CLAREMONT — Lawrence “Poody” Walsh, who covered the Upper Valley high school sports scene as an editor and reporter for nearly six decades, will be inducted into the New England Newspaper and Press Association Hall of Fame this week.
The only person who is a member of both the VPA (Vermont Principals Association) Hall of Fame and The NHIAA (New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association) Hall of Fame, Walsh wrote thousands of game stories and coached numerous young reporters in writing about local sports at the Eagle Times. He later covered games for the Valley News and Rutland Herald before retiring about five years ago.
Walsh, 84, laughs when he recalls how it all came together for him. While still in high school, Walsh, who grew up in North Walpole, N.H., said he ran the produce department in a local supermarket and management offered to hold his job until he returned from his stint in the Army.
“I didn’t want to do that,” Walsh said in a phone interview. “The day after I got out of the Army I went to the newspaper to look for a job.”
It was in the early 1960s when Walsh walked into Vermont Newspaper Corporation in Bellows Falls, Vt., introduced himself and said he wanted to get into the newspaper business. His humble start began in the press room where “hot type” was the technology of the day. He later worked in circulation with some part-time sports writing. Then in 1965, the Claremont Daily Eagle hired Walsh, then 23, to be its sports editor for $120 a week.
“I was stunned, going to work every day in an office and not a plant,” Walsh remembered. “Everybody from where I grew up in North Walpole usually worked at a paper mill or something.”
While he acknowledges not being a great student at Bellows Falls High School with few English credits, Walsh was a voracious reader of sports magazines such as The Sporting News and that helped him learn how to write.
“I don’t consider myself a very good writer. I’m okay at it but I’m certainly not scholarly or anything like that,” said Walsh.
Walsh’s talent, as a former colleague and close friend said, was in being able to sum up a game succinctly so the reader didn’t need to get far to know what happened.
“He was a master at telling a whole story in a few words,” said Jeff Miller, a former sports editor for the Argus-Champion, a Newport weekly, and later the Eagle Times. Both papers have gone out of business.
Miller, who today is the Newport High School athletic director, began writing sports for the Argus-Champion in the 1990s after Walsh recommended him for the job to the paper’s editor. Though knowledgeable about local sports, Miller had come over from the advertising department so he was green in the craft of sports writing. He sent his first offerings to Walsh to review.
“He read just one, crumpled it up and said ‘try again,’ ” Miller remembered, who began by writing about things that had little to do with the game.
Walsh’s approach was to tell the reader in the opening paragraph who, what, when and where, Miller said.
“Don’t bury the lead in the fourth paragraph. Get it right out there,” Miller said Walsh taught him.
For the thousands of games, coaches and players he covered to the many young sportswriters who came through the Eagle Times sports department over the years, Walsh developed a lot of long-term relationships.
“Even after I left the paper, we spoke on a weekly basis,” Miller said, who still keeps in touch with Walsh.
For those who knew him, Walsh saw his job as more than a sportswriter covering a game. He wanted to know about the kids playing and those who were coaching. He had a friendly and disarming approach that put people at ease.
“I guess what I remember about Poody was that he was such a great supporter of Newport athletics,” said Bill Thurlow, who was an assistant for the Tiger football team for 55 years. “He came to our games as an objective observer and reporter but he also took the time to get to know the players as people and cared about us. Not everyone who covers games looks at it that way.”
Walsh’s longevity had him covering high school players who later became coaches. Harry Ladue played basketball for Windsor in the late 1960s, when Walsh covered games, and went on to coach the Windsor boys team for 39 years before stepping down in 2022. He also retired as the town’s recreation director in 2018 after 25 years.
“He covered us forever,” Ladue said about Walsh. “Great guy and a fun guy. He was very professional in his writing and never dug into the negative stuff. I appreciated that.”
Miller also remembers Walsh as a stickler for some basics, including spelling. He delighted at giving spelling tests to candidates interviewing for a sports reporting job. Many did not fare too well. The test was never a reason not to offer a job but to make a point about the importance of spelling, back before spell check. He was equally obsessed with getting the names of athletes and coaches right, Miller said.
“He pounded it into me; get rosters and double check spelling,” Miller said. “He would tell me there is no excuse for spelling a name wrong in the newspaper.”
Bob Hingston, who coached in Windsor and later was the high school athletic director for 16 years, has known Walsh since high school. When he was injured his senior year and could not play football, he accepted Walsh’s offer to write up games for the paper.
“I would type them up, put them in my mailbox in Charlestown and Poody would come by early in the morning, pick up the story and get in the that day’s paper,” said Hingston, when the Eagle was an afternoon paper.
Hingston did more reporting after college for Walsh and continued their friendship as a coach and AD.
“I think a lot of Poody,” Hingston said. “He had a good way with people and coaches. We knew we could trust him and we all really respected him.”
Thurlow, Miller, Hingston and Ladue all said the same thing about their decades-long friendship with Walsh.
“Once he became part of your world, he really cared about you,” Miller said.
The NENPA ceremony is Friday evening at The Venue at Portwalk Place in Portsmouth, N.H.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com