Morgan Brown's Amazing Eulogy - Thanks Morgan

I would like to ask for two indulgences.  One is that I have brought up a few notes, I am going to try not to refer to them, as I know Coach would not normally approve, but there is so much to say, and I think given the circumstances he would be ok with it.

Secondly, as a player, I always felt strengthened by my teammates, and there are many of them here today.  Coach created a family across his teams, year to year, and decade to decade, and I would like to ask all of those here today who played for Coach Walsh to stand up. 

I know I speak for us all when I say that we owe Coach a great debt.  He indelibly changed all of our lives, we wouldn’t be who we are, or where we are, without him.  He will always be with us, and he has impacted us all, in ways we only partly understand now. 

Thank you.

I should introduce myself.  I played for Coach Walsh at Harvard from the fall of 2002, to the spring of 2006.  I came to Harvard as a walk-on, and I was intimidated by the mere thought of going down across the river with the recruited players and working out, or approaching the coaching staff about trying out.  Yet, when I arrived on campus and first got the guts up to give Coach a call, he answered with his traditional friendliness and enthusiasm, as if he had been waiting all day for my call, and I was old friend.  He quickly invited me down to drop by and see him in the office and then to get out on the field with the “rest” of the team.  He offered me a totally fair opportunity and I could see in his eyes, he genuinely hoped it would work out for me.  After being in his office for about 5 minutes, I realized this was someone who would always be supporting me, on and off the field.  Of course, I wasn’t in the office for only 5 minutes, that doesn’t happen, while I am sure he was busy, he talked to me about New Hampshire for another half hour before sending me out to join the other players on the field. 

It worked out well for us both.  I made the team, and went on to start at shortstop for the majority of my career, was elected captain, and was twice named All-Ivy, among other awards.   He made me better, and want to be better, every day. 

Even though I came from a very small public high school in rural New Hampshire, I remember I used to rib Coach about how he could have “missed” on me during the recruiting process.  He said he didn’t miss, it was very easy to hit .450 in high school if you had two pigs and a sheep playing the outfield, and he wasn’t sure that would translate very well to college baseball.

I went on to play briefly professionally, and coach encouraged that, but perhaps where he was most supportive was in my career away from baseball, and in keeping some connection to baseball while doing something totally different.

I spent a year living in India shortly after college.  Towards the end of the year away from home, I recall a day when I was quite homesick.  I wandered into a bookstore to see if there was anything there that might remind me of home.  I found a picture book, entitled simply “USA”.  I flipped it open.  It was produced by a German company, and as I flipped through it, I noticed mostly images of my country without people.  National Parks.  The Golden Gate Bridge.  Niagara Falls.  Then I flipped another page, and there, starting out at me, as Father Dave mentioned before, was that immortal smile, stretched ear to ear.  While most other people getting gifts when I returned got something Indian - a piece of jewelry, spices, or something else - Coach got a book, about his own country, with his own face in it.  We had a great laugh about it, and I was always honored that for the last 6 years, that book sat on his baseball trophy case in his office amidst his other plaques and awards.

Coach Walsh was a very kind and generous man, who was always consistent in the way he treated everyone, no matter your station in life.  Whenever you met him, called him, or walked into his office and asked him, “How are you?” he would immediately, and invariably, deflect the question and say - with supreme interest and concern - “More importantly, how are YOU?” 

Once that was out of the way, you were likely in for several hours of conversation and stories.  These stories are too numerous to recount here, but I am sure many spring to mind for all of us.  Coach had a unique way of speaking, and he spoke the truth with an unscripted brilliance on a daily basis, whether to the team, a recruit, a sportswriter, the American Baseball Coaches Association Convention, or even - this is true - a wrong number dialer who called his office.  Sometimes it would take us a little while to figure out exactly what he had been right about, but he was right. 

Coach loved the role of the underdog, and his tremendous confidence, desire, faith, and will to succeed, and to challenge yourself to the greatest extent possible, rubbed off on us.  He was known to annually not only schedule teams like Miami, UCLA, and Oklahoma State, but regularly to beat them.  He led a non-scholarship Division 1 school from the Ivy League to a national ranking in the top 25.  If you wouldn’t schedule his team, he would call the head coach and say “You are ducking us, you are scared, why won’t you schedule us?”  More often than not, he got his wish, and if he didn’t feel like his team was getting adequate respect before the game, he would call the opposing college’s student radio station to drum up more interest, and talk up his team.   He had tremendous faith, and belief, in each one of us. How could you not want to play for a guy like that?

Coach always supported people being involved in baseball, from inviting walk-ons to tryout, to calling teams in the Cape League to take players from rival Ivy League schools because he thought they deserved it, to letting other teams from colleges to little leaguers use our field and our equipment because he knew how lucky we were.  He always supported access to the game. 

In the past few years of being his roommate on the road during the season, I have gotten to know another side of Coach that I didn’t know as a player.  Coach cared deeply about his players, we were like an extension of his family, our concerns were his concerns, he would be up at night worried about the health of player, or a player’s family member.  He would spend hours talking to former players on the phone, about their jobs, their children, and other things.  He would get on the phone to help anyone who walked into his office, he was everyone’s biggest fan and our best character reference.  He would flip through his rolodex until he had exhausted it; whether to get a player a job or an internship, a placement on a great summer team, … or a girlfriend. 

I kept learning things not only from Coach, but about Coach, even over these last few weeks.  Some of you might not know this, but Coach starting texting, it’s true! In fact, just last week, he called me, left a message, and told me to “text him back”.  During spring break, my van got a little carried away and recorded a dance video to a teenage pop song.  I requested that the players not post this on the internet during the season, not only for their sake, but because I thought Coach would remove my head from my body for letting it happen when he saw it.  After the season ended, the guys told me they were going to post it, and they did.  Coach definitely knew about YouTube, and sure enough, early Monday morning my phone rang.  “Did you see the video?”  I thought about playing dumb, but I was caught.  “The ‘Call Me Maybe’ video!  Your van!”.  Me: “Yeah, what did you think?” Coach: …..“It was AWESOME! I checked the lyrics, and they are fine! It’s great!”   I was a little surprised, but very much relieved at his reaction, and I spent the summer fielding proud phone calls from his recruiting trips to places like Atlanta, Georgia, and Jupiter, Florida, telling me how many other coaches and passers-by would come up and talk to him about it.

I have known Coach not only as my coach, but as a humble and caring man, loving husband, and devoted father, who gave so freely of himself, and his time.  He loved baseball, his players, and the game, and perhaps the only thing he held against it, was that it took him away from Sandra, and his daughters, more than we would have liked, because they were truly the loves of his life.

He lived what he preached right until the end.  He even had a dark sense of humor about this very moment.  He used to talk about how he wanted to be remembered, “when they put me in the box”.  Well, Coach, you did it, we remember you as the man you wanted to be, and the man you tried to teach all of us to become. 

In the end, Coach never ducked anyone or anything, he welcomed challenges head on, and for all of us here today, who had the honor of knowing him, we are much better for it. 

 “Go after what you love while you can; there will be plenty of time for pushing pencils in the concrete caves.  Be loyal, have fun, work hard.  Play the game the right way.  Hustle.  Have faith in yourself and your teammates.  Tell stories, and be worthy of stories told about you…” –Walsh, 2