North Carolina State University Athletics
When It Hurts Too Much To Play
4/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
April 21, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- Kristin Lam has given up on tennis, for now, but she hasn't given up on her teammates.
It's been a rugged road for Lam since she came to NC State five years ago, for what she had hoped was a pit stop on the way to a professional tennis career. She had even kicked around for a year after high school, playing in professional events as a nationally ranked amateur, thinking she might bypass college all together.
That was four knee surgeries ago.
Now, the bone-grinding-against-bone pain in her practically cartilage-free knees is too much. She'd like to be able to walk when she gets older.
So earlier this year, she uttered words that are still a unbelievable to her: "Coach, it hurts too much. I just can't play anymore."
She still has one of the loudest voices in the Isenhour Tennis Center. She sits at the end of the bench, her left knee wrapped by an electromagnetic sleeve, cheering her teammates. "Even though I am unable to play, I do everything I can to be on the court with my team, feeding balls, whatever my coaches or assistant coaches want me to do," said Lam, who went 2-2 at No. 2 singles and 2-0 in doubles when she was able to play. "That means a lot to me. Even though I am injured, it doesn't mean I want to stay away from the team and not be part of practice.
"I do whatever I can."
She'll be with her teammates today, as they begin play in the ACC Women's Tournament in Cary, facing Duke at noon at the Cary Tennis Complex.
It's not like Lam has a low pain tolerance. She's a tough kid from tough stock.
Her parents, Su and Huong Lam, immigrated to the United States separately from Vietnam in the mid-1970s, displaced by war that tore their country apart.. Her dad, Su, was a Colonel for the South Vietnamese. He took three bullets before left his native country and landed in Louisiana.
He lost a brother, a heart surgeon working with the U.S. Army, to a bomb. The rest of his family managed to escape, but they scattered across the U.S. and it took years to track everyone down.
Her mom, Huong, came to California, and eventually met Su Lam, who got a job as an aerospace engineer at McDonnell-Douglas. They married and had a single daughter, who they taught to play tennis.
They lived the American dream in Long Beach, Calif. - for a while. In 1994, Su Lam was laid off from his job and the family had to start over.
By then, Kristin was a top-ranked junior tennis player, whose aspirations were limitless. Unanchored by the loss of her father's job, the family decided to pack up and move East, to find Kristin a place to play tennis.
They had intended to go to Florida, until they discovered how expensive it was. They ended up in Hilton Head, S.C., where they were introduced to Denis and Pat Van Der Meer, nationally renown coaches who operated the Van Der Meer Tennis Academy, which produces many college recruits and professional players every year.
Her parents went to work in a restaurant, and eventually opened their own tailoring shop.
"We had some tough times," Lam said. "My parents sacrificed wherever they could to help me play tennis, to help me buy that first racquet, to take me to the court after school and after work to teach me how to play the game.
"They sacrificed a lot. They mean everything to me."
Originally, Lam had no thoughts of going to college. But traveling the country as an amateur in professional tournaments was expensive. She did it for a year, then decided to find a place to study. She chose NC State over Clemson.
As a freshman, she was bothered by lingering knee problems, but she played No. 1 and 2 singles and compiled a 3-8 record. She had surgery in the off-season, took off eight months and began rehabilitation. She redshirted the 2001-02 season. When she came back in the fall of 2002, she was pain-free in her left knee for the first time in years. She won her first two matches in the fall, but then she heard a pop in her right knee.
At the time, it made her laugh. After all she had been through with her left knee, she couldn't believe the same thing was happening again. There was no ligament damage, but she did have a torn meniscus. She continued to play, compiling a 5-9 singles record and a 4-8 doubles record.
She was healthy and strong for most of last season, going 7-8 while playing in the top two singles spots and 6-8 in doubles.
Lam had high expectations for her senior season, but the pain and swelling in her right knee became too much to bear.
But she will have something important to show for her career at NC State: she'll get a degree in Communications in May, which she hopes to use in a career in the media or in coaching.
"It was pretty much the best career choice I have ever made in my life, to go to college and have the best five years I could have," Lam said. "I don't regret anything about it."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
