When Kara Clarke thinks of her son Adam, she thinks of passion. “Adam is very passionate. He can definitely be a funny guy. He likes to make people laugh,” she said. “He has no filter. What he is thinking, you definitely know.”
But when Adam was six months old, long before he could speak his mind, his parents began to notice some unusual behaviors that looked an awful lot like seizures. They went to the hospital for what ended up being Adam’s first of many EEGs—a visit Kara remembers as overwhelmingly hot and uncomfortable. “It was just a 20-minute EEG, but they didn’t find anything,” she recalled. On this day, Adam, who is now 17 years old, began his long and unique medical journey. “To this day, they’ve never really captured anything on film,” Kara said. “They’ve had EEGs come back that were irregular, that indicate there’s definitely something going on, just by trial and error. ‘Medical Roulette’ is what we call it.”
Years of Medical Roulette resulted in more seizures, many drug trials, and countless appointments and hospital visits for Adam and his family. Eventually, Adam ended up with three diagnoses—epilepsy, autism, and asthma—but the strive to get answers to what is causing his many symptoms is ongoing. Adam often struggles to breathe, especially in colder weather. He can get down on himself when he isn’t feeling well or when one of his drug trials doesn’t seem to be working. It can be very worrisome for Adam. “It takes an emotional toll,” Kara said. “He has really struggled.”
It was during one of these times that Kara learned about Team IMPACT through Kathy Prout, whose son Larry was matched with the University of Michigan football team. Kara was immediately excited and interested in applying for her family. She thought this program may be perfect for her empathetic, passionate son who loves all things sports, trains, and team. After doing a little more research, she filled out the form online, and in the summer of 2022, Kara got the call informing her that Adam would be joining the Detroit Mercy men’s soccer team.
“At first, we were like, ‘What are these guys going to want with him?’” she recalled. “Adam’s going into high school, and these are college guys.” As soon as Adam was matched, his new teammates followed up with introductory emails, expressing their excitement and making plans to meet together in person. But even in the car on the way to campus for the first time, Kara and her husband, Brent, held in their quiet hesitations. Those hesitations melted away the second they set foot on campus, Kara recalled. As they pulled onto campus and found their way to the meeting spot, they were greeted by a wave of “Hey, Adam!”s from the entire soccer team, and “our expectations went right out the door,” Kara said. “Anything we could have possibly thought of or dreamt of was just gone. They blew away any expectation we could have had. Every single player walked over, either fist-bumped or high-fived Adam. Every single player introduced themselves to me and Brent, shook our hands, welcomed us to the team.” They met the coaching staff, who greeted them with open arms that made them immediately feel like family. “It was just like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Kara recalled, “and it wasn’t just like that the first day. It was like that every single day since. Every time we got there…it just blew our minds away.”
Adam, who is typically only outgoing around those he is most comfortable with, immediately fell into being exactly himself with the team. In time, he was giving speeches for teammates’ birthdays, pumping them up before games, breaking down huddles, and reviewing local restaurants, all with his Detroit Mercy teammates by his side. And it wasn’t only Kara and Brent who noticed a change in Adam, but the players’ parents who also noticed changes in their sons as well. “It was really cool, because almost every parent was like, ‘Adam is family,’” Kara said. “That was just amazing to us. Seeing his love of sports, his confidence, his outgoingness. His independence when he is with people now like, ‘Man, I’m good. I don’t need you. I’m good!’ I can stand back and say, ‘You go do your thing! I’m over here, you go!’”
Kara remembers a time when Adam went with his teammates to a women’s soccer game on campus. While at the game, Kara noticed Adam was sitting with the guys watching the game together but not talking very much. “Social interaction is one of his biggest deficits,” Kara said, so she was concerned Adam was having an off day with the team. On the way home, she asked him if he had talked to the guys and he said, “No, not really.” Kara began offering advice on conversation topics and questions Adam could ask his teammates or ways he could engage with them before she rephrased the question. “Do you feel like you need to talk when you’re with them?” she asked. “No, because they’re my friends,” Adam said. Kara pushed, trying to better understand what Adam meant by that. “I don’t have to talk to them. I’m with them. And when we need to talk, we need to talk,” Adam said, “but they’re my friends and I’m comfortable with them, so I don’t feel like I have to force a conversation, because I know we’re cool.” To Kara, this felt monumental. Her son was surrounded by people who made him feel comfortable enough to be himself without feeling pressure to be anything else. “I took that as he’s got a level of comfort with them where just being with them is enough,” she said. “To me, that meant more than I could ever put into words. It was huge. I thought, ‘Wow, mission accomplished.’”
Kara hopes all kids can feel the comfort Adam feels with his team and all athletes can learn to create a welcoming environment like the Detroit Mercy soccer team. “I hope they’ve learned that patience is important. I hope they’ve learned being inclusive,” Kara said. “’All means all,’ I like to say, and I hope they’ve learned that. I hope they take that to heart and take a moment if they see someone who seems different to give them a minute before they make a judgement. Stick up for somebody if they see someone being mistreated. You never know what’s going on with other people. It sounds so basic, but it is often that basic stuff that people are missing in today’s world. With some of the things Adam has gone through, these are the things people like him need. He feels that when he’s with the team.”
