“Massi is spunky, kind-hearted, and, without question, the most passionate soccer fan in any room he walks into.”
That’s how Stacey Armato introduced her son, Massimo, during Team IMPACT’s Game Day Gala. But she also shared another reality that shapes every day of Massi’s life: “He also has cystic fibrosis.”
For families living with cystic fibrosis (CF), childhood often looks different than expected. CF is a chronic disease that affects the respiratory and digestive systems. It requires daily and life-long treatments, medications, appointments, and care.
By the time Massi was six years old, he had already endured multiple surgeries, long hospital stays, and ambulance rides Stacey wishes she could forget. Despite the physical pain caused by CF, the things that affected Massi the most, his mom said, was the exclusion from things he loved—like soccer. “He was sitting on the sideline at his own soccer games,” she said, “because he was coughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath, watching his teammates play.”
It was always Massi’s goal to get back on the soccer field. What he didn’t anticipate is that he’d see that goal come to life alongside the UCLA Bruins—at the same school where his dad was a student-athlete years earlier. “When the match came through—UCLA men’s soccer—something shifted in Massi,” Stacey said. “The cloud that CF sometimes puts over his life just…lifted.”
For Massi, the thing that always made him feel different now made him feel special. He got to go to the campus he loves at the college he loves to play the sport he loves with the teammates he loves. His time with the Bruins allowed him the space to think of his life outside of his diagnosis. “On the days Massi was with the UCLA soccer team, he didn’t think about his treatments,” Stacey said. “He wasn’t a kid with CF. He was a Bruin.”
And Massi fully embraced his new role.
He had his official Signing Day with his team. He trained with them on the field. His teammates even started staying late after practice just to pass the soccer ball with him. His teammates showed up to Massi’s own soccer tournament where they “cheered like it was the World Cup final,” Stacey said. Massi and some of the members of his youth team were ball boys at a UCLA soccer game. And one of his UCLA teammates even arranged for Massi to walk out on the field at an LA Galaxy match. “These are things kids dream about,” Stacey said.
For years, Stacey struggled knowing she can’t take Massi’s CF away. “But some of the most powerful medicine—the kind that reaches the places clinical treatment never can—truly is community.” And that is what Massi and Stacey found in the UCLA soccer team.
“What Team IMPACT gave Massi was something no prescription can provide: a sense of belonging,” Stacey said. “A team. A family. An identity that had nothing to do with being sick and everything to do with being part of something bigger than himself.”
And what Massi gave the UCLA soccer team is something that will change their program forever. “What struck me most,” she said, “was how much it felt like those players needed Massi too.”
This is a feeling, Stacey says, that will stick with both Massimo and the Bruins soccer program long after Massi’s graduation. “The best part of this whole story?” Stacey said. “The match didn’t end. Those guys feel like family. And I think that’s the beauty of Team IMPACT—the ability to translate the power of human connection into something a ten-year-old boy can feel for years to come.”
Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month is about more than raising awareness of a diagnosis. It’s about recognizing the strength, resilience, and joy of kids living with CF and the communities that help them feel seen and accepted beyond their diagnosis. This May, we celebrate kids like Massi, families like the Armatos, teammates like UCLA men’s soccer, and every person helping children facing serious illness feel seen, supported, and connected. We also recognize the organizations supporting Team IMPACT’s mission, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals for its partnership and support.
Together, we strive to bring every child living with CF the feeling Massimo gets to experience with the UCLA soccer team—and to bring every parent of a child living with CF the feeling Stacey gets every time Massi is with his Bruins.
