GNAC Commissioner Joe Walsh Appointed to Walter Byers Scholarship Committee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BYERS COMMITTEE ROSTER

WINTHROP, Mass. – Great Northeast Athletic Conference Commissioner Joe Walsh was recently appointed to the prestigious Walter Byers Scholarship Committee, as announced by the NCAA. Now in his 14th year at the helm of the GNAC, Commissioner Walsh is set to serve on the committee through January 2021. 

Initiated in 1988, the Byers Postgraduate Scholarship Program was established to recognize the contributions of Walter Byers through encouraging excellence in academic performance by student-athletes. Byers was the NCAA's first executive director, serving in that role from 1951-1988. He passed away in 2015.

Under this program, one male and one female student-athlete are annually awarded a postgraduate scholarship in recognition of outstanding academic acheivement and potential for success in postgraduate study. It is intended that an individual named a Byers Scholar will be recognized as one who has combined the best elements of mind and body to achieve national distinction for his or her achievements, and promises to be a future leader in his or her chosen field of career service. 

The committee consists of seven members, including one position allocated for a man and one allocated for a woman, and four unallocated, while one position is for a former recipient. All divisions and subdivisions of Division I must be represented. In Division II and Division III at least one representative will be a member of the Management Council. 

"Serving on an association-wide committee (DI, DII and DIII) is an honor for me personally," said Commissioner Walsh. "It also provides the opportunity to continue to spread the word about the terrific accomplishments that our GNAC schools and our GNAC student-athletes are achieving."

Commissioner Walsh is currently serving on the D3 Management Council through January 2021 and is the Immediate Past President of NADIIIAA, the National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators. He has also served on the NCAA D3 Women's Basketball National Committee, the NCAA D3 Membership Committee and the NCAA D3 Men's Basketball Regional Advisory Committee (RAC).

Prior to the GNAC, Walsh was the athletic director and head women's basketball coach at Emerson College, assistant men's basketball coach at Emmanuel College, and assistant women's basketball coach at Harvard University after starting his coaching career in the high-school ranks at Saint Columbkilles in Brighton, Mass. He was a 2013 inductee into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.

Also the co-chair of the Brian J. Honan Charitable Foundation, Walsh was the Director of Community Relations at Boston University for 15 years. 

Christopher Woodard will serve as chair of the Byers Committee through August 2019. Woodard is currently in his eighth season as the women's swimming & diving head coach at Colorado State.

The Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) is an NCAA Division III association made up of 13 member institutions and over 3,000 student-athletes across the New England region. Founded in 1995, the GNAC annually sponsors and administers 20 championships, while balancing academic integrity, athletic opportunity and community involvement in an effort to enhance the student-athlete experience. 

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