Team IMPACT’s Kelleher Shares Power of Sports To Connect

As a Thayer student-athlete, Krissie Kelleher ’93 saw great success in field hockey and lacrosse. In fact, she captained both varsity teams, earned All-ISL honors in both sports, and received All-American honors in lacrosse. 

But basketball? Not so much. 

“I didn’t play varsity basketball until my junior year,” Kelleher told Upper School students today (Wednesday, Feb. 4) during a Q&A with Athletic Director Bobbi Moran in recognition of National Girls & Women in Sports Day. 

And even then, Kelleher explained, her time on the hoops team was spent coming off the bench in blowout victories or blowout losses, a role that never bothered the Hingham native and taught her a great deal about teamwork and resilience. 

“I stuck with it because I loved the girls on the team,” she said. 

Kelleher, who went on to play four years on the Boston College women’s lacrosse team and even captained that squad, is today the CEO of Team IMPACT, a national nonprofit that connects children facing serious illness with college athletic teams, forming life-changing relationships. In that role she tries to remember those lessons of hard work, teamwork, and resilience on a daily basis, and she knows exactly where those lessons were learned. 

“Those seeds were planted here, and they’ve helped to form the person I am today,” she told her Hale Theater audience. 

Kelleher lauded her entire Thayer experience — both on the playing fields and in the classroom — but singled out her senior project with St. Coletta Day School, which provides education and therapies to students with complex clinical challenges, as a particularly transformative period in her high school career. 

“It was an eye-opening experience,” said Kelleher, calling her return to Thayer as CEO of Team IMPACT “a full-circle moment.” 

Kelleher said the power of sports is the power of human connection, something she realized not only in her own life but in the life of her family. When her daughter was diagnosed with a tumor in her spinal cord at age 8, Kelleher said the family dynamic changed forever with years of treatments and procedures. Throughout it all, her daughter persevered in part because of her love of lacrosse. 

“Her recovery — each one of them — was about getting back to her team,” said Kelleher, adding that her family is “one of the lucky ones” and that her daughter now plays club lacrosse at the University of Notre Dame. “Sports was her anchor.” 

Similarly, Kelleher said, Team IMPACT uses that power of human connection to build lifelong relationships between children in need of support and student-athletes who know all about teamwork and the power of positivity. 

And that transformative power, Kelleher reminded students, is a two-way street. 

“What surprised me most is what the student-athletes get out of it,” she said of her time at Team IMPACT. 

Founded 14 years ago, Team IMPACT has paired with more than 4,300 children across more than 800 college campuses in the United States. Coordinated by licensed clinicians, the child/team relationships last two years. Kelleher is the first female CEO of the nonprofit and said she’s proud that it’s a female-led organization. 

In terms of the nonprofit’s impact, Kelleher shared one story about a family whose child was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition and had difficulty learning braille. That dynamic changed, she said, when a member of the Boston-area college soccer team partnering with the family offered to learn braille with that child.

“Never underestimate what you can do for someone else,” Kelleher said. 

Moran, who introduced Kelleher and facilitated the Q&A, said she first met Kelleher decades ago when they were colleagues at the Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut. The two soon became great friends and even ran the Boston Marathon together, crossing the finish line at the same time. 

“It was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life,” said Moran. 

In addition to the Q&A, Kelleher also spent the day meeting with Upper School students in Thayer’s Sports Management and Business Fundamentals classes as well as visiting Middle School students. She enjoyed lunch in the Tiger’s Den where she met with team captains, female student-athletes, and anyone else who wished to learn more about Team IMPACT.