By Alex Dakers, guest columnist
It is never easy saying goodbyes, especially when it’s to someone who has made such a tremendous impact as David Pursley has, both on Stingray Swim Club and on the Cayman Islands swimming community as a whole.
Arriving from the US in late 2014, Coach Pursley – son of legendary swim coach Dennis Pursley – took the reins of Cayman’s Stingray Swim Club from the departing Andy Copley.
During his near eight-year tenure as head coach of the club team that has helped define competitive swimming in Cayman since 1996 (producing such talents as Shaune and Brett Fraser, to name a few), Pursley worked with the youngest age groups through to college-age swimmers.
He put together a large, committed ‘senior’ group of swimmers, the likes of which Cayman had yet to see on such scale, and coached kids from Cayman’s Lion’s Pool and the island’s sandy shores to the highest echelons of the sport, and relaunched Stingray Swim Club.
Despite the often transient nature of life in Cayman – Stingray saw multiple assistant coaches in Tim Leonhart, Mark Randall, Neil Hamp, Macon Crowder and Jackson Hannam over the years, as well as several big names in the sport serving as Cayman Swimming (CIASA) technical directors in Ian Armiger, Bailey Weathers and now Jacky Pellerin – Pursley was a constant throughout.
Hamp – who coached with Pursley at Stingray from early 2017 to 2019, and is now assistant head coach at Swim Bournemouth, in the south of England – could not speak highly enough of his friend and former colleague.
“If there was ever a coach who could make you engaged in something as daft as swimming up and down in a tank full of water, then it would be David,” he said. “He is obsessed (in the best way), kind knowledgeable, a personality, a leader… and most importantly above all, he cares.
“I recall many hours scouring books and scientific papers for the best ways to encourage a team of young individuals who aspire to succeed. In my short time with David, we shared several swimming moments that are the kind of memories that you never forget. I learnt a lot about a champion’s mindset.
“In my mind, he is one of the best coaches in the world, and without doubt will become one of the greats.”
As said by Hamp, encouraging and inspiring a team of young individuals – especially in a sport that requires such a time commitment and dedication, with the most devoted swimmers training upwards of 20 hours per week in the pool and gym – is exactly what Coach Pursley did.
Through the inevitable highs, lows and challenging moments of often training twice per day, including 5:15am starts in the pool before school, he was always there to motivate his swimmers to achieve their potential to the fullest because, above all else, he believed in them.
Ever a proponent in the ongoing battle for the construction of a 50-metre pool in Cayman to help take the sport to an even higher level, Pursley was always willing to go above and beyond what many swim coaches would do.
This included studying for and earning a certification that qualified him as a strength and conditioning coach for the most committed athletes on the team, as well as bringing in ‘dry-land’ gym equipment right to the Lion’s pool deck to add another dimension to the club’s training regime with a focus on honing talent and commitment from a young age.
During Cayman’s 2020 COVID-enforced lockdown, Pursley endeavoured to keep up the morale of swimmers and parents by organising group Zoom calls and Q&As with Olympians Matt Grevers and Anton McKee, as well as weekly virtual challenges, competitions and workouts (as well as instruction videos) centred around keeping fit throughout the months out of the pool.
That summer, mere months out of lockdown, five Stingray swimmers crossed the North Sound in memory of the late Emmanuel Brown – father of Raya Embury-Brown – with Coach Pursley accompanying them on kayak.
From when he first arrived at the club to present, 15 of Pursley’s swimmers have taken the next steps in their swimming careers at university or other institutions – a feat previously only achieved by a select few in Cayman’s swimming history. These swimmers (listed below) have continued to excel, competing at NCAA (USA) and BUCS (UK) levels for top collegiate programs – yet many still maintain that their time training with Pursley, under the floodlights of the Lion’s Pool, are some of the best days of their careers.
Swimmers coached to the collegiate level during David Pursley’s tenure as coach of Stingray Swim Club:
- Iain McCallum (University of Edinburgh, UK)
- Alex Dakers (University of Bath, UK)
- Cole Morgan (McKendree University)
- Ali Jackson (University of Northern Colorado)
- Jonathan Key (University of Indianapolis)
- Elana Sinclair (University of Birmingham, UK)
- John Bodden (McKendree University)
- Krishna Adapa (Pace University)
- Kenneth Glidden (McKendree University)
- Zachary Moore (Saint Andrews School, FL*)
- Sam Bailey (Ohio University)
- Jake Bailey (University of Massachusetts)
- Sarah Jackson (University of Northern Colorado)
- Corey Frederick-Westerborg (University of Indianapolis)
- Liam Henry (Indian River State College and St. Thomas University)
All of the above competed to a national representative level or above, both at meets across the USA and Caribbean and/or the annual CARIFTA (Caribbean Fair-Trade Agreement) Games. The latter is a staple competition in the calendar of every qualifying swimmer in the region, and during Pursley’s time coaching on the island, Cayman achieved many of their best ever medal and points hauls.
But Pursley knew his swimmers’ potential did not stop there. Many of those swimmers mentioned above (as well as swimmers still currently training on island, such as Kyra Rabess and Raya Embury-Brown, and swimmers from previous generations of Stingray like Alex McCallum) have qualified for meets at the highest levels in the sport, competing across the Caribbean and the world at the Commonwealth Games, Youth Commonwealth Games, World Championships (both short and long-course editions), CCCAN, CAC Games, Pan-American Games, Junior Pan-American Games, Island Games and the recent Caribbean Games.
You need only ask anyone associated with the club how much their coach’s guidance has meant to them, and the impact it has had on the countless swimmers he has trained in his years in Cayman. But who better to ask than John Bodden: an ever-present throughout the Pursley years until the beginning of his college career, and who has now recently returned to Stingray, working – with assistant coach Bryce Thompson – alongside his old coach to help develop the future of Cayman swimming.
To Bodden and his tightknit group of teammates, Coach Pursley embodied Stingray.
“For many of us,” Bodden said, “he became an adult that we learned from away from home and who taught us life lessons that are holding up in adulthood. Even through the tough times, the intense environment and attitude of ‘you can’t get away with doing something only halfway’ helped mould the swimmers in the programme.”
“Coach Pursley is Stingray,” he added, “and even though he’s leaving, Stingray gets to have another chapter in its story” – a story which ‘DPurz’ will always be a part of, as the legacy of all he’s helped to do lives on at Stingray and in the progression of Cayman Islands swimming on the sport’s highest stages.
Similar to Dave Kelsheimer (head coach during the early days of Stingray in the late 1990s and early 2000s, who played a key role in the careers of the Fraser brothers and Cayman’s first ever Olympic qualifier in Andrew Mackay) David Pursley will not be forgotten in Cayman Islands swimming.
In his time with Stingray Swim Club, he delivered an undeniably world-class level of dedication and training programme to bring the best out of his swimmers – and for that everyone associated with Cayman swimming will always be grateful.
Even away from the pool, the personable and outgoing coach was always immersed in and embracing of Cayman’s culture, food, events and people – getting involved in everything from Cayman rugby (despite his dodgy knees) to CayMAS, and even Movember (as a multiple-time reigning champion).
To DPurz: Cayman swimming and Stingray thank you for everything, wish you the best of luck, and hope it is not quite a goodbye, but a ‘see you later’.
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