Fifteen years ago, the idea of Team IMPACT sparked in the minds of a group of Tufts graduates who believed that the lessons learned through sports should be accessible to everyone. Few people have helped shape that vision more clearly and meaningfully than Jay Calnan, founding board member and CEO of Jay Calnan & Associates.
Jay’s story with Team IMPACT begins far before the organization’s first match. Jay grew up in Bristol, CT, where he played youth baseball and football and participated in many community clubs and activities. “Through these activities, I was able to learn incredible life lessons around teamwork, work ethic, discipline, leadership skills, fellowship skills, and more,” he said. “Most importantly I learned to show up and be accountable—all brought to me by my community.”
In Bristol, Jay learned the importance of community, especially through team. But he also saw what it looks like when someone is excluded from that. At the same time Jay was playing on teams of his own, he watched his younger brother, Chris, who lived with a medical condition, stuck on the sidelines. “We were very close, and he absolutely loved sports,” Jay said, “he just couldn’t play.”
A turning point came through an unexpected opportunity with the Bristol Red Sox, who offered Chris a spot as bat boy for the team. Now on a team of his own, Chris was able to experience the community of sport in a whole new way—and that did not go unnoticed by Jay and his family. “I saw my brother experience many of the same life lessons that I was given through sports in my community. He felt included as a member of the team, and he had a sense of purpose,” Jay shared.
When Chris unexpectedly passed away in his early twenties, it caused Jay to reflect on the importance of community support and ignited in him a new way to keep his brother’s legacy alive while also providing that same community to others. “I realized these random acts could be formalized through our networks,” Jay said. “We could create something more proactive, providing outreach to actually search out and find kids that would benefit from this experience.”
And so Jay gathered together some of his friends—Dan Kraft, Dan Walsh, Kris Herman, Tim Kelly, Robert Tishman, Mark Plansky, and Scott Tully—to bring this dream to life.
“The concept of team is when like-minded people come together to achieve a common goal,” Jay shared. That original team who founded Team IMPACT in 2011 has grown over 15 years into a community who understands, unites, and rallies around the concept of being there and showing up for one another.
From its earliest match—Benjamin and the St. Anselm hockey team—to today, with more than 4,500 children matched, Jay has been part of a movement that has scaled far beyond New England.
Fifteen years later, Jay often reflects not just on the number of matches but on the scale of human connection created along the way. “What I am most proud of after 15 years of growing Team IMPACT is the number of people we have connected to the organization,” he said. Not only are the 4,500+ matched children affected by this program, but so are the parents who gain support outside the medical system; the siblings who get to spend quality time together at sporting events and on fields instead of inside hospital walls or at appointments; the student-athletes who gain perspective, gratitude, leadership, and friendship (one of whom is Jay’s son, Jake, who was matched with his Team IMPACT teammate, Kyle, at Johns Hopkins lacrosse!); the medical professionals who witness the power of this program through their own patients; the supporters who see every day how inclusion, belonging, and acceptance make the world a better place.
And that feeling ripples out far beyond Team IMPACT—into the medical communities who refer their patients to Team IMPACT, the campus communities who welcome these children and families onto their rosters, the student-athletes who are the future leaders, and the generations who will learn to lead with empathy, compassion, and belonging.
What began as a handful of matches in New England has grown into a network of hundreds of thousands of people touched in some way by a single idea: no child should face illness or disability alone.
From Bristol fields to college stadiums across the country, Jay Calnan’s influence on Team IMPACT has always come back to the same idea: communities change lives when people show up for each other. As Jay reflects on the past 15 years of IMPACT, he sees it not as a closing chapter but as an ongoing commitment. “Team IMPACT has been a passion for over 15 years, and I’m grateful for the people that I have connected with through the organization,” he said. “I have met many amazing families and children who inspire me every day.”
As for the future? Jay’s vision is simple. “If there is any college athletic team anywhere in the United States, they should have a Team IMPACT child on their team.”