{"id":901139,"date":"2026-09-19T02:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/901139\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T02:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:06:14","slug":"virginia-womens-soccer-signs-kiya-thomas-through-team-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/901139\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Women\u2019s Soccer Signs Kiya Thomas Through Team IMPACT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. \u2013 The University of Virginia women\u2019s soccer team announced a new team member, signing 6-year-old Kiya Thomas through Team IMPACT on Friday (Sept. 18).<\/p>\n<p>Kiya, who is living with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, officially signed with the team at the Harrison Olympic Sport Center on Grounds at the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>She will participate in many activities with the Cavaliers, including games, practices and other team events, over the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Team IMPACT, a national non-profit organization, has developed a unique multiyear program that matches children facing serious illness and disability with college athletic teams across the country. Based on a clinical model, Team IMPACT guides a symbiotic relationship between teams and children focused on socialization, empowerment, and resilience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to have Kiya officially join our team,\u201d said Virginia head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiasports.com\/staff\/steve-swanson\" title=\"Steve Swanson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Swanson<\/a>. \u201cShe\u2019s already been such an inspiration to our players and our whole program, and it will be great to have her involved even more than she has been. She\u2019s a big part of what we\u2019re doing here and she\u2019s a big part of our culture. I think she will be as much of an inspiration to our team as our team is to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About Team IMPACT<\/p>\n<p>Team IMPACT\u2019s unique multiyear program signs children facing serious illness and disability onto college athletic teams across the country. Based on a clinical model, Team IMPACT guides a symbiotic relationship between teams and children focused on socialization, empowerment, and resilience, ensuring everyone involved has the personalized game plan they need to win, effectively building confidence and independence.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2011, Team IMPACT has matched more than 4,500 children with 850+ colleges and universities in all 50 states, impacting more than 110,000 student-athletes. If you know a child or team who may be interested, please visit www.teamimpact.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. \u2013 The University of Virginia women\u2019s soccer team announced a new team member, signing 6-year-old Kiya&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-901139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}