The New York Times, August 2025
On Valentine’s Day 2023, Latyr Thiaw, a 19-year-old maintenance worker living in Washington, D.C., saw a picture of UCLA women’s basketball player Kiki Rice on Instagram. He then watched interviews with her on YouTube and felt something “magnetic” between them. She reminded him of a character from “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
In the months that followed, Thiaw sent Rice dozens of unanswered messages on social media, and he changed the background screen on his phone to a picture of her. Then, in mid-December 2023, Thiaw flew to Los Angeles, rented a U-Haul van, parking near the UCLA campus for days and sleeping in the back.
On several occasions, Thiaw stood outside of UCLA’s practice facility waiting for Rice. Once, he sat on a bench for hours alongside a glass vase of white and red roses and a handwritten card that read, “Kiki Carroll Rice once upon a time you caught my sight through a life full of strife…you got me through the night…I want do something kosmik with you that will be enough till the end of time.”
