Published: September 08, 2020
UT’s International Athletes Make a Splash
Four of UT’s 58 international student-athletes share how they’ve acclimated to their new environment, overcome obstacles and broadened their horizons.
Imagine being 18 years old, uprooting your life and hopping on a plane (or two, or three) to fly to not just a new country but a new continent to attend college. Not only are you traveling far away from family and childhood friends, but you’re suddenly surrounded by a new language, new foods, new clothing, new music, new traditions and more. Taking that chance requires courage and an adventurous spirit.
About 12% of UT student-athletes are international and help make the campus beautifully diverse while they pursue their dreams abroad. Here, four of UT’s 58 international student-athletes — from Chile, Italy, Spain and Sweden — share how they’ve acclimated to their new environment, overcome obstacles and broadened their horizons.
Hugo Bustamante
Hugo Bustamante ’22 gets ready to race.
Distance from Home: 4,311 miles
Hometown: Santiago, Chile
Sport: men’s swimming
Class: junior
Studies: marketing major, economics minor
Hugo Bustamante ’22 still doesn’t believe it.
With his teammates cheering around the pool, he looked at the scoreboard following his 100- and 200-yard backstroke events at the annual Sunshine State Conference Championship meet this past February for his times: 49.33 seconds in the former, 1 minute, 48.77 seconds in the latter. Those are times he wouldn’t have dreamed of accomplishing while growing up in Chile — and they’re times that helped his team win that championship for the first time in school history.
“Saying it out loud, it’s actually crazy,” Bustamante says. “I surprised myself.”
His success comes after spending his last year of high school reaching out to coaches across the U.S., the only place where he wanted to attend college. Just one took him seriously: Phil Murray, assistant swimming coach at UT. Murray’s interest, along with UT’s impressive ratio of faculty to students, made Bustamante want to become a Spartan. “I thought: the smaller the school, the more family-like it’ll feel,” he says.
But leaving home was difficult.
“It was a very bittersweet feeling that I was in the right place doing what I loved to do, doing what I was supposed to do, but at the same time just missing family from back home,” he says.
After attending the same school for grades K-12, he left behind a bunch of lifelong friends and faced an enormous amount of uncertainty. But he was delighted to find a new, welcoming community on the UT swim team.
On his first day at the UT pool, his then-teammate Dominic Russo ’20 introduced himself and immediately took him under his wing. “He opened my eyes to what I was capable of accomplishing at UT,” he says. Soon, he bonded with other international swimmers from England, Norway, Canada and Switzerland.
Being chosen as a co-captain by his teammates for this school year when he’s only a junior has meant so much to him. “It gives me so much more confidence moving forward,” he says.
Giulia Tatini
Giulia Tatini ’22 credits her teammates with helping her transition to life at UT.
Distance from Home: 5,080 miles
Hometown: Florence, Italy
Sport: tennis
Class: junior
Studies: international business and finance major, criminology and criminal justice minor
As a teen, Giulia Tatini ’22 came to Naples, FL, as part of a oneyear exchange school program and had originally planned to return to Italy to complete grade school and college. But as her friends began getting recruited by U.S. coaches and she learned more about UT, the tennis player changed her mind.
In Italy, she says, she would have been forced to choose between academics and a full-time tennis career, but going to UT allowed her to earn a degree and keep playing. “There is no other country in the world that is able to offer the same experience and the same opportunities that the U.S. does for athletes,” she says. “In the U.S., athletes are the heroes. I love the importance that is given to sport in the U.S.”
What’s made her transition to UT simple? That’s easy: her teammates. During a March tournament in South Carolina, she and four teammates competed against five other teammates in a cooking competition that Al DuFaux, head coach of women’s tennis, ruled a tie. In fact, cooking is one of Tatini’s passions. She has made her teammates popular Italian dishes like pasta carbonara, pasta with clams and the dessert tiramisu. In return, they’ve taught her how to make American staples like mac and cheese and cheesecake.
“All of the girls on my team, I consider them my best friends,” she says. “It’s not easy to find a group of people who get along like that.” When they’re not practicing, competing or cooking together, they’re eating out together — usually at Mexican restaurants, which is exciting to Tatini because there aren’t as many of them in Italy.
Tatini, who had a 3-1 record in doubles play this past year, has enjoyed meeting students from all over the world at UT and looks forward to what the future will bring. “I love learning from different cultures and also sharing my knowledge with them,” she says.
Petronella Hjort
Petronella Hjort ’23, who is from Malung, Sweden, loves that the Tampa weather allows her to play golf outside year-round.