Because of the Detroit Mercy soccer team, Adam now plays soccer, too, on a unified team at school. “When he’s playing soccer, he imitates everything he seems from those guys,” Kara said. When he is playing goalie, Adam likes to grab the ball and drop immediately to the ground, just like Detroit Mercy’s goalie, Quinn. Adam wears number 21, because his buddy Jackson, who Adam nominated as a 2024 Teammate of the Year, wears number 21. His teammates have taught him so much about the game that Kara sometimes worries Adam may know too much about the rules of soccer. She remembers a soccer game when Adam was playing goalie and the ref called a goal against him that Adam did not think was a goal. Adam got mad—so mad that Kara made her way to the field to try to calm him down, with a plan to use Detroit Mercy soccer as an example of how to act on the field. “He took his jersey off and threw it on the ground, and I said, ‘Adam! What would you tell Casey or Luke if they started acting like this?’” she said. “He stopped and looked and was like, ‘I would tell them to get their act together.’ ‘So get your act together!’” Kara remembered telling him. Soon enough, Adam calmed down, and from afar and without even knowing it, his teammates helped him keep his cool.
Adam’s bond with the Detroit Mercy soccer team quickly expanded beyond the soccer field into other areas of Adam’s life. Adam plays on a Special Hockey team, where every member of the team lives with a disability. One of Kara’s favorite memories with the soccer team is when they surprised Adam at one of his hockey games. “I thought it was some of the guys coming but nope! It was the whole team that came,” Kara said. As the guys walked into the arena, Adam looked up, “and all the sudden, you see his head to a double-take, and the look on his face is just priceless. You see his face light up,” Kara recalled. “You could see it through his helmet, his face is just a huge smile.” On the ice, Adam put on a show for his teammates, and in the stands, the soccer team returned the favor, cheering loudly for every single member of Adam’s hockey team. “Some of the parents were like, ‘Who is this?’” Kara remembered, “and I told them, ‘This is Team IMPACT.’” After the game, Adam’s hockey coach told her the whole team was smiling from ear-to-ear the entire game because of Adam’s soccer teammates’ support.
Another favorite memory of Kara’s is when the team visited Adam in the hospital after a surgery last year. “We will tell anyone who listens about Team IMPACT, but when people see it in action, it speaks for itself,” Kara said. “When some of his teammates came to visit Adam after his surgery, it cheered Adam up and brought awareness to some of Adam’s medical team about just how important this program is. They have truly treated him as one of their own. Moments like that are just so cool to see.”
For Kara, it has been most rewarding to watch Adam and his teammates enjoying “the silly stuff,” which includes everything from singing the fight song after wins, breaking down huddles, and giving inspirational speeches to going to basketball games on campus, eating team dinners in the dining hall, and trying new restaurants in town. Kara credits the team with helping Adam better manage his group work at school and looking forward to college himself, where Adam hopes to carry his love of trains into a career as a locomotive engineer.
Adam recently graduated to a Team IMPACT alumni, but he knows his UDM teammates are family for life. “The meaning of team, being a team, being part of a team, it all means a lot to him. He practices that, and he’s received it,” Kara said. One day, she thinks Adam will become a coach himself, relying on what he’s learned from Detroit Mercy soccer to show what it means to be a team. “Adam’s confidence has grown so much since joining Team IMPACT and being part of the UDM family. As a result, he is more outgoing and social,” Kara said. “His public speaking skills have greatly improved. I swear he’ll be a coach one day. His love of all sports has grown quite a bit. He truly enjoys tailgating! He has expanded so many different things with these guys. It has been a blast with them.”
Kara is an active advocate for Team IMPACT, telling anyone who will listen about the program and encouraging other families to apply. She recently told friends in Wisconsin about the program, and their daughter is now waiting to be matched with a team of her own. “This has done more than we could have ever, ever imagined. I tell them the story of when we first met the team and were like, ‘I don’t know, this can’t be real.’ But it is so much more than you could have ever expected. It’s sincere. It’s not fake. It’s so sincere,” she said. “They embrace not only Adam. They embrace our entire family. They embrace Noah. Like they’ve know him their whole life.” She remembers a time when the team came over to their house, and Noah, Adam’s brother, was opening the door to let them in. Noah also has autism and does not often communicate verbally, but as each teammate came through the door, they excitedly greeted Noah by name with a high five or a hug. “All means all,” Kara reiterated. “These teammates become part of your family. This is something when you have it, you don’t realize that you were missing it because you didn’t know what you were missing.”
When asked to sum up Adam’s Team IMPACT experience, Kara had two words: Thank you. “Thank you for embracing Adam. Thank you for welcoming our family. Thank you for making Adam and all of us feel like one of the UDM family. Thank you for showing up for Adam at his sporting events. Thank you for supporting Adam during and through his medical challenges. And thank you for showing him what friendship is.”
For those who are still on the fence about the power of Team IMPACT, Kara extends an open invite to come experience it yourself. “If you’re still not sure, come to a game,” Kara said. “Come check it out. Come to a practice with us. Come observe. If you’re still not sure, please come see what you’re missing.”
