Former Native Youth Olympic standouts are giving back to the next generation as officials

At the 2022 Native Youth Olympics Senior games, Eden Hopson placed first in the Alaskan high kick and one-hand reach. It marked her 10th and final year competing at NYO.

This year, she’s back at the games and participating not as an athlete, but as an official.

“It’s definitely interesting seeing the other side of what the games are like,” Hopson said. “I feel like I can encourage them in a completely different way.”

She always wanted to give back to the games and culture that helped foster her growth as an athlete and, more importantly, as a person.

While she wanted to coach initially, after there were no openings that she could find, she pivoted to officiating.

“I decided to become an official just to help out with the games in any way that I could,” Hopson said.

As the daughter of former NYO athlete Joanna Hopson, she grew up watching the games before she participated. Being able to pay it forward to the next generation is very important to her.

“Just to know that I can help out my community in any way is something I hold dear,” Hopson said.

Working alongside several of the former athletes that she idolized growing up as fellow officials has been a “very cool” experience.

“They’re who I strived to be and I feel like I can be that for younger athletes on the officiating side,” Hopson said.

Nicole Johnson competed in the games over three decades ago while attending Nome-Beltz High School from 1982-1987 and held the women’s two-foot high kick record from 1985 to 2014. She still holds the women’s record for the same event at the Arctic Winter Games.

While her competing days are long gone, she has remained involved with the games as a coach in Nome, Fairbanks and Anchorage before transitioning into officiating in 1998.

“As an official I still coach everyone out on the floor,” Johnson said. “It’s a passion. When we first started these games, we volunteered and it’s grown so much that they had to find funding so now I actually get paid for something I love to do.”

She has been the head official for the games since 2004. Her videos demonstrating how to perform each event and explaining the cultural significance of them played on big screens at the Alaska Airlines Center on Thursday and can be found on YouTube as well as the NYO website.

“There’s so much love, community and support behind the tradition of Native games no matter what event you go to,” she said. “It could be this big statewide event, it could be the invitationals, Arctic Winter Games, World Eskimo and Indian Olympics, or Northern American Indigenous Games in Canada. It’s all the same.”

Unlike many sports, the tradition-based games are much more about being supportive than being competitive.

“Everybody supports each other, it’s a very positive environment and they take these experiences they learn from one another and from the coaches and officials who have been around the games and use those skills that they’ve been taught through the games for the rest of their lives,” Johnson said.

Johnson said NYO wants to expose as many people as possible to the games, not only Indigenous people. There are a broad range of cultural backgrounds among the participants at NYO.

“We want everybody to know about our games,” Johnson said. “The more that we can spread the love of our games and the sense of community with our games, the better the community is.”

She said whole purpose of the games is to preserve and pass down the traditions, culture and heritage.

“Everybody had to work together so working together is what these games are all about and sharing the experience,” Johnson said. “You had to go further and go faster to survive back then. If you were out with somebody, you want them to be just as tough and strong and smart as you.”