When I’m not spending time with family or volunteering in the community, my day-to-day work is usually focused within post-secondary education.
Though I’m not a full-time academic, I do enjoy any chance that I get to teach or be involved in research. At the moment, my research interests focus on the history of sport and recreation in Canada, in particular, gender construction and the sport of angling prior to the mid-twentieth century. I also have an interest in the development of sports such as lacrosse and anything to do with the history of mountains.
In addition to sessional teaching, I love to give talks for various community groups on anything from history to hiking.
Academic Publications:
Kossuth, Robert and McMurray, David. “Reclaiming Canada through its ‘Ancient’ Sport: Lacrosse and the Native Sons of Canada in late 1920s Alberta”. The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 32, Issue 14, 2015, 1642-1660.
McMurray David. “‘The Charm of Being Loose and Free:’ Nineteenth-Century Fisherwomen in the North American Wilderness”. The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 30 Issue 12, April 2013, 1-27.
McMurray, David. “‘A Recreation Which Many Ladies Delight In’: Establishing a Tradition of Fisherwomen in Britain and North America Prior to the Mid-Nineteenth Century”. Sport History Review, Vol. 43 Issue 2, November 2012, 128-156.
McMurray, David. “‘Rivaling the Gentleman in the Gentle Art’: The Authority of the Victorian Woman Angler”. Sport History Review, Vol. 39, Issue 2, November 2008, 99-126.
Academic Book Chapters
Kossuth, Robert and David McMurray, “The Impact of Industrialization on Sport, Recreation, and the Environment” in Sport and Recreation in Canadian History edited by Carly Adams, Windsor: Human Kinetics, 2020.
Kossuth, Robert and David McMurray, “Reclaiming Canada through its ‘Ancient’Sport: Lacrosse and the Native Sons of Canada in late 1920s Alberta”in Sport in the Americas: Local, Regional, National, and International Perspectives, edited by Mark Dyreson, New York: Routledge, 2018.
Academic Conference Papers
McMurray, David and Kossuth, Robert. “‘In the woods of Canada, equality with our brothers and husbands awaits us…’ Gender and Class Constructions in the Sport of Angling on the Frontier Canadian West. Presentation at the Forty-Second Annual Convention of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH), Glenwood Springs, Colorado, May 30-June 2, 2014.
Kossuth, Robert and McMurray, David. “Reclaiming Canada through its ‘Ancient’ Sport? Lacrosse and the Native Sons of Canada in late 1920s Alberta”. Presentation at the Forty-First Annual Convention of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH), Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 24 – 27, 2013.
Interviews
Opening Doors: Women Who Fish Have Earned Their Catch by Cathy Newman in Anglers Journal, Spring 2020.
Local / Community History
McMurray, David. “An Early History of Baseball in Lethbridge” (Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony program, May 2025)
McMurray, David. “The History of Speed Skating in Lethbridge” (Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony program, May 2024)
McMurray, David. “60 Years of Athletics at Lethbridge College” (Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony program, May 2017).
McMurray, David and Robert Kossuth. “A Brief History of Coaching in Lethbridge” (Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony program, May 2016).
Magazine Articles
“Recreation as Re-Creation: Reflecting on the Meaning of Mountains and the Benefits of Being Outdoors” Wider Horizons Magazine, Lethbridge College · May 25, 2022
Media Mentions
“Hey, is this a picture of your great-grandma fishing?: Finding out who these turn-of-the-century female fishers were is sport for modern historians” by Gillian Brockell in The Washington Post (June 29, 2019).
Awards
2023 – Employee Excellence Award for Leadership and Creating Community – Lethbridge Polytechnic
2023 – Internal Partner Award from the Centre for Justice and Human Services – Lethbridge Polytechnic
2023 – Co-finalist – Alberta Magazine Awards Issued by Alberta Magazines Association · May 2023. I was guest editor for Lethbridge College’s Spring 2022 Wider Horizons issue, “Never Enough Nature”. This issue ranked in the top 3 of 59 magazines in the province under the category of Best Magazine. I was also a finalist in the photo essay category.
2020 – Gold – to our awesome team in the Lethbridge College Centre for Applied Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CARIE) – Applied Research and Innovation Excellence Award, Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan)
2018 – Co-finalist – Alberta Magazine Awards Issued by Alberta Magazines Association. This was for my contribution to Lethbridge College’s Wider Horizons magazine issue: “People Make the Place”.
2016 – National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) Excellence Award – Leadership in Learning – Lethbridge College
2007 – University of Lethbridge, Graduate Studies Medal of Merit for Academic Excellence
2006 – Government of Alberta, Graduate Student Award for Academic Excellence
2006 – Keith and Hope Ferguson Memorial Scholarship
