LOGAN – Hallie was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of six but she hasn’t let that stop her from enjoying life.
Halllie Smith is a goalie for the Sky View girls soccer team. Not only is she battling seizures and other soccer teams in Region 11 for the Bobcats, but she is also in the Sports Illustrated Youth Athlete of the Year competition.
Hallie is now 15-years old and is a goalie for the Sky View High School girls soccer team.
“She is an identical twin. Hallie loves soccer. She loves to sleep. She likes shopping,” said Darcy Smith, Hallie’s mother.
Hallie has two kinds of seizures: focal and grand mal.
Focal seizures are where Hallie forgets where she is and who she is and is unable to communicate.
Grand mal “are the big seizures that everybody always thinks about,” Darcy explained, “and when they hear the word seizures.”
Darcy and Hallie have tried all kinds of medicine, to pharmacy and natural substances but none have worked. Hallie was considered to be “medicine resistant.”
An RNS device (upper right hand corner of scan) was placed on Hallie Smith’s brain to help her cope with seizures.
At 14 years old, Hallie’s care team decided it was best to try a device called RNS. This device takes up to two years to see improvement in the seizures Hallie is having.
They had the surgery to put this device in her brain last November of 2024, creating an incision that spanned from ear to ear on her scalp. It has been less than a year since Hallie had the device in her brain and according to her mother her seizures haven’t improved, but “they’ve just changed. So it kind of created new seizure patterns.”
14-year old Hallie Smith underwent a procedure to implant a device on her brain to help her with seizures.
Through all the ups and downs Hallie and her family has experienced, her mother says “She was just like, I know this is the best option. I’m super hopeful. I know it’s gonna work. Like, this is for the best. Like she just, she’s a super strong kid.”
Darcy’s mother came across a Sports Illustrated Youth Athlete of the Year competition and entered Hallie into the competition.
“We saw this competition through the Youth Athlete of the Year, and we just thought, ‘what better way to show Hallie kind of the support and the love she has around her.’”
Hallie has made it through to the quarter finals; Darcy and Hallie both hope to make it to the finals.
Before Hallie played soccer for her Sky View, she was a dancer.
“She used to dance, but with her seizures, the lights, all that stuff, it was just too hard to do it all, so she switched to soccer. And it’s kind of her outlet. It’s the one place she feels truly confident, in the goal for sure,” said Darcy.
Hallie Smith
Soccer has now become Hallie’s safe place, where she knows she will be supported and still plays with all her heart.
“She knows she has nine girls on the field that have her back and are going to take care of her until it’s over and she is either on the sideline cheering them on or if she can come back out and join them again.”
Voting for semifinalists in the Athlete of the Year contest ends September 18th. Youth Athlete of the Year will be featured in a 3BRAND ad in Sports Illustrated and take home $25,000