Joe Walsh has spent over 30 years involved in athletics at the community level within the City of Boston as a coach and an administrator.

He became the GNAC’s first full-time commissioner in 2005. Prior to that, he was assistant men’s basketball coach at Emmanuel College, head women’s basketball coach and athletic director at Emerson College, and assistant women’s basketball coach at Harvard University after starting his coaching career at Saint Columbkilles High School in Brighton, Massachusetts.

He currently serves as a member of the NCAA Division III Management Council (assigned to the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee, Playing and Practice Seasons Committee, Walter Byers Scholarship Committee and also served on the Olympic Sports Liaison Committee), a position he will hold though January 2021, and is the Immediate Past President of NADIIIAA, the National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators. In the past, he has also served as the NCAA DIII Women’s Basketball National Committee and New England Chair, the NCAA DIII Membership Committee, the DIII NCAA Convention Planning Committee and on the NCAA DIII Men’s Basketball Regional Advisory Committee.

In his tenure at the GNAC, Walsh has secured more than $1.3 million in grant funding and corporate sponsorships for the conference.

Joe was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame as a member of the class of 2013. He is past president of both the Allston and Brighton Boards of Trade, Allston Brighton Kiwanis and the co-chair of the Brian J. Honan Charitable Foundation. He has served on the ECAC Award of Valor Committee, the ECAC Women’s Basketball Selection Committee and the board of directors at the West End House Boy’s & Girl’s Club. He was the Director of Community Relations at Boston University for 16 years. 

Walsh also served as a member of the and as a teacher in the NAMI Family to Family education program. For more information, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness home page at nami.org.