Coach’s grace and strength under duress stand out

My wife and I are hockey nuts. We’ve had the same seats at Alfond Arena since the fall of 1978 (section C, row 2, seats 3 and 4 – four parallel seats away from the Maine bench). In 23 years, we have missed six home games – but we watched five of those games on TV.

Being “outsiders” from Minnesota, I guess the love of hockey was culturally imprinted in our value system long before we could stand upright, much less skate.

I first met Shawn Walsh at a committee meeting. Back in the mid-1980s, I chaired the Conduct Committee for the university. At one of our hearings, Shawn spoke on behalf of a student and asked the committee to allow him to take the student “under his wing.” If any further infractions occurred under his watch, then the young man, said Walsh, “deserved to be dismissed.” We agreed to allow Shawn to give the kid a chance. The student became a hockey All-American.

I would see Shawn Walsh quite often on the campus. He would invite me to his hockey practices. Once I sat with him at a UMaine baseball game. My son and I (with two other golf cronies) began to participate in Shawn’s hockey tournaments across the state. Numerous and very memorable trips were made to the Boston Garden, Lowell, Lake Placid, Boston College, Portland and many other sites to watch the hockey Bears. My wife and I began to attend all the banquets. I invited Shawn to a Winterport Recreation Board gathering and he came and won the hearts of the young people in attendance. My point is that like so many of the people who got to know a part of Shawn Walsh, we developed a strong affection for the man.

During the time when Shawn was divorced from the university for a year (and from his first wife permanently), I wrote him a letter telling him what he meant to Maine fans. He called me the day he received the letter and said it was “a keeper” – that he would never discard or forget it.

In the latter 1990s, when my college became separated from UMaine, my occupational time spent at Orono ceased (as did my golf game). Outside of hockey games at the Alfond, we rarely saw Shawn. He’d typically give us a wink after entering the bench area at the onset of a game or at times a small wave came our way.

Last year, sometime in November at the Alfond, I was walking to a concession stand prior to a game when a familiar voice from behind me uttered, “Hey, Trace, you old son-of-a —, I’ve always wanted to give you this!”

It was Shawn. Expecting a famous Walshian reprimand for perhaps my recent isolation from hockey-related events, I was instead given a gentle, man-to-man embrace. “Thanks, Trace,” Shawn went on, “for all these many years at the end of my bench. I’ve still got your letter, ya know – a keeper.” Then he quickly walked away. I never spoke with him again.

Imagine, Shawn Walsh thanking me. For all the excitement and statewide pride and all the meaningful lessons that he instilled, and he is thanking others.

No, Shawn. Thank you.

Shawn was the “keeper.” He will be kept in the hearts and thoughts of so many of us for the rest of our lives. He was more than a hockey coach. Shawn was a true teacher whose lesson plans on life were personified in his character. He exemplified the virtues of discipline and hard work, the importance of high aspirations in goal seeking, the commitment to team effort and the interdependence of people and, in mind, his greatest lesson, staying positive and expressing compassion.

Statistics don’t tell you much about a person. Shawn’s legacy is his most important victory, one that we can continue to share. I will always admire him more for his grace and strength under duress than I will for his athletic accomplishments.

My wife and I both love hockey, but we grew to love Shawn Walsh more. We will never see nor hear his presence again at the Alfond, but every time, and I mean every time, we enter the arena for another game, we will feel his presence.

Tracy R. Gran

Dean of the Campus

University College, Bangor