With so many great plays in March Madness this week, check out the shot that carried multiple meanings as it sailed into the air, and into the history books this season.
It required persistence, resilience, and Faith.
Baileigh Sinaman-Daniel, who was born with a right arm too small to adequately use, let her left-handed shot fly from around the three-point line—right into the basket. It took
The Lesley University junior guard, who has an obvious disadvantage compared with her opponents, was cut from her high school team.
Yet, there she was, playing guard for the Cambridge, Massachusetts college team against Fitchburg State this season when she rose up and took aim at history.
Her shot flew through the air and sailed straight through the net, making her the first female basketball player with only one arm to score in a Division III game. (See the video below…)
Her coach quickly called a time out.
“When the shot went in I thought, ‘Hey, we have to preserve this moment for as long as we possibly can,’” said coach Martin Rather in a recent CNN article. “That also allows the team to come out and embrace her, which they did, on the court, and gives us a second to reflect on the tremendous hard work and dedication it takes to get to that point.”
“The entire team was filled with joy,” Baileigh said. “Mainly just because they have seen me overcome so many things throughout this season, and for it to finally pay off in that moment, in that game, it was a very big deal for everybody across the board. They were all screaming. Everybody came to hug me.”
The joy arrived immediately and the lessons will echo for months, with more and more news outlets sharing her story. She added another chapter when she scored again on her birthday, in a game seven weeks later.
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It was a moment that seemed unlikely back when Baileigh was in high school. After three years on her high school team, she was cut during her senior year—a decision that was devastating.
Basketball was a part of her identity. The court provided a sense of normalcy. A place where all her physical differences seemed to fade away. For a little while, that was all gone. But the attributes buried deep within Baileigh emerged when she needed them the most.
Persistence. Resilience. Faith.
“I thought to myself, I could do this in college. What’s stopping me from doing this in college?” Baileigh said in an AP interview. “So, I started emailing hundreds of coaches and it didn’t really matter what division it was. I was just trying to get a possible maybe—or even better, a yes.”
She landed at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, then entered the transfer portal after two years, looking for a fresh start. Coach Rather found her and knew that all her attributes would help the team at Lesley University.
Baileigh leads the team in individual practice sessions, doing her best to master her skills despite the obstacles—and the team is having its best season in 14 years. They made the playoffs and then upset VTSU Lydon, a No. 2 seed that had beaten them twice during the regular season.
“I think any team in this country would benefit from having a player with Baileigh’s heart on their team,” Rather told the Associated Press.
As her story spreads, Baileigh is quickly becoming the latest example of an athlete overcoming incredible adversity.
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Baileigh herself found inspiration in a men’s basketball player that had surmounted the same challenge. Hansel Emmanuel lost an arm in a childhood accident in the Dominican Republic, but beat the odds to earn a basketball scholarship at Austin Peay. He is averaging more than two points and two rebounds per game and has played more than 340 minutes this season as a junior for the Governors, a Division I team.
“If it was not for him, I probably would have thought that this was close to impossible to accomplish,” Baileigh told CNN.
Now, there are shining examples in both men’s and women’s college basketball of athletes soaring far beyond their physical limitations.
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Inspiration is multiplying with every play—and lessons for other youth rising up with every shot.
Watch a video below from WBZ Boston…
SCORE WITH THIS INSPIRATION By Sharing the Story On Social Media…
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