By Dante Iafrate
@DanteIafrate
The plane’s engine roared beneath her seat as Kapom Vettayawaikoon looked out the window, seeing her home fade into the clouds. She was 15. Alone. Leaving home not only for school, but for a life that would never be the same again. Phuket, the sun-kissed island she called home, was thousands of miles behind her. Ahead: the rigid, snow-topped facade of a Pennsylvania boarding school, the strange beat of an American classroom and the foreboding specter of freedom.
“If everything is predictable and everything goes according to plan,” Kapom says, with a gentle laugh. “Wouldn’t life be kind of boring?”
It’s the kind of maturity that seems almost too down-to-earth for a woman in her early 20s—but that’s Kapom. A tennis player at Springfield College, an international student who speaks several languages and a survivor of cultural dislocation and personal trauma, she is a rich portrait of the modern global youth experience: adaptable, driven, and resilient.
Kapom grew up in Phuket, Thailand—her home perhaps better known to tourists for its postcard beaches. But to her, it was a schoolroom of cultural identity.
“Growing up taught me to see all the different cultures, people from many different backgrounds,” she says. “At the end of the day, we’re all just humans. All the little aspects of us that are different—that’s what makes us unique.”
Her upbringing was centered on discipline. She started playing tennis when she was four years old and competed provincially. Tennis instilled in her the virtue of perseverance before she even knew the meaning of the word.
“You lose more often in tennis,” she says. “You lose your point, fine, you gotta snap out of it, go to a new one. That mindset switch—it applies to all of life.”
When she chose to study in America, her family supported her, but the emotional impact of that upheaval didn’t hit her until she was 35,000 feet above the earth, traveling to Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school located in the gentle woods of West Chesterfield, Pennsylvania.
“I had no idea where West Chesterfield was,” she says. “I just knew it was far.”
At Westtown, she took on duties as a resident advisor, and eventually gained the emotional autonomy to succeed in a new world. That independence was tested during a spring break expedition her senior year.
A skiing accident left her with a ruptured ACL. Sitting in the nurse’s room at school, waiting for a call from her doctor, she broke down.
“I was trying not to cry the whole time. Then the tears wouldn’t stop,” she recalls. “I thought I just destroyed my whole life.”
What followed was months of rehab, self-reflection and slow rebuilding—not just of her body, but of her identity. Tennis, the thing that had previously defined her, was now uncertain. In its place came something deeper: the understanding that resilience is not always about pushing forward. Sometimes it’s about learning how to stand still.
Kapom eventually ended up at Springfield College, where she’s studying Healthcare Management and Finance. By the time she arrived, she’d already weathered the emotional storm of withdrawal and healing. But adapting to a new college athletic program brought its challenges—and rewards.
She has found comfort and camaraderie with her doubles partner, Ramida Manataweewat, a fellow Thai. They shared stories of the cuisine they miss, Instagram reels about Thai cities they would like to return to, and joked about 7-Eleven from home.
“We’re united by different foods we’ve seen on Instagram reels. We simply keep posting, like, ‘Oh, we have to visit that place when we come back,” Ramida said. “Kapom is a very reliable person—always motivating her teammates, always the team’s vibe.”
Tanner Devarennes, who is both the men’s and women’s tennis teams’ head coach, is a little short on words to describe Kapom’s impact.
“She’s humanic in the manner she thinks,” Devarennes says. “She doesn’t care just about herself; she cares about the others she’s playing with. She’s the glue that holds everything together.”
As an international student, even something as ordinary as staying in touch with family is difficult. An 11-hour time difference with Thailand means calls are rare and far between, and messages are sometimes delayed.
“I’m so busy in my own life that sometimes I forget they’re living theirs, too,” she says. “We call now and then— ‘How’s everything going?’ It’s not ideal, but it works.”
This paradox—deeply connected and physically far away—is the unseen component of the international student-athlete experience. It’s not necessarily missing home. It’s creating something new from what “home” even is.
“Everything will work out the way it’s meant to,” she says. “Whatever you’re going through, it’s just a lesson to prepare you for what’s coming.”
This is the lesson that she learned from her Buddhist childhood. Injury, homesickness, burnout—these are pages, not finales. Each has a meaning, even if that meaning isn’t clear right away.
Vettayawaikoon’s story is far from over. She still has matches to play, classes to pass and goals to chase. But what she’s already lived—leaving home as a teen, facing injury and isolation, rebuilding herself in a foreign land—is enough to reflect the spirit of a generation coming of age in a world without borders. Her story is more about tennis than about anything else. It’s about becoming.
“If you don’t confront anything difficult,” she said, “how are you going to develop?”
(Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics)