LOU LOPEZ SÉNÉCHAL folds her 6-foot-1 frame into a cushioned chair at the UConn bookstore on the Storrs campus. It’s the day before the Huskies fly to Seattle for the women’s NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16, and the woman who started her life in Mexico, lived most of it in France, swung through Ireland and became a basketball star in the United States wants to talk about a rhinoceros in South Africa.
Her family loves sharing this story, she says, her French accent trickling into her English words. Wearing a light blue sweatshirt and blue joggers, her wavy hair that is pinned in a bun when she is on the court cascades down her shoulders as she moves her arms animatedly.
She was 16 years old and sitting in a Jeep between her mom and stepdad on a safari at Kruger National Park when she noticed a rhino atop a hill a few hundred meters away. Suddenly, it charged at a speed that seemed impossible for a creature so large. Lou crouched in her seat, held her ground and refused to look away, preferring to stare her challenger in the eye.
On one side, her mom couldn’t bear to look and shut her eyes tight. On the other, her stepdad scooched over to position himself between Lou and death. Lou didn’t budge. She stared down the mighty mammal while her brain tried to convince her that she was…
