When the Franco family first heard about Team IMPACT in 2017, they had little idea what to expect from the program. Little did they know, seven years later, Team IMPACT and the Framingham State softball team would be a consistent and permanent feature in the lives of their daughter—and their entire family.
Lindsey was born in June of 2004. In the first months of her life, Lindsey’s parents, Sue and Dave, noticed Lindsey was hitting developmental milestones later than other infants her age. Not by much, just a few weeks or months, but still later than doctors would expect. This led to a diagnosis of Williams Syndrome at eight months old. Williams Syndrome is a genetic condition cause by a microdeletion on chromosome 7, which causes multisystem disorders. Lindsey was also diagnosed with a heart condition called supravalvular aortic stenosis. “She was a typical kid, but everything was just a bit harder for her, from reading to learning to walk to speaking,” Sue said. Many people with Williams Syndrome thrive verbally and socially, but the additional diagnoses and conditions that often come with Williams Syndrome cause many people with Williams Syndrome to tire easily and experience global developmental delays. “One of the deletions of Williams Syndrome includes elastin, so she’s missing the elastin gene essentially,” Sue said, “which is what makes our arteries and veins stretchy, and that is what leads to her heart problems.”
After receiving her diagnosis, Lindsey was immediately set up with special education services, early intervention, and occupational, physical, and speech therapies, which Sue said “continued throughout all of her years at school and gave her that extra support to do all the things she needed to learn to do to be happy and productive.” The Francos have always been a sports family, which meant Lindsey “got dragged to all her brother James’ sporting events,” Sue said. “She’s just like any other kid, she just has some extra stuff to deal with,” Sue recalled of Lindsey’s childhood. Lindsey wasn’t always able to participate in team sports the way her brother and her peers could, but she was still a very active and very social child.
As Lindsey entered her teenage years, Sue saw a post about Team IMPACT in a Williams Syndrome Facebook group and connected with another mom whose child had just been matched in the program. “What I liked about Team IMPACT is that Lindsey was getting to the age where things were just harder,” Sue said. “When she was younger, she could stay more on track with typical kids, but the gaps in her abilities—physical, social, academic—kind of widened as she aged. We looked at this as you get the chance to be a part of a sports team, a whole group of friends when that wasn’t as possible for her as she got into middle school and was getting older. Those opportunities often start to drop off as kids age, so that’s what drew me to Team IMPACT. These people are going to get to know her and try to understand her and what she’s going through and what she deals with and be there to support her.”
A few months later, Lindsey was matched with the Framingham State softball team. “That’s why Team IMPACT is important,” Sue said. “It provides that extra level of social interaction she so needs and really seeks out like we all do. Everyone needs social connection. Team IMPACT was just an extra piece in the puzzle to help her get that.”
Though Lindsey was a typically outgoing child, it often took her a bit of time to warm up to new friends. But that was not the case with the FSU softball team. “When I told her about this, she was beyond excited. She loved the concept of Team IMPACT and the idea of having all these new friends and getting to be part of the team,” Sue said, remembering her family’s first visit with the team: a pre-season meeting on campus that concluded with a team dinner at the dining hall. “She was a little nervous about meeting the team, then once she did, that was it. She was hooked.” Soon enough, it was time for Lindsey’s Signing Day, a day that was attended by local media and made Lindsey feel like a real VIP. “It was all so exciting,” Sue said. “Lindsey was just so happy to be there and to be a part of it all.”
An unexpected bonus to their experience was the fact that Framingham State has an impressive history when it comes to their softball program. “We didn’t know [when we first signed] what a successful team and successful history of winning,” Sue said. What the Francos also didn’t know is that the year Lindsey joined, the team was in the midst of a particularly unusual mid-season slump. “We were joining a team that was already very successful,” Sue said. “Before Lindsey joined, the team had already played their first few games of the season, and they were in a little bit of a drought, but after she joined, the winning started and the team said Lindsey was their good luck charm.”
