From the sidewalk, the midnight-blue house in Mount Hope looks peaceful. Inside, it’s anything but.
Forest Frank — a family favorite — blares for a moment before Kirsten Massella, the matriarch of the home, turns it off. Four-year-old Malachi tumbles out of his chair mid-lunch. Emerick, nine, who has cerebral palsy, speaks slowly, but his passion for trains and the story of Noah’s Ark bursts out in breathless enthusiasm. Remi, 6, also with cerebral palsy, nonverbal and in a wheelchair, fidgets.
And then the door opens.
When Kyla Bruhn, a Rancho Bernardo native and junior attacker on the UC San Diego women’s water polo team, walks in, the whole room recalibrates. The chaos sharpens into attention. Remi’s face brightens.
“The first time I met Remi I felt like I already knew her,” Bruhn said, recalling her short hair and her baby teeth. Remi seemed like her “little sister.”
About 18 months ago, Remi was matched with the UC San Diego women’s water polo team through Team IMPACT, a national nonprofit that pairs children facing serious illness or disability with college sports programs. Since 2011, the organization has created more than 4,000 matches nationwide, with 13 currently across San Diego at UCSD, Point Loma Nazarene University and Cal State San Marcos.
“Kyla has taken on a massive role in all of this,” UCSD women’s water polo head coach Sarah Lizotte said. “She does an incredible job rallying the team and supporting Remi. It’s been amazing to watch her, not just as a player but emotionally as well. She’s developed a singular relationship with Remi.”
Ramonna Batac, Remi’s case manager with Team IMPACT, said the experience not only helps the little girl. It also “gives the team perspective on interacting with children with disabilities.
Remi Massaella with UCSD water polo player Kyla Bruhn.(Photo courtesy of Kirsten Massella)“It gets her out of her circle and helps her socialize beyond her immediate family,” Batac said. “This gives her a chance to have her own team and be cheered for, which really brings out her personality. She’s more than a girl in a wheelchair — she’s bubbly and open with her teammates and gets to do things she otherwise wouldn’t.”
Over the past year, Remi has cheered for the team at games and practices, hunted for Easter eggs, and even helped judge a synchronized swimming competition over winter break. She’s received video messages from the players, supporting her from afar, through her mom.
But what her family remembers most vividly is a spaghetti dinner in Irvine during an away match last season.
“Remi talked about it for weeks using her eye-gaze communication device,” Massella said. “She would be like, ‘spaghetti,’ out of nowhere, and I’d realize she wanted to talk about water polo.”
Lizotte called the team’s relationship with Remi “special.”
“It’s amazing to see,” she said. “She has an incredible smile; she giggles and laughs. It’s more about the connection to something that’s more profound than just what we do day in and day out in the pool. How much our team wants to be involved with her and help her and support her is the most touching aspect.”
“When we are with Remi, it’s like this is what we are playing for right here,” added Bruhn.
Massella originally found Team IMPACT through California Children’s Services, where her children have been receiving physical and occupational therapy since they were six months old. At the center’s annual field day, she learned about the program through a vendor.
“I thought this was the coolest thing ever,” she remembered.
The pairing was done randomly, but for the family, water polo was kismet. Massella played in high school, and her husband, Aaron, felt a deep connection — his father, who died young, had played the sport, and one of the only photos they have of him shows him in his water polo cap right out of the pool.
Remi surrounded by members of UCSD’s women’s water polo team. (Photo courtesy of Kirsten Massella)“I love this sport,” Massella said. “I just didn’t want us to be matched with a dance team.”
Coming off a 17-14 season and a run to the Big West Championship semifinal, Lizotte, a former UCSD player in her first year as head coach after a stint as an assistant, gave the team a tagline for the upcoming season: “Play for something bigger than yourselves.”
With Remi in mind, they are.
“There are a lot of young adults who don’t know how to interact with kids with disabilities,” Massella said. “None of that was there. This felt easy. You can’t force anyone to have that connection, but a large portion of the team is genuinely interested in Remi. We’ve just felt so loved from day one, and Remi feels it more than anything.”
The Tritons open their season on Jan. 17 against Pomona-Pitzer.
“As much as Remi doesn’t speak with words, she is very communicative,” Massella said. “You just say ‘Tritons,’ ‘UCSD,’ or see a trolley go by with the UCSD logo, and she gets so excited. This is lighting her up.”
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