Although people have doubted Baileigh Sinaman-Daniel, she continues to prove why that’s a mistake. When she was just a kid, she fell in love with basketball — her childhood idol, LeBron James, played a huge role in this. So, by the time Baileigh entered high school, she was sure she wanted to join the basketball team. But her time on the team was cut short, all because she was born with one arm.
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“I had played for my high school for about three years and my senior year of high school when I tried out again, as I always did, I actually got cut,” Baileigh shares, “and the coach basically told me that I wasn’t needed on the team.”
For two whole days, Baileigh was absolutely devastated. But her view on the situation shifted with a realization: What’s stopping her from playing basketball in college? So, more determined than ever, Baileigh put herself out there by “emailing hundreds of coaches,” no matter their team’s division.
Meet Baileigh, the Basketball Player with One Arm Who is Making History
As a result, she spent her first two years of college as a guard for Warren Wilson College. But it wasn’t until she transferred to Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts that she made NCAA Division III history. Thanks to Baileigh’s skills and determination, she became the first women’s basketball player with one arm, in her division, to score in a collegiate game! Hear her talk about this moment in the video below.
“It is not very common to see somebody with one arm playing basketball,” Baileigh says. “I think there’s probably about two or three of us in the collegiate level.”
For this reason, Baileigh’s accomplishments are all the more important. Representation matters, and it’s something that this talented basketball player and the rest of her team hope to see more of with time.
“We’re showing that we can both win and have really high quality players that might not look like everybody else on our team,” Martin Rather, Baileigh’s coach points out.
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