Archbishop Wood hires Jack Walsh

Jack Walsh is the new boys' basketball coach at Archbishop Wood.

The 45-year-old replaced interim coach Sean Tait earlier this month. Tait, who left following one season, is a candidate for the vacant job at Father Judge, his alma mater.

"A lot of the success we had when I was a head coach, Jack was an important part of that," said Wood athletic director Joe Sette, who coached the Vikings from 1995 to 2008 before taking a break to focus on being an administrator with the Philadelphia Catholic League and District 12.

Walsh is a former Wood basketball standout who graduated from the school in 1981. He later joined Settle's staff in 1999. He serve as an assistant varsity coach during his eight seasons and also spent time as head coach of the freshman and junior-varsity teams. Walsh spent the last two seasons as a CYO coach at St. Jude in Chalfont.

"It's something that is very special to me, especially since I spent my years playing here," Walsh said of going back to his alma mater. "We really had great success as a team."

He takes over a program that will return four starters from a 16-7 team.

"I feel as though we have a very good program," said Walsh, noting that last season's junior-varsity squad was also solid.

In Walsh, the Vikings get someone who was a feared competitor. He averaged 17.3 points as a senior in 1980-81 en route to being named all-Catholic.