5 Comments so far ↓

• keenan // Mar 10, 2008 at 1:20 am

  urgh, more spygate stuff.

• Ian // Mar 10, 2008 at 2:00 am

  I blame Steve since he mentioned Sphincter’s name last Wednesday.

• Steve // Mar 10, 2008 at 8:08 am

  hey dont blame me. I really enjoyed the Matt Walsh bio.

• Steve // Mar 10, 2008 at 10:29 pm

  This is from our friend Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch:

  This morning’s Bob Hohler report in the Globe about Matt Walsh has predictably sparked much conversation on the radio airwaves and across the internet.

  (WEEI’s) Gerry Callahan this morning effectively dismissed the Globe’s report as simply the Patriots going on the offensive to attempt to discredit Walsh before he talks.

  In my mind, there’s a problem with that theory.

  Other than Mike Reiss, and possibly Chris Gaspar, who at the Globe has a relationship with the Patriots that would result in the paper publishing a one-sided account in the team’s favor?

  If anything, the Globe has shown a penchant in recent years for publishing articles containing the gripes of players and agents against the organization, usually right on the morning of a big game. (A Jackie MacMullan special)

  Let me put it this way…do you think that if the Globe found anything in their investigation that they could use against the Patriots or that would put the team in a bad light, that they would hold it back and not report it?

  Of course not. They would leap at the chance to publish material of that sort. As reader Jeff pointed out, Hohler is also the one who wrote the curious feature on Patriots backup fullback Kyle Eckel, which included all the dirt he could find, right down to his bottom standing in his graduating class.

  If fact, I find it somewhat amusing which paragraph Boston.com used for promoting this story on their sports section:

  Amid news that former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh is close to reaching an agreement to tell what he knows, the Globe found that Walsh broke league rules under orders from the Patriots by videotaping opponents’ signals between 2000 and 2002, and could have video recordings to prove it, which has not been previously reported.

  Not any of the ones with information on Walsh, but the one that has the Patriots ordering Walsh to break league rules. (Something that has already come out anyway, as the league said Bill Belichick admitted taping signals from the beginning of his tenure in New England.) SI.com’s FanNation does the same thing.

  It is clear to me that the Patriots had minimal, if any input into this article. The Globe certainly didn’t serve as their mouthpiece for discrediting Matt Walsh. He apparently has done a good enough job himself of creating doubt in his credibility.

• Steve // Mar 17, 2008 at 8:07 am

  Spygate Connection Puts Former Patriots Video Assistant In Spotlight
  Video Role With NFL Team Shined Spotlight On Walsh

  By DAVID HEUSCHKEL | Courant Staff Writer
  March 16, 2008

  Matt Walsh grew up in Coventry but now lives 5,000 miles away on an island. He may be out of sight, but he is not out of mind, at least to many in New England.

  Walsh has become a familiar name to Patriots fans over the past six weeks, even though he had nothing to do with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell imposing sanctions on coach Bill Belichick and the team for illegally videotaping defensive signals by Jets coaches during a game last September. If not for Spygate, Walsh would be living an unobtrusive life in Hawaii with his family.

  Last September, the league fined Belichick $500,000 and the team $250,000 along with the forfeiture of a first-round draft pick in 2008 for breaking the NFL’s videotaping policy.

  Walsh, 31, worked for the Patriots in 1999-2003, largely as a video assistant.

  No one knows exactly what evidence or information Walsh might have of the Patriots videotaping practices when he worked for the team, but Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has pressured Goodell to find out. As part of the investigation, lawyers for Walsh and the NFL are in the process of negotiating a deal for complete disclosure.

  Walsh’s name initially surfaced in a New York Times story Feb. 1, two days before the Patriots played the Giants in the Super Bowl. Although Walsh never said that he had evidence that could be damaging to the Patriots, his comments were interpreted to suggest that he did.

  He told ESPN.com that if the NFL is “doing a thorough investigation, they didn’t contact me. … If I had a reason to want to go public or tell a story, I could have done it before this broke.”

  Goodell said he wanted to contact Walsh after an unsubstantiated rumor surfaced that an unnamed Patriots employee taped the St. Louis Rams practice before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

  Walsh, who is being represented by Washington attorney Michael N. Levy, would not talk for this story because of the pending investigation in which he reportedly is seeking complete indemnification by the NFL from any future lawsuits if he tells the league what he knows about the Patriots videotaping opponents beyond the Jets incident.

  No one knows exactly what evidence or information Walsh might have of the Patriots videotaping. He had a falling out with the Patriots which led to he and the organization parting ways in 2003. Scott Pioli, Patriots vice president of player personnel, told The Boston Globe that Walsh was fired because he secretly audiotaped Pioli in a meeting between the two. Walsh’s lawyer has called that a fabrication.

  Patriots Fan
  When Walsh grew up in Coventry, the high school didn’t have a football team. Those who knew the lean athletic kid say he most certainly would have played if there had been one.

