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FEBRUARY 2022 21 was not conventional for France because over there, the game is really mental and we're not as athletic, whereas I think the American game is really athletic and fast- paced," Toi said. "I'm also an emotional player. I just love to celebrate, and that's what Americans embrace about basketball. "Back home is the opposite. European basketball doesn't embrace that. You have to be chill and poised and serious about things, not as fun as in America, so I wanted to experience that and see how my game could translate." Toi had always done well in her English classes and was immersed in the English- speaking world through TV and music. She grew up watching The Disney Channel and its staples like "Hannah Mon- tana" and "High School Musi- cal." Even though the show's dialogue was dubbed in French, the songs were still performed in English with the subtitles be- low for context. Listening to international superstars like Beyoncé, Drake and Rihanna also helped im- prove her fluency, but there was one artist in particular whose English lyrics she loved to emulate. "Nicki Minaj just read off her lyrics, and I would say them along with her," Toi said. "And then I would want to know what they were, so I would Google them. I picked up so much stuff because, at some point, I wanted to understand what you guys were saying." Toi also studied hard to get high enough scores on the SAT and pass her TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) to qualify for a stateside collegiate education. She still had two large barriers to overcome, the first of which was her French academy. Students at INSEP were not allowed to go straight to an American university, so Toi had to take a gap year between high school and college, honing her basketball skills while playing as an amateur on a semi-pro club team. During that time, she crossed the second hurdle, finding an American school that wanted her. She first met former Cavaliers head coach Joanne Boyle over Facebook. A couple of months later, Toi was on her way to Charlottesville. "Coming here was an adjustment," she said. "The food is big! I mean, your portions are enormous! It was also small things, like back home we kiss cheeks. Here you hug, and I was like, 'Why are you hugging me?' "And back home, when you go to a room, you literally say 'hi' to everybody. I was going to class, and I say 'hi' [and] everybody was like, 'Who is this person?'" It didn't take long for her to feel right at home in her new home. "I really liked Charlottesville immediately because I was coming from a city where everything was busy," Toi said. "Coming here, I was able to focus on basketball. That was my goal. That's why I committed to Virginia and not to a school in Chicago or New Jersey, because I love the fact that UVA's vision was family-oriented, but also it was chill for me. "I needed to be focused on basketball because you're young and sometimes you have so many distractions. And it was Amer- ica, so it all was new." While living in France, English had been one of her best subjects. At UVA, she flipped that on its head by choosing to major in French, receiving her bachelor's degree in the discipline last May. "It's like an American majoring in Eng- lish," she explained. "When I'm majoring in French, I'm not learning French because that requirement was gone the first day I stepped on Grounds and spoke French to them. We studied French literature and French writings. "We do have French courses where you have to validate French, because it's sort of a difficult language that you have to vali- date. I only took 4000 level classes in it, and I even took a 5000 class last year, and it was hard. I had to write pieces for a pre- sentation in front of people at the Rotunda." Toi is now working on her master's degree in higher education in the School of Educa- tion and Human Development. It is tradi- tionally a two-year program, but after taking summer school classes and signing up for a heavy course load, Toi will finish it in a year. She wants to go into coaching eventu- ally, but she wants to go back to Europe and play professionally before that. France would be the obvious choice, but it's hard to call that going back home to play. After living five years in the States, she feels very American. Ironically, it is the food that is high on her list of things that she misses when she is on the other side of the Atlantic, particularly fried calamari and spinach artichoke dip. Still, mainly it is Grounds and the people she has met here that make America feel like her home. Before the next part of her journey be- gins, and wherever she heads off to once again redefine "home," she wanted to make sure she had a chance to officially thank the person she credits with having made her current journey possible. "Without Coach B, I would not be here," she said, referring to Boyle, her former head coach. "When I was in boarding school over- seas, yes, I was good, but I was not all that, and she trusted me. "Before I injured my ACL my first year, she put me on the floor here and just believed in me. If she were not the one recruiting me, talking to me and trusting a little skinny Parisian girl coming from France with just a dream of being a baller, I wouldn't be here. "So I really appreciate that. I think that Coach B is such a wonderful person. When- ever I do leave UVA, it will be the end of an era, our era. [Toi is the last remaining student-athlete who played for Boyle.] So I want to say that I really appreciate what she did for me, and I will always be thankful for the experience of America and what she brought into my life." " Coming here, I was able to focus on basketball. That was my goal. That's why I committed to Virginia and not to a school in Chicago or New Jersey, because I love the fact that UVA's vision was family-oriented, but also it was chill for me. I needed to be focused on basketball because you're young and sometimes you have so many distractions. And it was America, so it all was new. " TOI