Just four years after his senior season at Suffolk, Walsh became the head coach at the university and collected 218 wins in 15 years at the helm before learning of an opening at Harvard.

In order to demonstrate his eagerness to be hired, Walsh woke up before sunrise, drove to Cambridge, and waited in the athletic complex for then-Harvard Athletic Director Bill Cleary to arrive.

In the early hours of the morning, Walsh did not just tell Cleary that he wanted the job—he showed him, firsthand, his passion and commitment.

“I think I’d say that it was his dream job,” says Kurt Svoboda, a close friend of Walsh and the former Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications at Harvard. “He was a Boston guy. He grew up there, he worked in the city for a number of years at Suffolk in a similar position. And the job came open, and I think for him to coach baseball at the highest level of Division I and to do it in his home city was frankly a dream of his.”

After being hired, Walsh attained considerable success at Harvard. In his 17 years of coaching Ivy League baseball, he racked up 347 wins for the Crimson.

Walsh amassed victories at multiple NCAA regional tournaments, and his Crimson squad bested schools such as UCLA, Tulane, and the University of Miami. In 1998, Walsh led Harvard to a record-breaking season, finishing with a 36-12 record and a No. 24 national ranking.

Twice named the Northeast Region Division I Coach of the Year, Walsh was inducted into the Suffolk Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

But, those who knew Walsh would ultimately remember him because of the person he was, how he lived his life, and what he stood for.

“The effect that he had on a broader base within the Harvard community, I think, was remarkable,” Svoboda says. “The wins and the losses, they come and go, but I really think some of the lessons he spoke of and provided to his players and the community are really what people take with them and will continue to remember.”

AN AUTHENTIC PERSONALITY

Those who knew Walsh remember the jovial, outgoing, and contagious personality that he carried with him.

“It’s tough to define someone you feel like you knew your whole life and who you could just tell stories [about] for hours,” former captain Andrew Ferreira says. “He’s someone you could really connect with and feel wanted in a program like Harvard.”

An avid conversationalist, Walsh was always eager to talk, both to hear what other people had to say and to share his own experiences.

“He always had a story,” Wineski says. “You could bring anything to him, and he would have some, you know, ‘When I was…back in my day.’ You got that thick Boston accent, and you could never stop smiling when you talked to Coach Walsh.”

Walsh was known for his classic Boston accent and his upbeat, animated mannerisms. When he got worked up about something, he became jumpy and exaggerated his gestures even further. As Svoboda puts it, this was Walsh “flying off the handle.”