(Sacramento, CA) Bill and Jodie Joslin are the co-founders of West Coast Impact, a homeschool athletic league in the Sacramento area.
K-LOVE's Monika Kelly had a chance to sit down with Jodie Joslin to hear her story.
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Monika Kelly: "It's so good to have you, Jodie."
Jodie Joslin: "Thank you for having me on."
Monika Kelly: "What is West Coast Impact and how did it get started?"
Jodie Joslin: "West Coast Impact is a homeschool athletic league. We focus on providing sports for the homeschool community because they can't participate in sports in the local setting.
We got started in 2014. My husband and I had been coaching for another organization, and we just kind of started to feel the Lord tug at our hearts for doing something different for the homeschool community. We were coaching within the homeschool community, but still under an organization that allowed us to play other public school or even private schools. But we kind of saw some things. God just started to reveal to us some things that were happening in the public setting that didn't quite align with our values.
Through just a series of events, we were led to open this league. And I remember just sitting at our last banquet that we had with our boys volleyball team, and I said, 'OK, we're going to do this thing. I don't know what it's going to look like, but we're just trying to be obedient to what God wants.' And so we said, I don't even know who you guys are going to play. But that was in April of 2014. And then by the end of June, early July, we had seven volleyball teams. In In our league, just our league alone. And we've just grown exponentially since then."
Monika Kelly: That's incredible. And so do you now travel?"
Jodie Joslin: "Yes and no. So all of our teams right now, our two sports are our two primary sports are basketball and volleyball. We play within our league again because we can't play outside of that system. We do travel. We have a group more kind of like the older players, the varsity level players. We take them to Kansas and they play in the national homeschool tournament there where I don't know, there's probably like 400 teams there. It's pretty amazing. And then we also have our basketball and our volleyball teams travel to Los Angeles every year and they compete in the Southern California tournament. It's kind of a statewide homeschool tournament. That's kind of our travel."
Monika Kelly: So what's this been like for you and your husband, Bill?
Jodie Joslin: Oh, it's been a bit of a wonderful roller coaster, I would say. I think, you know, between the hard, which is with any organization that you're launching or moving along or casting new vision for, you know, there's the stuff and then in the end, there's always the reward. I think sometimes I go through seasons, you know, I might be mid volleyball season or mid basketball season.
And I'm like, Oh, what in the world am I doing? You know, I'm a homeschool mom. I work my work long days, two days a week, run the league. And, and I just think, gosh, what am I doing?
And the, the payout is always during the season when I get an email of success or I get parents saying,
'Wow, this really changed my son or daughter's life. They used to just sit in a corner, reading a book and wouldn't talk to anyone. And now they're joining the team there. He or she's talking and, and they're joining groups and I've never seen them come out of their shell so much, or we have kids who are dealing with maybe some kind of illness and they've just been not willing to put themselves out there or feel like they had a support system. And, and suddenly they're, they're out in this community of, you know, on their boys team or their girls team and just thriving.'
And I think that that's what makes part of that roller coaster. The really wonderful part."
Monika Kelly: "I can imagine you started almost immediately with seven teams. How many teams are participating now?
Jodie Joslin: "Oh, so this past season during our fall volleyball season, which runs from August through early November, we had 26 volleyball teams. And then now we just started, we're in basketball season now. It starts January and ends mid March. And this year we have 17 basketball teams."
Monika Kelly: "That is amazing. So, and how far does it reach as far as California?"
Jodie: "So right now we're just in California, but again, like I said, I mean, I, you know, I, I don't want to limit God and I think there's big vision for this. But right now we're in Northern California and we, we stretched the greater Sacramento area. So, you know, we're out in Lincoln and Rockland and Roseville, Auburn up to Placerville out to beyond Sacramento into Vacaville. And again, you know, just kind of here locally Fair Oaks, Sacramento."
Monika: "So get ready. Cause I have a feeling when people hear this, they're going to be reaching out to you. Tell me more about how the students have responded."
Jodie: "Oh gosh. I wish I could show you the letters. I have a ton of thank you's and letters.I have kids come up to us cause at the end of every season, we have a league wide banquet right now, our banquets up to about 500 people just because these kids don't like doing things alone. It's such a huge, wonderful community. They all want to hang out together. But at the end of the season, we typically get lots of thank yous and 'Hey, I'm going on, I'm going to, you know, for our seniors, I'm going to, I'm going to go study whatever at this college. And, and Oh, by the way, I got picked up and I've signed and I'm going to be playing volleyball or basketball at that college. And I'm going to be studying, you know, political science or, you know, and I think what they've learned through us and it's, they're usually typically their big thank you is thank you for such a great season. I met so many people. I developed such great relationships. I grew deeper in my walk with Christ. I feel confident now.'
That's what we hear from the students. And they're just thankful that they have a place to play competitive sports because otherwise they wouldn't be able to."
Monika: "You're building such an incredible network that they'll probably have for the rest of their lives."
Jodie: "I think so. I get emails and text messages from former athletes, you know, who are now married with their own kids, thanking us for what they learned through us. And, um, and some of them even asking to come back and coach. And what I told my husband was that I feel like we've gone full circle when you have your former athletes wanting to be a part of your organization and give back."
Monika: "What a harvest."
Jodie: "It absolutely is. We are blown away. And I just feel like going into 2025, God is just opening up more and more doors. We have big vision for this. And clearly it's, it's such a vision. That's beyond my husband and I, that we know it must be a God thing. And so we're just, okay, Lord, whatever you want to do, wherever you want to take this, just show us the way we'll just do what you want."
Monika: "That's so great. What is your website?"
Jodie: "Our website is www.westcoastimpact.com. And on there, you'll find all our information about who we are and our mission statement and that type of thing. You'll, there's a page on our coaches. Not all of our coaches are up yet because we keep building the coach inventory and staff. And that's really wonderful. But there's also information on our volleyball teams and our basketball teams."
Monika: "Thank you so much. Jodi Joslin, co-founder of West Coast Impact here in the Sacramento area."
Jodie: "Thank you so much. Thank you for having me."