“The phrase that keeps coming to my head is ‘pass and go,” said Kristen Stiles when asked to reflect on her family’s Team IMPACT experience. “So much in athletics, that is what you’re doing. You’re passing the ball, and then you’re running to get free and ready for the next pass.”
When Kristen and her husband Justin signed their daughter Lucy up for Team IMPACT, they had already seen the power that comes with team. Lucy’s best friend, Charlie, was matched with the Harvard soccer team, who embraced him with love and a team of support. Before Charlie unexpectedly passed away in 2021, he passed the ball to Lucy to recognize his dream for her, a dream that she too would have a team of her own. “It was Charlie’s gift,” Kristen, said. “Charlie saw a dream and he saw a future for Lucy that we didn’t understand.”
Lucy was matched with the Boston College women’s lacrosse team in August of 2021, and it didn’t take long for the entire Stiles family to understand the thing that Charlie knew all along. “It is ethereal,” Kristen said. “Out in the ethers, you can feel alone, or you can feel like you’re connected to other like-minded people and have a community and that you are part of something.” That connection is what Team IMPACT and BC lacrosse brought to Kristen, Justin, Lucy, and Lucy’s twin sister, Sophie. “It lifted us up and made these connections in a way I never would have thought.”
Lucy and Sophie have been fighters since even before they were born. “Everything was amazing for 26 weeks, and then all of the sudden, everything changed,” Kristen said. She and Justin learned that the girls had twin-to-twin fusion, meaning their shared placenta was not evenly feeding both girls. “Lucy was being flooded, while Sophie was being deprived of nearly all nutrients,” Kristen shared. It was too late in the pregnancy for doctors to perform an in-utero procedure, leaving Kristen and Justin’s only option to be an emergency C-section. Three months early, Kristen gave birth to her one- and two-pound identical twin girls. “It was a challenging road from the start as both girls fought for their lives,” Kristen said. Doctors struggled to find Sophie’s heartbeat, and Lucy’s complications indicated a much higher risk of having longterm effects. A month later, doctors’ predictions were confirmed when it was discovered that Lucy had suffered a catastrophic neurological incident that would almost certainly lead to a very severe case of cerebral palsy. “We began to deal with the grief of a life we dreamed of for ourselves and for our family disappearing into an endless sea of doctor’s appointments, therapists, and a crash course in understanding the rights of people with disabilities,” Kristen said.
As Kristen and Justin navigated the new normal for their family, they vowed to not only accept their reality but to find beauty in every moment and celebrate it, whatever it takes. Through their journey, influenced by Charlie’s dream, the Stiles family found BC lacrosse. Kristen and Justin met at Boston College, and both Lucy and Sophie had spent their entire lives cheering for the Eagles. But now, they were part of a team—and a successful one at that. “It felt like home from minute one,” Kristen recalled.
Being on the BC lacrosse team was one of the first things Kristen and Justin remember their daughters getting to do together, regardless of their differences. “That’s the best feeling,” Kristen said. “We’re always searching for things that they can do together. All we want is for them to have an amazing relationship as they grow, and this gives them commonality.” Kristen and Justin got to watch Lucy be enveloped into a team of her own for the first time, as Sophie transformed into an even more brave, proud, and protective twin sister. “She’s always been protective of Lucy but also kind of longing for a sister who could ski with her and race with her and ride horses with her and do everything,” Kristen said. “To not have a similarly abled identical twin, there’s definitely a loss there that you have to recognize. You can’t just gloss over that. I think that the team and Team IMPACT taking both of them in helped to fill that gap a little bit.” Together, Lucy, Sophie, and the Eagles became champions, both on and off the field.
Though the initial connections with the team were forged on the lacrosse field, the impact felt by all rippled into every facet of Lucy and Sophie’s lives. “Both Lucy and Sophie have developed a sort of quiet confidence,” Kristen said. “It’s actually more of a knowing that they are who they are, and they are celebrated for their own uniqueness.” Kristen credits this with directly translating into Lucy’s ability to tap into her courageous self, share more through her communication tools, walk longer in her gait trainer, and endure the loud stadium, bright lights, and game action that once felt overstimulating and overwhelming. “Now, she’s in the center of the party rocking,” Kristen said, “so it is still sensory and can still be a lot, but she built self-management. Now she just feels so good in her body.”
For Sophie, she has grown in her maturity and learned responsibility. Her teammates showed her hard work and exemplified how it looks when hard work pays off. Sophie now works at a local horse barn, where she earns the money she uses to pay for her riding lessons. “It’s this independence and inner trust, like trusting her guts,” Kristen said. Sophie has solid judgement and has learned how to trust that judgement. Whether riding horses, hanging out with her friends, playing lacrosse, or making decisions on her own, Sophie is self-assured and has learned from her family and team what good judgement and character look like. “Sophie is harnessing her inner strengths and talent and courageously putting herself out there with a smile and a hug, just like her teammates give to her.”
