As a teenager, Lilliana Bailey was fighting for her life. She was diagnosed with cancer at stage four at just 13. Now almost a decade since she was deemed cancer free, she continues to live life to the fullest.
A native of the small town of Emporium, Pennsylvania in Cameron County, Bailey has spent the last four-plus years in Arizona as she followed her father west when he accepted a teaching position. She enrolled at East Arizona College, a two-year college, in 2019 and would go on to earn an associate’s degree in teaching. After spending some time teaching, she knew something was missing. She loved the impact she could make as a coach and teacher, but she knew she wanted to do more.
She decided to head back to school at East Arizona College. This time, she joined the cheerleading program as a scholarship athlete, but her main objective was to earn an Associate of Applied Science in Nursing and eventually continue on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in the future.
Her return to cheerleading has occurred after around five years of being removed from the sport and last cheering for the Cameron County Red Raiders when finishing up her senior year of high school back in Pennsylvania. However, she did enjoy her experience coaching cheerleading at the middle school level for basketball and football. She served as both an assistant and later head coach.
Joining the cheerleading team in college is always a step up in the level of commitment, but particularly for Bailey, it shows immense dedication. East Arizona College is located in Thatcher, Arizona, an hour from her residence in the small town of Morenci. To make practices as a commuter student, it involved a wake up at around 4:00 a.m. in addition to her hour commute. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be and nothing else I’d rather be doing,” said Bailey about cheering in college.
Bailey first began cheering at around the age of five and participated in everything from sideline cheer to competition cheerleading. She became a cheer captain in her senior year with the Red Raiders and also competed with Ultimate Cheer growing up. She won several competitions with her club team and even advanced all the way to compete at nationals. While undergoing blood transfusions and treatments, she continued to cheer to the best of her abilities with Ultimate Cheer and she recalls it as being one of her favorite years of being a cheerleader. “I found out I was diagnosed with cancer,” she explained. “While I was at one of my practices, and even though I had cancer, that was one of my favorite years in cheer. It helped to keep things feeling normal. If I hadn’t been cheering, there wouldn’t have been something fun to focus on and put energy into while being sick”
Her cheerleading career has come a long way from just powering through practices and doing as much as she could. Today, she’s living a healthy life and is excited to have a second chance at doing something she loves. The team she is currently a part of has made being a cheerleader such a fun experience and the men’s and women’s basketball programs are both making their postseason runs towards nationals. The programs are members of the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference and have each enjoyed 25-plus win seasons and are some of the best junior college basketball teams in the country this year. Bailey feels thankful for her coaches Jody Judd and Leslie Swapp for welcoming her to the program and to be a part of the East Arizona College community while having so much success this winter sports season.
The journey to become a college cheerleader was unexpected. It was also very uncertain just a decade ago. From becoming a cancer survivor, moving across the country, changing careers, and now being a scholarship athlete, it’s been a crazy ride for Liliana Bailey. The best news is she will soon add some letters of RN and BSN to the end of her name and also will start a new chapter as a wife beginning later this year. Though life wasn’t so good during her early adolescent years, the future appears so bright for this Pennsylvania transplant soaking up eastern Arizona.
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