| Date of birth | March 15, 1996 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Height | 1.67 m (5 ft 5+1⁄2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 66 kg (146 lb; 10 st 6 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tess Feury (born March 15, 1996) [1] is an American rugby union player. She competed for the United States at the 2017 and 2021 Rugby World Cups. She has played for the Leicester Tigers in the Premiership Women's Rugby competition, and will play for the New York Exiles in the inaugural season of the Women's Elite Rugby competition.
Feury was raised in Denville, New Jersey by Tom and KJ Feury. [2] She grew up playing rugby; her father, Tom, was introduced to the sport in college. He started a flag rugby team, the Denville Dawgs, [3] to allow his sons and daughter to play rugby. [4] [5] She has two brothers who played rugby at Pennsylvania State University and Middlebury College, and her mother also served as the president of Rugby New Jersey for several years. [6] [7] Feury attended Villa Walsh Academy, where she played varsity soccer and ran track and field, and graduated in 2014. [1] [7]
Feury attended The Pennsylvania State University. In 2018, Feury graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's in nursing. [8] Feury has worked as a Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse at Morristown Medical Center.
While in high school, Feury played rugby sevens for the New Jersey Blaze, which won the high school girls championship in 2013, for the Atlantis rugby team, and for the Morris Rugby girl's high school team. [3] [9]
She was selected for the USA Rugby High School All-American team in sevens and fifteens rugby in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and trained with the United States national women's sevens team in Chula Vista, California. [10]
Feury captained and played scrum-half for the 4th-place finishing United States Girls team at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China. [3] She was named the High School Rugby Player of the Year in 2014. [9]
From 2014 to 2018, Feury played fullback and outside center for the Pennsylvania State University women's rugby team. [11] The team won three national championships during that time, and Feury was a four-time Collegiate All-American. [12] She was named the Big 10 Rugby Freshman of the Year in 2015, as well as the Most Valuable Player of the championship game in 2015. [8] [13]
Feury has also played with the New York Rugby Club in the Women's Premier League. [12]
She made her debut for the United States in 2016 against England at the Women's Super Series in Salt Lake City, Utah. [12] She was selected for the Eagles 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup squad. [14] [15] From 2016 to 2018, she was named to the USA Rugby Club Sevens National Championships All-Tournament Team. [2]
In 2022, she was named in the Eagles squad for the Pacific Four Series in New Zealand. [16] [17] She was selected in the Eagles squad for the 2021 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. [18] [19] [20]
Feury was named in the Eagles traveling squad for the 2023 Pacific Four Series. [21] [22] She was in the United States side that faced Japan in Los Angeles on 26 April 2025. [23] [24]
She signed with the Leicester Tigers for the 2023–24 Premiership Women's Rugby season. [25] [26] Feury will play with the New York Exiles in the 2025 Women's Elite Rugby season. [27] [28]