In addition to growing as individuals, Lucy and Sophie have also grown as teammates. They’ve learned what it looks like to support a group and to be supported by a group, all using their individual skills and talents to work toward the same goal. “To be able to see how these teammates are with Lucy, inclusive and celebrating what she can do, it shows that playing on a sports team doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the high scorer. It could mean that you’re the hype person or you’re taking down the stats or you’re a manager or you’re coming up with the plays or you’re jotting down who scores and in what game,” Kristen said. “It takes a lot of different skills to make up a successful team. And I think having them together to see that was like, ‘Oh, Lucy can be involved in community, and I can be involved in community, and Lucy’s actually so cool.’”
“They’re such good people, too,” Kristen said of the team. Kristen recognizes the pressure, commitment, hard work, and heartbreak that often come with being an athlete at every level of the game. “I hope when they graduate, they leave knowing it’s worth it. They’ll have these connections, these friends, and I hope they don’t forget how impactful they can be, even with simple things. I hope that they take away—and I hope they already know—that by doing the small things, they are having a huge impact.”
Despite multiple National Championship wins and other successes on the field, some of Kristen’s favorite memories with the team are the small moments. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing every time,” she said. “It’s those little check-in videos that you can watch over and over that make you feel so like you’re part of it, even if you’re not necessarily there. It was 20 or 30 seconds of their time, but for Lucy and Soph and me and Justin, it was so much more. It is amazing.”
With the Eagles in their lives, Kristen and Justin began to envision an entire future of possibility for their children. “Team IMPACT picked us up from where we were and showed us what was possible in terms of believing in ourselves and having relationships that we didn’t ever think we would be able to have,” Kristen said, “and then it’s a launching pad from there with the idea that we can really do anything. It’s the dreaming big that the team always talks about, and being all in that really makes living this life and the way we are worth it.”
As a parent advocates, Kristen and Justin are working to build a brighter future for Lucy and other kids like Lucy, and the connections they have made through Team IMPACT and BC lacrosse are further fueling their drive. “It’s connecting on an ideas and dreams level of what is possible and what we can make better, and you’re dreaming it up, and then all the sudden, it happens,” she said, “and then you continue dreaming and things continue happening. That is where Team IMPACT is magical. You can dream up having kids in wheelchairs alongside Division I athletes, but actually having that happen and seeing the significance on both sides is that dream, that ethereal nature, actually coming true.”
“It is so addictive because the energy is always so upbeat and positive, and it’s always like, what’s next? What do we want to do? What do we want to build? What do we want to create?” Kristen said, “Community, family, team, I think having the backbone be athletics, you just get that motivational energy with it. It’s so simple. It’s such a simple concept that Team IMPACT has made come into reality in a really profound way. But it’s so simple. Of course, every kid should be able to get off the sideline to be part of a team.”
After more than three years in the program, the Stiles family has experienced many of the challenges that come with athletics, transfers, graduations, and transitions. But in typically Stiles fashion, they have found beauty in the challenge. “Remember every moment is unique and fleeting, and some of your favorite players will graduate or transfer or move on. But that’s what is expansive about this experience. Your family will always be held in a safe space within the heart and soul of that player and that player’s family and friends,” Kristen said. “What you want to take away from the challenge and from the change is that change is good. It’s going to happen no matter what you do or where you are. And you just take those moments that you have with people, don’t take them for granted. Really appreciate them. It’s their time, it’s your time, and it’s really special.”
Kristen and Justin’s advocacy for their daughters and for Team IMPACT has brought dozens more families into the program, carrying on Charlie’s dream and legacy with every new match. Now, it is the Stiles family’s turn to pass the ball and keep going. As many new families embark on Team IMPACT journeys of their own, Kristen hopes each child like Lucy and each family like hers can experience this ethereal connectiveness. “Just show up as you are, uniquely yourselves, and share as much as you can about your experience, and be ready for a lot of hugs and tears.” In turn, you will change lives and create a new future of inclusion, acceptance, and empathy. “There is no way to sugarcoat the challenges and unique experiences our families face every day. As much as we are in awe of these athletes and their abilities to handle the physical and mental complexities of being a student-athlete or their coach, they are enamored by us,” Kristen said. “We give them perspective of the entire scope of the tree of life being beyond just the branch where they are currently perched. Through Team IMPACT and our incredible life challenges, our matches, our children, can be the wind beneath the wings of these athletes and help them to fly and experience branches of life they haven’t even dreamed of yet. I think our kids give them the gift of possibility, of dreaming, and the tenacity to pursue them.”
As the Stiles family and BC lacrosse team prepare for Lucy and Sophie’s graduation from Team IMPACT, they look forward to an ever-expanding community of unconditional love, team, acceptance, and future National Champions. “We’re passing the ball, and we’re going into our next phase so that we’re ready to receive the next pass, whatever that may be,” Kristen said. “And maybe that’s the whole thing: we pass to each other, and then we go, and we keep going so that we can be an outlet for the next person.”
