Arizona Cardinals cheerleader opens up about her journey with alopecia

PHOENIX – It’s pretty common to see Arizona Cardinals cheerleaders rallying fans at an NFL football game.

What’s not so ordinary is that one of them is tackling something very unique.

“My dermatologist said, ‘You definitely have alopecia,’” said Ellie.

At first glance, you’d never know it. The diagnosis brings hair loss and affects every person differently.

“My hairline was halfway up my head,” Ellie said. “I immediately run to the mirror and, lo and behold, lift up my hair and pretty much half underneath is gone.”

Ellie underwent many tests, thinking something was wrong internally, but everything checked out OK. She was weeks away from trying out for the Cardinals cheer squad last January.

“I said to myself I have worked so hard my entire life for this,” she said. I’ve been dancing since I was 2 years old, and I knew that I wanted to get to this top level someday, and I can’t do that if I don’t even give myself a chance,” she said.

So she did – first sending in her headshot.

“Yes, I don’t look like my normal self, I don’t look like the headshot I’m submitting, but I was so confident in my ability at that point, and I knew that I had trained so hard, so I didn’t want to let something like this stop me, so the week before auditions I decided to shave the rest and show up without a wig.”

Then came a video essay to the squad as part of her application, and it was all Ellie.

“I talked about my journey,” she said. “I said don’t look like the headshot that I’ve submitted for this audition… here’s the reason why. I kind of explained what was happening, how I shaved my head because I didn’t want to let this stop me from trying to chase my dreams, and then I took 10 steps backwards and danced.”

Now, she dances on the sidelines with friends. She says the squad is her inner circle.

“I don’t put my wig on until probably about an hour before we take the field, so I’m just chilling in there with teammates,” she said. “We have so much fun getting ready together – we all do our makeup together. But then, to secure my wig I gotta put it on, style it, and then the gluing process is probably what takes the most amount of time because I want to make sure it’s secure and it’s not gonna fly off.”

The gluing process takes about 20 to 30 minutes and each wig has a name. “Eleanor” is one of many wigs Ellie now wears – this one is for anything Arizona Cardinals-related.

“The outpouring of love and support I received was so cool, and something I’m always going to have as a core memory,” she said. “They were just telling me how proud they were of me and how proud I should be of myself.”

Ellie even connected with former Arizona Cardinal Josh Dobbs, who also has alopecia. She says it was not always easy, but she’s learned being unique is cool.

“I want to show people that it’s OK to be and look different,” she said.