Silverheels was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame as a veteran player in 1997. He lived for a time in Buffalo, New York, and in 1938, placed second in the middleweight class of the Golden Gloves tournament. Along with his brothers and cousin, Russell (Beef), Sid (Porky), and George (Chubby), he also played on teams in Buffalo, Rochester, Atlantic City, and Akron throughout the 1930s on teams in the North American Amateur Lacrosse Association. In 1931, owners of National Hockey League's franchises in Toronto and Montreal created indoor lacrosse (also known as 'box lacrosse') as a means to fill empty arenas during the summers, and playing as 'Harry Smith', Silverheels was among the first players chosen to play for the Toronto Tecumsehs. Silverheels excelled in athletics, most notably in lacrosse, before leaving home to travel around North America.

His father was wounded and decorated for service at the battles of Somme and Ypres during World War I, and later was an adjutant training Polish-American recruits for the Blue Army for service in France, at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Smith and Mary Wedge, and one of the 11 children of Captain Alexander George Edwin Smith, MC, Cayuga, and his wife Mabel Phoebe Dockstater, maternal Mohawk, and paternal Seneca. Silverheels was born Harold Jay Smith in Canada, on the Six Nations of the Grand River, near Hagersville, Ontario.

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