Correction: In the print version of this story, we published an incorrect photo of Petronella Hjort. The photo in this online version has been updated.
Distance from Home: 4,751 miles
Hometown: Malung, Sweeden
Sport: women’s golf
Class: sophomore
Studies: international business and entrepreneurship major, finance minor
Petronella Hjort ’23 looked out one of the windows of her home in Malung, Sweden, during the middle of May and was quickly reminded why she decided to attend UT. It was nearly summertime, and it was still snowing.
When looking for a college two years ago, she wanted to be somewhere warm, somewhere she could play outside yearround — rather than practicing her driving into a net indoors or putting artificial turf in her family’s garage for nearly eight months a year. Hjort narrowed her search to Florida because she has family members in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
What convinced her to go to UT was a conversation with Missey Jones, head coach of women’s golf. “She is the nicest person I have ever met and supports our team 100%,” says Hjort. “She is a great coach who cares about us and makes us better people and golf players.”
There were obstacles at first, such as getting past the language barrier. “In math class, when the professor asks what’s 5 + 5, I know in my head that’s 10, but I have to translate it,” she says. “You’re like one second behind everyone else, or two.”
Some of her favorite moments at UT have included teaching phrases from the Swedish language — like “Hi, how are you” and “My name is” — to her teammates. “Swedish is a very funny language. Have you seen The Muppets? The Swedish Chef? They get surprised by how it sounds. Most people laugh at me when I’m on the phone,” she says.
On the golf course, Hjort shot an average of 81.5 during her first year (including a season-low 76 in the third round of the 2020 Lady Moc Classic) and hopes to become a professional once she graduates. After all, going pro is in her DNA. Her brother, Benjamin, plays in the Nordic Golf League, and her aunt Maria McBride plays on the LPGA Tour.
Connecting with an instant support group of teammates is one of the most fun aspects of her life now, because before coming to UT, Hjort had played only individually. She’s invited all of her teammates to visit Sweden — during the summer, of course.
Juancho Fernandez
Juancho Fernandez ’21 is now a captain of the men’s soccer team.
Distance from Home: 4,279 miles
Hometown: Oveido, Spain
Sport: men’s soccer
Class: senior (academically), junior (athletically)
Studies: international business and management major
While Juancho Fernandez ’21 was in high school, a recruiting advisement agency filmed him playing soccer and pitched him to various U.S. universities. “To be honest, that makes it seem easier, instead of starting from zero,” he says. Soon enough, the agency got back to him with several scholarship offers and photos of campuses and cities. He decided on UT without even visiting.
“Being 20 minutes away from the coast — in Spain I live 10 minutes from the beach — it had everything I was looking for,” Fernandez says.
His biggest challenge during his first year at UT was improving his English. When opening a bank account, he was nervous. So Zach Soufl ’18, the men’s soccer team captain at the time, kindly offered to go with him and translate.
After he settled in, he was thrilled to scratch his travel itch by visiting locations that are a little easier to get to now, like Cuba, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala and New York.
He’s noticed many interesting differences between living in the U.S. versus Spain. With academics, he never had syllabi in Oviedo, so he loves how organized his coursework is. “I also feel like I was so much more advanced in some aspects, such as in mathematics. However, I was fascinated by how most of my American classmates and coaches felt comfortable with public speaking,” he says.
Observations abound on the soccer field too. “I realized how my American teammates focus on details such as punctuality and respect to the coaches. This prepares you for the real world. In our culture, we learn to fight and show courage when you compete,” he says. Plus, there have been surprises when wandering around Tampa. For instance, everything in America is bigger, like buildings, cars and portion sizes. Speaking of mealtime, he’s had to get used to eating earlier — lunch in Spain is 2-3:30 p.m. and dinner is 9-10:30 p.m.
But once he puts on his cleats, everything feels familiar. The forward scored a team-high eight goals during the 2018- 2019 season before suffering a knee injury that kept him from playing last season. He’s a captain this fall, so he can pay it forward and help first-years adjust to UT life.
Adrian Bush, head coach of men’s soccer, is impressed by Fernandez’s work ethic and commitment. “During the pandemic, he returned to Spain for UT remote learning. That meant taking classes from midnight to 4 a.m., which is no easy task. Despite that, he had a 3.63 cumulative GPA this spring — not too bad for a young man who spoke very little English when he arrived on campus,” he says.
By Daniel Paulling
Photography by Griffin Dempsey, Todd Montgomery and Mike Watters
This story first appeared in the UT Journal.
