Rivalry is the fuel of the fire in an athlete. Whether the rivalry is team vs team, mate vs mate, or self vs self, the rivalry fuels an athlete.
Delaware Men’s Crew members: Will Purman ‘13, Cooper Hurley ‘18, and Jimmy McCullough ‘19 earned the opportunity to wear their home country’s flag, and demonstrate their skill to the world. Purman and Hurley are alumni of Delaware Crew are no strangers to this concept.
“As my biggest rival, Jim motivates me to push myself beyond where I could possibly go on my own” Hurley states.
Jimmy McCullogh has been excelling on the Wilmington waterfront, as well as the world stage. McCollogh is a senior from Philadelphia, PA studying Biology at Delaware.
McCullogh’s coach and rowing partner, Cooper Hurley (‘18), recent undergrad of Delaware, is the freshman lightweight coach with the Delaware Men’s Crew team. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering with a concentration on Electromagnetics + Photonics.
The two have created quite a duo on the world stage representing the United States. McCullogh and Hurley barely broke a sweat in the lightweight men’s double sculls, crossing the line more than 13 seconds in front of their competitor.
“I had always dreamed of rowing for the United States National Team and after graduation the upcoming Pan-American Games seemed like a perfect place to start. Jim and I agreed the double would be a fun new adventure, since both of us primarily trained sweep our entire life (rowing with a single oar), and we won the trials race in August of 2018 to grab the spot to represent USA.” Said Hurley later in an interview.
Will Purman (‘13) represented his home country of Puerto Rico in the Men’s Single Sculls, finishing sixth in the A final.
These combinations of performance allowed these Blue Hens to swipe spots to compete in Lima, Peru from July 26, 2019- August 11, 2019.
At the end of an interview with Hurley, he stated, “Come August 2019, we are hoping to come back to the competition we faced at the qualifier faster than ever.”
Stay tuned to see how the Blue Hens continue to represent the University of Delaware on an international stage.