Hall of Fame
Stephanie Hurley served as captain of the last women’s rugby club team and helped lay the foundation for a successful transition to the varsity level in the fall of 2008. She helped lead the Cadets to the Northeast Regional Championship.
Hurley began her Norwich education and experience in the Corps of Cadets rook class of 2003. She was a proud member of Golf Company. Stephanie constantly sought out new challenges, and freshman year she joined the women’s rugby team, NUWRFC. Despite never having played competitively before Norwich, she rose to captain her junior and senior years. Under her leadership and newfound skills, they went from competing at a club level to placing first in the northeast and the third in the country at the National Elite 8 Rugby Finals.
Hurley also excelled in the classroom, spending consecutive semesters on the Dean’s List. Beginning her junior year, she received a two-year Guaranteed Reserve Forces Scholarship (GRFD) from the US Army. She was awarded the COL Conrad D. Whitney Award for military excellence. In 2007, she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice. She commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. After her passing in 2008, she was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Army Achievement Medal.
She is remembered and buried at Arlington National Cemetery, 54 55 56. At Norwich University, she is dedicated on the Harmon Wall and her name is inscribed on a brick in front of Jackman Hall. The Women’s Rugby Locker room was dedicated in her honor in 2021.
Hurley once said, “Remember this: NUWRFC is a sisterhood, we do whatever we have to for the girls to our right and our left because we are a family. Rely on your teammates and trust them with everything because they will take care of you like an older sister would.”
Norwich University Athletics was a tight-knit family to Hurley and it helped her leadership skills flourish and inspire others.
“Steph believed in Norwich Rugby. She believed that we could accomplish anything we set our sights on and were willing to work towards. I’ve never met a player who had the faith in herself and her team like Steph did. If the best team in the world had shown up at Norwich, Steph wouldn’t have hesitated to make the first hit. She had incredible courage and the work rate to back it up. Her heart and her devout love of her teammates made us all better people for having known her,” Head Coach Austin Hall said.
