In less than a month, Josh Honey-cutt will have the chance of a lifetime.
The 2007 Iola High School graduate will compete in the triple jump in Eugene, Ore., at the U.S. Olympic Trials with his sights set on earning a place on the U.S. Olympic Team bound for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This opportunity for Honeycutt is the culmination of a journey that began long ago, 1,800 miles from Eugene and the University of Oregon’s campus, right here in Iola.
Throughout the week, the Iola Register is releasing a three-part series on Honeycutt’s journey, the first installmaent was in Saturday’s Weekender edition. Today marks part 2.
Josh Honeycutt’s parents did an excellent job of preparing him for competitive athletics, but once he reached high school a realization that strikes many athletes entering that arena occurred.
“I thought I’d end up being fast, because I had developed so fast,” Honeycutt said. “Then my freshman year, I was humbled, because I really wasn’t that fast.”
That hit Honeycutt hard especially in football — a sport he had a complicated love/hate relationship with.
“I played varsity my freshman year and that was scary for me,” Honeycutt said. “It almost made me want to not play football, because I don’t think I was ready physically. When I’m a freshman and I weighed like a buck 45 and you got kids going to college for football and I’m covering wide receivers and tight ends, who are fast and powerful, I was like, this is scary out here.”
Despite his hesitations, Honeycutt knew football was an important sport for the community and more than anything he and his classmates wanted to make their hometown proud.
“We wanted Iola to be good at something,” Josh said. “Years and years of 0-9, 2-7 in football, and only winning three games in basketball one season.”
Today, he credits football for rounding out his athletic profile and helping him develop skills that contributed to other sports.
“Football helped me with the physicality,” he said. “When I was younger, I was really good at flag football. Then I got to eighth grade and played tackle football and the physicality of it was obviously way different.”
Honeycutt stuck with football for three years of high school, giving it up his senior year to focus more on basketball and track in the hope of securing a college scholarship.
“I thought he was a great quarterback, but he realized there wasn’t much of a future in it for him,” Honeycutt’s dad, Phil, said. “Although, he did get some offers.”
Honeycutt admits that his passion for football never matched that for the other two sports.
“I think my love for football waned because of the grind of two-a-days in the heat and the physicality,” Honeycutt said. “I loved the camaraderie of it, I loved Friday nights with the anticipation of it and I loved making highlights.
