she explained. "I have to have something to fall back on. If I can't make the grades in the classroom or succeed that way, then there's no reason."
Honey knew that she would be leaving at the end of her first semester at Harding, so she did not really work with the basketball team there. She quit the team after the first week of practice.
"They felt like I was being selfish for not staying, but in my opinion, I felt like it was the best to do because I don't want to get their hopes up or make them think I can help them and I'm not doing my best," she said. "I didn't want to try my hardest. I didn't want to do my best because I know I don't want to be here. I just felt like that would hold them back and let them down in the long run."
After leaving Harding, Honey started taking classes at National Park because she didn't want to sit out a semester.
"When people sit out, that's when they don't want to go back anymore; they get comfortable," she said. "So I started at National Park, and Marvin was just huge to me. To know that I could be home and get school paid for still because my ACT score was high enough for National Park to cover it and play basketball, that's a plus.
"Now I'm getting to work, stay home with my mom, help her out, help my dad out, help my brothers and my little sister then do what I need to do as well. That's just amazing to me."
Honey also has a strong connection to her new head coach.
"Marvin is a huge deal," she said. "He's always been there for me, always supported me."
While he is the father of her best friend, Nya, the relationship goes back further than that.
"I don't even know how he would pop up, but I know I would see him, and I knew he was Marvin," she said. "He would stop and pull me to the side and be like, 'Hey, you need to do this, this and this,' trying to make me a better player."
Returning home to Garland County brings Honey closer to an old friend that actually got her started in basketball -- Summer Godwin.
Basketball was not Honey's first love. In fact, the former gymnast and cheerleader wanted to play football.
"I really did gymnastics and cheer," she said. "That was my main thing. Then I started doing football. I wanted to be a football player so bad.
"I would go practice with my cousins, and my uncle Charles Nevels, he used to let me practice with them. We'd beg my dad to let me play, and he'd be like, 'OK,' but as soon as it was time, he'd be like, 'Naw because I don't want to have to hurt nobody if they tackle her too hard or something.'"
Godwin, who will be starting her sophomore season as a guard for the Nighthawks, brought Honey a form to sign up for basketball.
"I had shot the ball before; I had been in the gym before," Honey explained. "It wasn't like basketball was new to me, but I just didn't want to play. When she did that, we just started, and it was just love. We had so much fun."
Honey describes Godwin as her "best, best, best, best, best friend."
"Nothing against Nya [Moody] though, but Summer is the original, best-friends-since-birth thing," she said. "I know me leaving, she wanted what was best for me, but me leaving probably really hurt her. I was one of those that [when] Summer sometimes felt like she wasn't good enough or couldn't do enough, and I was one of those like, 'Summer, you can do it.'"
The young basketball team that starred Honey and Godwin was unstoppable.
"We won so many games," Honey explained. "I know that group, we went undefeated the whole time I was at Mountain Pine. ... From second grade to eighth grade, we never lost a game, not one game. There is not one team that can say they beat that team that started as peewee with Derrick [Walker] all the way to a junior high conference championship."
Despite the winning ways, there were some outside factors that led to Honey transferring to Hot Springs School District.
Part of it was the fact that coach Jimmy Hancock was leaving at the end of her eighth-grade year.
"We didn't know who was going to come in next," she said. "The next year, at Mountain Pine, I would have been playing senior high basketball. They wanted everything to be in shape, and at Mountain Pine, it all wasn't going to fall into place like it should. ... If coach Hancock had stayed, I probably would have because like my mom says, 'You can get an education anywhere.' Graduating, as long as I have a diploma, it's fine. We just didn't know how stuff would pan out after him leaving."
Honey had also gotten to the point that she did not feel as if she was being challenged enough in her classes, and her brother was struggling with some learning disorders that could be better addressed at a larger school district.
"Hot Springs had the tools to help, which is probably the biggest reason out of all of them, now that I think of it because my brother really did need that," she said. "He needed that. He has grown so much since having that. ... If I was leaving, I had always said that would be the only other school I'd go to. I had family members that graduated from there, so we knew about how Hot Springs was."
Honey said that she is excited to be able to play with her oldest friend again.
"It's just going to be really fun," she said. "I'm ready to see her. I'm ready to push her to be better because I know she's kinda fell off a little bit. ... She can be a lot better, and I'm ready to get her to that point and make her believe in herself. That'll be exciting. I'm really ready for that."
Honey is one of those players who encourages all those around her to be their best and pushes them. That's why she feels that she can help the Nighthawks claim their first championship.
"I'm really big on making everybody around me better," she said. "I just like to see everyone do well. That's a big thing for me. If I can do something to make each person better, then that's something that I would love to do. I feel like if we have that kind of energy with making each other better, then yes, we have a huge shot of bringing a championship to National Park."
Sports on 06/20/2019