  Walsh didn’t care for soccer or any of the other fall sports at Coventry. He would rather spend time golfing, a sport for which he had such passion he would emulate former PGA Tour player Payne Stewart, wearing knickers, argyle socks and shirts with NFL team colors. Walsh was a Courant all-state golfer his senior year at Coventry, whose sports teams are called the Patriots.

  “He was a great kid. He was a very driven kid,” said Fred Doyle, Walsh’s golf coach at Coventry High. “In the years after he was there, I used him as examples of how to get better at golf. He studied the game, he subscribed to all kinds of golf magazines. He actually gave me a whole bunch of them when he went off to college. He helped the other players. He was a better golfer than I was. He probably taught me more about the golf game than I taught him.”

  It wasn’t until six years after Walsh graduated from high school that Coventry had a football team, a junior varsity squad that began in the fall of 2000. By then, Walsh had earned a degree in sports management from Springfield College and was working for the Patriots, from whom he received a Super Bowl ring in 2002.

  As a kid, Walsh was a Patriots fan. His favorite players were former running backs Craig James and Mosi Tatupu. He once stood in line for more than an hour at the East Brook Mall in Willimantic for John Hannah’s autograph. He attended several games a year at the old Foxboro Stadium, refusing to leave until the final gun regardless of the score or weather.

  Now he is involved in the ongoing investigation that could taint the team’s recent dynasty that includes three Super Bowl victories and attach an even bigger asterisk to Belichick’s legacy.

  “With regard to Matt, I was surprised to see his name involved,” said Brian Annino, an Atlanta attorney and Walsh’s high school classmate. “With regard to the types of allegations raised, I was interested in finding out more about that because as a Patriots fan and as a football fan and as a lawyer, I think that cheating is abhorrent. If you found out your favorite team was cheating, then that would certainly color my opinion of the Patriots.”

  Super Bowl Memories
  Nobody was accused of cheating in the Walsh Bowl. That was what one kid dubbed the annual backyard football game at the Walsh home, where Matt and his buddies played on Super Bowl weekend. The participants wore replica uniforms with helmets, there was a referee and the field of pigskin dreams had goal posts with netting behind them.

  “Every Super Bowl they would have a Walsh Bowl and afterward have a huge pizza party,” Annino said. “They would give out prizes. It’s something I think about every Super Bowl. Not a Super Bowl goes by when I don’t think about it. That was a great event.”

  Walsh attended his first NFL Super Bowl in January 1997, securing two tickets through a lottery drawing to watch the Patriots play the Packers in New Orleans.

  Five years later, he was back in New Orleans. This time, though, he was on the sideline as the Patriots video assistant. When Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning field goal sailed through the uprights as time expired, Walsh ran onto the field with the rest of the team in a sea of red, white and blue confetti. Shortly thereafter, the celebration continued in New York as Walsh accompanied Vinatieri when the Patriots kicker made an appearance on “Late Show with David Letterman.” During the show, Vinatieri was asked to kick footballs from the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater onto the roof of an adjacent parking garage where Donald Trump was standing. Vinatieri, who wore boots that day, wound up borrowing Walsh’s shoes to make the kicks.

  Walsh’s first experience with a football team was in the mid-1990s as summer intern with the Connecticut Coyotes, an Arena Football League team that played in Hartford. He also had an internship with the Springfield Falcons of the American Hockey League, working in the promotions department. At the time, Walsh was a junior at Springfield College.

  “He was a good kid,” said Carole Appleton, Falcons assistant to the general manager. “He came in and did his job. He didn’t make waves. He was very personable with people, very easy to work with. He kind of did his thing and went on his way. There was nothing earth-shattering, like he was out to get people.”

  At the start of his senior year in college, Walsh got an internship with the Patriots and worked in media relations.

  “When he got it, we were all pretty pumped for him,” Appleton said. “That was his goal, to get the Patriots internship. He wanted to be in the bigs. He was one of those kids who you knew didn’t want to stay at the minor league level. He wanted to go to the top or he was going to get out, which he did.”

  Back To Golf
  Walsh, married with a 10-month-old son, is an assistant golf pro at Ka’anapali Golf Resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui. During his post-football life, he also worked for golf courses in Arizona and on Cape Cod. His first golf job was at Twin Hills Country Club in Coventry during the summer when he was in high school.

  “He was a nice kid,” said a Twin Hills employee who asked not to be identified. “I know he’s a local kid and all, but when he worked here he did his job.”

  His job included emptying the garbage, picking up trash on the course, changing tee markers and moving cups on the green.

  One of the perks of the job was that Walsh could play for free. Beyond being an all-state golfer he also played basketball. He was an honor roll student and received numerous awards, including one presented by the Coventry town council for good citizenship as a senior at the recommendation of his teachers.

  “He was a wonderful kid growing up,” said Bill Herzog, whose son Brendan hung around with Walsh. “He was never in trouble, just a nice guy, very polite. He was the type of guy you want your kid to hang around with.”

  Contact David Heuschkel

  at dheuschkel@courant.com.