Former NFL QB Steve Walsh back home as Cretin-Derham Hall HC
ST. PAUL, Minn. (BVM) – After coaching up in Canada in the Canadian Football League (CFL) for the last five years, Steve Walsh had decided it was time to move back home and be closer to family.
“For me, it was really about getting the home base for my wife and for my 10-year-old son,” Walsh said. “Being around my parents who are in their 80s, being around my siblings because I’ve basically been gone since I was 18 years old.”
Walsh left the Twin Cities area right after high school to go play football at the University of Miami where he would help the Canes win a national championship as the starting quarterback. From there, he played 11 seasons in the NFL before retiring. Since then, he has lived in Florida and Canada, but Walsh said it felt like it was time to come back home.
When he told his dad about the decision, his father asked him the question most dads would ask when their son told them they were moving.
“My dad asked me, ‘Well do you have a job yet here?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t. I’m going to figure it out,’” Walsh said.
It didn’t take long for Walsh to figure it out. Although he had been away for almost 40 years, Walsh had stayed in touch with his former high school: Cretin-Derham Hall.
“The relationship with the high school has been a 40-year type of relationship,” Walsh said. “It wasn’t just my four years that I went there.”
A lot of his family has attended CDH so Walsh was always back watching someone do something affiliated with the school. Along with that, the former All-American Raider had always had a great relationship with his high school coach, Mal Scanlan.
“Throughout my career and different moves that I made as coach or even as a player, I’ve always touched base with him,” Walsh said. “I had kind of made the decision, one that I wasn’t going to go back to the Canadian Football League and was looking for the next phase of my coaching career. I told him that we had bought a house in Minnesota and he was like, ‘Interesting,’ and he said, ‘I think they’re going to make a move from the previous head coach, Chuck Miesbauer,’ and he said, ‘Would you be interested?’”
CDH had reached out to Walsh a few years prior about coaching the Raiders but at the time, he wasn’t ready to head back to high school. But this time everything lined up perfectly and Walsh accepted the job as the new head football coach of the Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders.
It’s a job Walsh is excited to take especially because of the pride he has for his former high school. Every time he speaks about Cretin-Derham, you can tell that the time he spent there and the subsequent years of staying in contact with the school have left a mark on the former Raider.
“The tradition and the culture that exists at that school is very unique and very special,” Walsh said.
Along with a strong understanding of the history that lies within Cretin-Derham, Walsh also brings a resume that is hard to beat. Following his time as a quarterback at Miami and in the NFL, Walsh got into the mortgage business but then got out around the housing market crash to coach at Cardinal Newman High School.
“That was really a great experience and got my feet wet in coaching as the head coach,” Walsh said. “Jumped right into the deep end and really enjoyed it.”
From there, he spent two years as the Director of Football at IMG Academy before heading up to Canada to coach in the CFL where he helped the Toronto Argonauts win a Grey Cup Championship in 2017.
“I think as a whole, coming back with the coaching experience that I’ve had at the different levels,” Walsh said. “In the CFL, the professional and high school and then my two years at IMG where I wasn’t the head coach but I was kind of director of the program, it brings a very interesting perspective back to the school.”
That experience also includes time with many coaches at every level. Jimmy Johnson at Miami and in Dallas, Tony Dungy, Jim Mora, Dave Wannstedt and working with Marc Trestman in the CFL. All of them have helped Walsh find his own style as a coach.
“You take a little bit from all of them,” Walsh said. “Sometimes it’s what you would do, sometimes it’s what you wouldn’t do. The bottom line is as a coach I realized the fact that you have to try and be yourself, you can’t be Jimmy Johnson, you can’t try to be Tony Dungy, you have to be Steve Walsh. Whatever your style is, be consistent with it.”
That style will be fast in all three facets of the game and based on the fundamentals. Walsh will be demanding but not demeaning and work hard to give every athlete he works with an experience that will stay with them in a positive way.
“I want to give you guys such a great experience so that someday you can coach your sons or daughters and know what the heck you’re talking about,” Walsh said.
And that’s what it is all about for Walsh. The experience that is high school football. Not just for the players but their parents and the community around the team. It is, to Walsh, a unique experience.
“That’s just a unique experience in young men’s lives to get a taste of what high school is and certainly high school football,” Walsh said. “I think there is a brotherhood that is developed there and that bond, that brotherhood that lasts the kids a lifetime.”
It is a time when football is at its purest form. Where the love for the game, if done properly, can stay with a kid for the rest of their lives. A kid who has never played a down of football in his life can join the team whether he’s a freshman or a senior and create moments that will stay with them forever.
“With my experiences being a guest coach at NFL camps when I was a high school coach,” Walsh said. “They (NFL coaches) all kind of said the same thing to me, ‘Man I wish I could go coach high school football.’ They don’t want to give up their paychecks but they certainly understand that that is the infancy and the true love of the game time in their lives. It’s really enjoyable coaching that.”
Enjoyable but still demanding. Cretin-Derham has taken a step back in recent years, even moving from Class 6A to 5A in 2021, but Walsh is prepared to get the Raiders back on track.
He knows first hand what this school and their its athletes are capable of. He knows how to build it up and from there keep it going. And although the most important part of his job is teaching the sport, making sure each player has an amazing experience and grows as a person, the success that can come from a winning football team is also important.
“You want to have success for the students, for the kids because there is nothing that bonds a team like a championship,” Walsh said.
That is a moment that ties people together that allows them to even decades later remember that playoff run that they had that one year or the championship game that took place in U.S. Bank Stadium.
Those are the moments Walsh is coaching for. He was able to create them as a quarterback for the Raiders and now it’s time for him to do it as a coach.
“We’ve done it before, we can do it again,” Walsh said.
