Bailey Phillips got to live one of the best days of her life all over again, this time watching it on a screen surrounded by the people who love her most.
Her eight-minute segment aired nationally on July 23 for the first time as part of ESPN’s “My Wish” series, chronicling her ultimate Tennessee football gameday with the Vols. Make-A-Wish East Tennessee marked the moment with a watch party at The Wishing Place powered by JTV.
“It was good,” Bailey said of having her family and friends there to watch it with her.
It was the first wish UT athletics had ever granted, according to her grandfather, John Rosser.
“A lot of tears are running out of my eyes,” Rosser said. “But it brought back some very good memories of what she was able to go through.”
Bailey, a 16-year-old from Powell, was diagnosed with cystinosis as an infant, a genetic disorder that builds crystals throughout the body, threatening organ function and eyesight. Her mother, April Phillips, recalled the day doctors delivered the diagnosis in the ESPN feature, saying she remembers little beyond two words: rare and incurable.
She said she also carried the weight of knowing a kidney transplant for Bailey was inevitable, and at 13, Bailey’s kidneys began failing. By August 2024 they had stopped working altogether, putting her on home dialysis.
Rosser said the family’s church, Ridgeview Baptist, helped build a prayer chain of close to 20,000 people asking for a matching donor. A kidney became available within about two months, and Bailey received a transplant that fall at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.
“The kidney started working before the surgery had even finished,” Rosser said doctors told the family. Bailey walked out of the hospital five days later.
Before her big day on Sept. 20, Bailey had never attended a Vols football game. So when Make-A-Wish East Tennessee learned about her story, it tried to make the wish as special as possible. The reveal came at Ridgeview Baptist Church, where Smokey the mascot surprised her with a letter from coach Josh Heupel, read by her pastor, inviting Bailey and her family to join the Vols for the football game against UAB.
The day before the game, Bailey received a tour of Neyland Stadium and met coaches from across the athletic department. She was introduced to the players by Heupel, who handed her a custom jersey with the No. 6, matching her favorite player, quarterback Joey Aguilar. She also painted a corner of Neyland Stadium’s famous checkerboard end zone for the game.
On game day, Bailey walked her own shortened Vol Walk before watching the real one come through from inside the barricades at Peyton Manning Pass. She finished the Vol Walk into the stadium, helped lead the Pride of the Southland Band through “Rocky Top,” and later watched as Aguilar threw for 218 yards and three touchdowns in a 56-24 win, including a 39-yard score by wide receiver Mike Matthews that landed in the end zone corner she had painted a day earlier.
Meeting the football team and getting out on the field meant the most to Bailey, she said.
“That was probably my favorite,” she said of meeting Aguilar.
Garrett Wagley, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish East Tennessee, said the ESPN partnership gives wishes like Bailey’s a national stage.
“It’s really incredible, what a platform to tell an incredible story about perseverance and joy,” Wagley said, adding that research shows children who receive wishes tend to have better medical outcomes.
Former Tennessee quarterback Sterling Henton, now the gameday DJ known as “Sterl the Pearl,” met Bailey at the game, when she briefly took over as “DJ Bailey.” He came back to the watch party to support her again.
“It’s phenomenal that a thing like Make-A-Wish can make moments like this happen for people like her,” Henton said.
Rosser said Bailey has never once complained through years of surgeries, pills and hospital stays. That resolve was tested again recently, when Bailey underwent brain surgery three weeks ago, another chapter in a medical journey that has spanned nearly her entire life.
She was smiling at the watch party anyway, dressed in orange and white checkerboard overalls, a call to her pride as a Vols fan, and a nod to the end zone she painted.
“No matter what the pain is or whatever,” Rosser said. “If her smile is not there, she’s not feeling good. That’s how we know. Otherwise, she smiles all the time.”
Xavier Burton is a sports intern for Knox News. Email: Xavier.burton@knoxnews.com
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Painting checkerboard, game day wish with Tennessee football fulfilled by Powell teen
About the Author
