Tulane Volleyball Star Tea Juric Earns Place in Athletics Hall of Fame
Tea Juric traveled to New Orleans from across the world to be a Tulane Green Wave. Now, she's a Hall of Famer.
Juric will be part of the Tulane Green Wave Class of 2025 Hall of Fame, which will be officially inducted later this year.
She grew up in Kastel Stari, Croatia. and her dominance in Croatia caught the eye of Tulane’s coaches.
Before traveling to the United States she was a part of the Croatian Junior National Team and was named Most Valuable Player of the Croatian Junior Championships, as well as the Youth Sports Games in 2012.
About Tulane Legend Tea Juric
She came to Tulane to play for both the volleyball and beach volleyball teams while studying public health.
While she was an important and productive leader on both teams, it was her beach volleyball that really shined. Juric finished her four-year career as the winningest player in Tulane beach volleyball history. She had an overall record of 103-43 and was also the first woman to ever eclipse 100 career wins.
Her freshman year at Tulane, her and her partner, Jackie Wegner, qualified for the AVCA College Sand Volleyball National Championship. They were the first duo to accomplish this since the sport was deemed varsity in 2012.
The following year she paired up again with Wegner. The duo went on to have many firsts for the program. The biggest was back-to-back bids to the AVCA National Pairs Championships, qualified for the 16-seeded bracket play to championship Sunday, the first 30-match win season and a season best nine-straight wins.
Wegner and Juric paired up one more year during Juric’s junior season. They won an impressive 11 matches in a row and had nine wins against top 25 teams. This included wins against No. 5-ranked Hawaii and No. 12 LSU (twice). Juric was named to the CCSA All-Conference Team for the first time.
Her final year on the sand courts led to another all-conference team selection after an outstanding season. Alongside Kaylie McHugh the pair finished with a team-best 28-9 record.
Indoors, Juric was a deadly outside-hitter.
As a true freshman she earned a plethora of accolades. Juric was named the conference freshman of the year, Louisiana co-freshman of the year, first-team all C-USA, among many others. As a freshman she led the team in kills (446), kills per set (3.98), points (489) and points per set (4.37). She also ranked second on the team in multiple categories: digs, service aces, aces per set, and attack percentage.
By the end of her Green Wave career she was top two in most categories especially those that revolved around hitting
Juric was an electric player to watch regardless of which court it was on. Her athleticism was always demonstrated and after traveling the world to follow her passion she will forever be cemented as a Green Wave in the Hall of Fame.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.