With Lindsey on their roster, the Rams won three Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) regular season championships and five MASCAC tournament championships. For Lindsey, who is now 20 years old, these championship games are some of her favorite memories with the team. “Winning the MASCAC championships, and I loved the team pasta dinners!” she said. Even more than the wins on the field, Lindsey was experiencing wins off the field, too. “Lindsey gained a lot of confidence in her years with the team. Having a group of supportive teammates and being included gave her confidence with peers at school and in many of her other activities,” Sue said.
Isolation during COVID was particularly difficult for Lindsey, but her team made sure to let her know that they were always thinking of her and counting down the days to be together in person again. “Like a lot of kids who have underlying health issues, we were extremely cautious during that period of time,” Sue recalled. “The car parade that the girls did, the signs, the staying in touch, they were really a connection for her. The Zoom calls, all the stuff that came along with it, none of that would have happened without the team. They all really stepped up during that period of time. Even the girls who were new to the team. The program continued and everyone kept getting involved, and that continuity was really good for Lindsey. You really don’t know what you’re going to get out of it, but the girls continued to step up year after year.”
As the years passed, Lindsey was spending some of the most formative years of her life with the Rams, something Sue said has shaped her daughter into a more confident and self-assured woman. “So many of these opportunities for fun wouldn’t have happened without Team IMPACT,” Sue said. “I know it isn’t all just about fun, it’s also about making that connection. Kids with any kind of medical challenge or disability are almost always feeling different, and this is where they get to be not just a part of the team but have genuine friends. It’s so immersive. What I look for in programs for Lindsey is not just things where she gets to be around the edges. That is inclusion, but I’m looking for immersion. She is immersed in this. I think about all the ways she would have missed out and all those social opportunities, opportunities for fun, opportunities to be around other folks, older people she can look up to and eventually be peers with. They were with her growing up.”
Now that Lindsey is away at school herself, she isn’t around the team as often as she was able to be when she was younger, but she still connects with her current and former teammates whenever possible. Each year, Lindsey attends the FSU softball alumni game, where she gets to see many of her former teammates returning to campus. “She really shines with them,” Sue said. “They go bowling, they get dinner. Even tonight, she’s meeting up with one of the girls, Cam, and Assistant Coach Rachel for dinner. This is a teammate who graduated two seasons ago, and they’re still connected. For their friendship to continue has just been really nice.”
And just as Lindsey grew up surrounded by FSU softball, the softball team grew with her throughout the years. “I think her team just sees a kid who perseveres. She tries really hard, she’s invested in everything she does, and with them, she’s always upbeat,” Sue said. “She’s a positive person, and she will make them smile. That’s what I think they’ve learned from her and what she brings to them.”
That positivity is something that has continued to shine through every aspect of Lindsey’s life. She often messages the Team IMPACT Instagram account or sends emails to Team IMPACT staff thanking them for giving her all her favorite memories with the Framingham State softball team. She excitedly shares stories of her time with the team whenever she can and will be the first to encourage others to get involved with Team IMPACT, a sentiment that is shared by the entire Franco family. “Thank you for being such a supportive, fun group for my daughter,” Sue said. “It was such a positive experience for her, and she (and we) are so appreciative of the experience. If I was talking to another family like ours, I would tell them you absolutely have to do Team IMPACT. There’s no reason not to. There is literally no downside. For our experience, this was so worth doing. It was so worthwhile. Why would you not want to have a team full of supportive people who are invested and engaged in being friends with and chatting with and making your kid’s life better? Why wouldn’t you want to try it?”
For Lindsey and her family, one email back in 2017 led to seven years (and counting!) of countless smiles, laughs, memories, growth, confidence, wins, championships, and more with the Framingham State Rams. As Lindsey continues moving through life, she carries the things her teammates taught her with her every day, knowing that each time she returns home, she returns to an entire community of friends who quickly grew into sisters she will have on her side for the rest of her life.
