On the Same Team: Moravian Grads Reunite at Prestigious FBI National Academy

Twenty years after playing football together at Moravian, two former teammates reunite through an elite police academy.

Police lieutenant Ray Burgan ‘04 was preparing to enter the FBI National Academy—a 10-week training program for the cream of the crop in law enforcement—when he noticed a familiar face in the pictures from the previous term: Michael Hurden ’06, a former classmate and football teammate at Moravian, who was now a police captain himself. “I remembered Mike vividly,” says Burgan. He reconnected with Hurden, who coached him through the program, helping him with recommendations on what instructors to take to where to find the best eggs for breakfast at FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. “I was super-excited for him,” says Hurden. “Because I knew what he was in for, and I knew he was going to come away with so much.” 

The former teammates are now part of an elite cadre of law enforcement officers all over the country, and the world, who become leaders in their profession. Even though they lost touch for 20 years, they have followed uncannily similar paths from Moravian to careers in police leadership. Burgan grew up in southern New Jersey, not far from where he now works at the Longport Police Department. Recruited for football to Moravian, he majored in psychology and played as a fullback for the Greyhounds. Hurden grew up in northern New Jersey in Wall Township, where he now works. He transferred to Moravian his sophomore year, when Burgan was a senior. 

Both of them credit Moravian with giving them the discipline and tenacity in both academics and sports that has since served them well in law enforcement. “Accountability was big on the football field,” says Burgan. “It taught us at a young age, you’re accountable to the person to the left and right of you, and they’re accountable to you.” Unlike some programs where athletics and academics are at odds, he says, professors served as guest coaches, and coaches sitting with players during mandatory study halls after practices. “Moravian got me ready for anything,” says Hurden. “It was a lot of critical thinking, thinking on your feet.” 

The football team struggled during Burgan’s years, but laid the groundwork for a couple of breakout seasons by the time Hurden was an upperclassman, including winning an Eastern College Athletic Conference bowl his senior year. “We were successful off the back of Ray’s class,” says Hurden, a team co-captain, who describes Burgan as a “shirt-off-his-back” kind of player, who mentored him in the year they overlapped on the field. Twenty years later, Hurden was able to return the favor as he preceded Burgan into the FBI academy. 

“For us in law enforcement, it’s the top shelf in terms of leadership,” Hurden says. During consecutive sessions of the program, Hurden and Burgan learned from elite FBI instructors on topics ranging from staff retention to hostage negotiations. “It’s a great reminder of why you chose the profession, going back to basics and understanding, this is where I wanted to be—it’s reinvigorating.” Along with the educational component, the program also included a demanding physical regimen, leading up to the notorious Yellow Brick Road FBI obstacle course. “It was the best training experience I’ve had in my life,” says Burgan. “You’re in class with the best of the best—the NFL of law enforcement.”Since the experience, they’ve stayed connected over text, and are looking forward to quarterly meetings of the state chapter of FBI Academy graduates. “It’s like an alumni or a fraternity,” Hurden says. “And there’s something added for me and Ray—it’s like being in a fraternity with a friend you grew up with.” Members stay uniquely connected, relying on each other for help and advice, and both Burgan and Hurden say they won’t hesitate now to reach out to their former teammate in the future. “I found a friend I always had, but lost 20 years ago,” says Burgan. “The academy brought us back together.” —Michael Blanding