Jayden Bailey was chasing a pony on a family friend's farm in Crossville one day 14 or so years ago.
The Lebanon High junior's mother, London Elie, felt like she was having a heart attack.
Her boy, a basketball player at the Wilson County school, had learned to ride horses when was 2 years old, which, apparently, also is when he learned how to fall off of them.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNo sooner had Bailey been bucked off the back of the animal and landed violently on the grass was he back on his feet, in hot pursuit of the pony that had just punished him.
The boy who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, in June 2022, who has been told more than once by doctors he may not have much longer to live and had his left arm amputated in August, found out the cancer had spread in his stomach in October. He is still playing basketball in November, motivated not with ill will, but with purpose.
"I thought he was gone, dead," Elie said recently during lunch with her family at Cedar Brewing Company in Lebanon, which was Bailey's pick.
Bailey's recollection of that day is understandably foggy, but his intentions, he is sure, were clear.
Lebanon basketball player Jayden Bailey dribbles the ball during a drill Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Lebanon, Tenn."I was just trying to get back on it," Bailey said.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Run after it and get back on it," Elie said, shaking her head from across the table as she looked at her son. "That's what he does."
That's what 2-year-old Jayden Bailey did. That's what 16-year-old Jayden Bailey does. That's what 6-foot-6 small forward Jayden Bailey promises himself he always will do.
Run after it and get back on it.
"I knew the word cancer was huge, but it never really scared me as much as I'm sure it scared my mom and my family," Bailey said. "People tell me all the time − it's crazy − they can never tell if I'm down or anything.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I genuinely believe once you get down on yourself, you're not going to come back from that. You're going to be in a dark place all the time."
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'He was hiding the chemo pills'
Jayden Bailey was a 12-year-old kid chasing his dreams when he found out he had this aggressive form of cancer.
He was playing travel football at the time and had walked out of his mother's room one day when she noticed "almost what looked like a skull" protruding from Bailey's left bicep.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe'd been experiencing pain in his shoulder but chalked it up to the rigors of playing football.
Elie, though, knew better.
A few visits to the hospital and a few tests later, Elie received the phone call informing her that Bailey had cancer.
He overheard the conversation from his grandmother's basement.
His first instinct?
"Me and my uncle went to go play basketball," Bailey said. "I was like, OK, we're gonna maybe have to get surgery or something. That was my initial thought. I was definitely more naive and too young to understand the severity of it."
He soon found out.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe seemingly never-ending rounds of chemotherapy treatments he took − and sometimes didn't take − took their toll.
"He was hiding the chemo pills," Elie said. "We started finding them like Easter eggs in his room."
He stopped doing that after realizing his little sister could get her hands on them.
Then he just stopped taking them all together, often acting as if he were but instead spitting them into water bottles.
He hated taking them because of how they made him feel. The side effects they had on his body.
"It looked like his fingers were falling off his hands from all the blisters he had," Elie said. "But that didn't stop him from going to school. Didn't stop him from playing basketball."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementUntil it did.
The illness stole from him his eighth-grade basketball season.
But never his purpose. Never his want-to. Never his dreams.
Jayden Bailey’s tattoo on his arm Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Lebanon, Tenn.'He's a better player with one arm'
Jayden Bailey was chasing the moment on Nov. 18.
And living in it during Lebanon's season-opener against Cannon County, when he made a 3-pointer, blocked a shot and recorded an assist.
"The gym just erupted," Lebanon boys basketball coach Jim McDowell said.
Make no mistake, Bailey earns his playing time. He's no charity case. He's a regular contributor who happens to have one arm and an aura that makes those around him better.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I wouldn't play him if he wasn't contributing," McDowell said. "That wouldn't be fair to the other kids."
While passing and catching the ball are a little more difficult now, Bailey and his step-father, Mickey Wright, are convinced his overall game has improved since his arm was amputated.
"He's a better player with one arm than he was with two," Wright said. "Yeah, it looks funny, but I think his shot looks better now than it did when he had two arms.
"Most people look at him and probably think, 'Oh, he ain't no good. This is just a charity case,' until he starts hitting these 3s or stealing the ball."
Jayden Bailey, left, jokes around with Jajuan Stafford and Omari Carter during practice Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Lebanon, Tenn.Games on courts aren't the only games Bailey plays.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"You should see him play his video games," Wright said.
He plays with his toes on one special controller and his hand with another.
"The things that people think are so difficult, he makes look easy," Wright said.
That started in December 2024, when Bailey began shooting a basketball with one arm because his left arm, which weighed 11 pounds at the time, was essentially paralyzed.
'I'm not afraid to die'
Jayden Bailey isn't chasing death. He's not running away from it, either.
He's just living. He just refuses to be afraid all the time, weekly visits from hospice nurses be damned.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe might not even know what that word, "afraid," means. That's because he lives in the light.
A little more than a month ago, after he had his arm amputated, when that cancerous tumor was found in his stomach, he was told, once again, he might not have long to live.
"There have been times I've sat by myself. I've cried," he said. "I've lost it. We'll get some horrible news out of nowhere when things are going so well. Through the whole journey I've been a hugely faithful person. I'm a strong believer in God.
"So, no, I'm not afraid to die."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe young man with two blood clots in his lungs and fluid on his heart said, once again, that he had too much to live for, that he couldn't think about dying.
He has a 4-year-old sister he'd like to be a big brother to. His mother is pregnant. He's an inspiration to others, which is something he never asked for but embraces nonetheless.
"I have a lot to do," Bailey said.
Starting with living up to the bible verse he had tattooed on his right bicep a month or so ago, Romans 8:28:
all things work together for good,
for those who love God,
who have been called according to his purpose
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLebanon's home opener on Nov. 21 against Brentwood was a "Coaches vs. Cancer" game, with proceeds going to Bailey.
The same kid who spoke to McDowell's Sunday school class.
"There wasn't a dry eye in the room," McDowell said.
The same kid who once designed shoes for former Vanderbilt basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse to wear during a game.
The same kid who keeps running after it and getting back on it, just like he did with that pony that day on that family friend's farm in Crossville.
"I've been told a few times I didn't have long to live," he said. "I just don't listen to it until I feel like God is actually going to take me away."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPaul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jayden Bailey lost arm to cancer, still playing TSSAA basketball
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