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12 CAVALIER CORNER BY MELISSA DUDEK " D iana Taurasi. Candace Parker. Sylvia Fowles." Tihana Stojsavljevic sat in John Paul Jones Arena's upper concourse shortly after her team's pregame meal before a No- vember game against East Carolina, rat- tling off a Who's Who of WNBA superstars from the last decade. Her list wasn't the Croatia native showing off her knowledge of American basketball players. It was a list of people she has played against in her career. "When I was 14, I was offered the chance to play basketball on Novi Zagreb, so I played in the EuroLeague against all of these superstars when I was very young," Stojsavljevic explained. "[Longtime inter- national basketball standout] Leilani Mitch- ell and [two-time WNBA All-Star] Court- ney Vandersloot were teammates of mine." Stojsavljevic was born in Slavonski Brod, a city on the Sava River bordering Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a teenager, she moved to the capital city of Zagreb, 120 miles from her hometown. She studied at a sports gym- nasium (high school for athletes only) while playing for Novi Zagreb and earning a spot on the Croatian National Team. "I basically grew up by myself because I had to attend high school, and I was playing with a professional team," she said. "My whole life was basketball and school. My summers were three months of the national team, then going back to playing for Novi Zagreb. My focus was on building my pro- fessional basketball career. We didn't quite expect that I'd be going to go to an Ameri- can university." They didn't expect it, but when U.S. col- leges began to take notice, her parents began to push for her to take advantage of the opportunity to get an education as well as refine her basketball skills. "If you're a women's basketball player, you cannot live on that career alone," Stojsavljevic said. "It's not like the NBA, women are not paid as much." For Stojsavljevic, the choice to further her education wasn't just a financial one. "I am very passionate about politics and social justice and equal rights because of my grandmother, so I really wanted to study that," she said. "Unfortunately, in Europe, it's impossible to play basketball and be a student at the same time on really high levels. "So the only place in the whole world [to do that] is the United States." It is actually two women that she refers to as her baka that have inspired her pas- sion — her biological grandmother Marija Stojsavljevic and Marija's sister, Gordana Vidovic. Both women were active participants in the Croatian War of Independence, which happened in the early 1990s when the re- public was breaking away from Yugoslavia. "My grandma was writing for newspa- pers about Croatian freedom," Stojsavljevic said. "She received an award from the first Croatian President for her work, while my grandma's sister actually fought in the war for Croatian independence. They both basi- cally raised me and have been such a sig- nificant influence on me. "When I was growing up, my grandma would give me books. I don't watch much TV even now because I really love reading books. She taught me about every Ameri- can President, every single European Prime Minister, whatever I needed to know. "My grandma instilled in me the sensitiv- ity for other people, saying that we have to be aware of how lucky we are, and if we ever are in a position to help somebody, es- pecially in the position of power, we have to give our best to make someone's life better. "She always told me that I would be a great diplomat so I should learn more lan- guages, and that's how I really became pas- sionate about international affairs." Her passion translated into a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations from Texas Tech University, and her present position in the Batten School of Pub- A DIPLOMATIC A DIPLOMATIC APPROACH APPROACH Tihana Stojsavljevic Is Pursuing Her Passion For International Affairs Stojsavljevic, who earned a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations from Texas Tech and is currently working on her master's degree in public policy and leadership at Virginia, interned at the Croatian Embassy in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. PHOTO COURTESY TIHANA STOJSAVLJEVIC