Curran Walsh Making Good in Basketball World

Curran Walsh (left) trains Phoenix Suns point guard Tyler Ullis during the offseason. Los Angeles Loyolan photo

By Matthew Rodriguez, Sports Editor

The Los Angeles Loyolan

The Student Newspaper of Loyola Marymont University

(Curran Walsh is an Effingham High School graduate)

During a timeout, Curran Walsh walks from the LMU bench to the press box to get the stats of the game so far. From the stands, he seems like any other graduate assistant coach doing the little things for the team. He rebounds during shoot-around, prepares the game film for the staff and even orders food for team meals. But Walsh doesn’t care what he’s doing because he turned his lifelong love for basketball into a career.

From YMCA youth leagues to college basketball to training NBA players at LMU, Walsh has seen it all.

Since the day he was born, Walsh has been surrounded by basketball. “Basketball for as long as I could remember has been a big part of my life,” said Walsh. “There’s even a picture of me with one of the Nerf hoops hanging on my crib.”

Growing up Walsh played many sports aside from basketball, including football, soccer and cross country. It was not until his sophomore year of high school, that he decided to make basketball his main sport. At first, Walsh struggled at basketball.

“I wasn’t very good, actually, as a sophomore in high school,” said Walsh. “College basketball was kind of — I didn’t think that I could do it.”

But with the help of his high school basketball coach, Ron Reed, and long hours in the gym, Walsh improved. By his senior year, he received a scholarship to a small NAIA school, Lindenwood University-Belleville.

An hour and 45 minutes away from his hometown, of Effingham, Illinois, with a population of 1,900 students, the small private liberal arts school Lindenwood would become Walsh’s new home.

Again a dual-sports athlete, running cross country and playing basketball, Walsh found himself having to develop his game to keep up with the rest of the team.

Because of cross country, Walsh was not able to attend many of the shoot-arounds in the gym with the rest of the team. This forced him to go to the gym late at night or early in the morning to stay on-par with the rest of the team.

“Going from cross-country to basketball was hard on my body,” said Walsh. “At Lindenwood University … they had a lot of D-1 transfers. They could pressure me because they were more athletic than me. I would have to use some moves to get around them. You kind of had to play tricks, being an unathletic, short point guard.You had to play tricks with the defense to get to your open lanes.”

But being a shorter, unathletic point guard with good ball-handling, your playing career will most likely end in college.

“I knew I couldn’t play forever,” said Walsh. “Next best thing is to be a coach.”

After college, he went back to his hometown to be an assistant coach at St. Anthony High School, where his little brother was the starting point guard.

In his first and only year, the team set a school record of 30 wins and won an Illinois High School Association state championship. This was the first time a school from Effingham, Illinois had won the title.

After the season ended, Walsh landed a job helping out at the NBA G-League combine and the NBA combine. When he wasn’t sleeping on his brother’s couch, Walsh found himself doing the little things again, running around and assisting where he could.

“I was rebounding for guys when they showed up to the gym,” said Walsh. “I was sweeping the floor. I was even going to get diet cokes for some of the NBA head coaches. Whatever it was, I would do.”

Even when the combine was over, Walsh continued to help out the guys, even staying into the late nights.

“After the combine would be over that day, I would go over to UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) to their practice facility,” said Walsh.

Walsh would help them again, jumping into workouts wherever he could. This is where he met players such as rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell.

But it was his work ethic that caught the eye of Chris Johnson.

Johnson is a skills and development coach in the NBA, where he works out dozens of players, names of the most notable ones being four-time all-star Jimmy Butler.

“Me and Chris were working (Mitchell) out and that’s how (we) got linked,” said Walsh. “I think he saw a lot of potential in me”

Johnson took Walsh on as his apprentice, bringing him along to the workouts with different players. Walsh got to meet players from all across the NBA such as Rajon Rondo, Jimmy Butler, Dwyane Wade and others.

Walsh found himself spending his late nights and early mornings in the gym again, just as he did in high school and college.

“In the summer, Jimmy (Butler) was working out at 6 a.m.,” said Walsh. “We were getting up at 4:45 (a.m.). We weren’t just working out Jimmy, we had a ton of NBA guys this summer. We usually got home at around 11 (p.m.).”

Over the summer, Johnson and Walsh brought many NBA players to the Bluff.

“We had really big pickup runs and there were times where there would be 35 to 40 NBA players, in (the gym) using all three courts,” said Walsh.

Whenever Walsh came to LMU for the workouts, he would have a conversation with Head Coach Mike Dunlap. This short conversation slowly turned into a close relationship and then flourished into the coaching position he has now.

Without much God-given talent, this short, unathletic guard from Effingham, Illinois, took his dream of being a coach and is slowly making it a reality.

“It’s long days, but it doesn’t feel like a job at all, this is what I love to do,” Walsh said.