The Atlanta Hawks will be down a staffer when they convene for practice in Boston on Monday. Zac Walsh has other plans. Walsh, the Hawks longtime equipment manager, will be down the street, among the 30,000 runners participating in the Boston Marathon.
For Walsh, a veteran marathoner, running Boston is the culmination of a three-year journey. In 2020, Walsh was registered to run. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., the race was canceled. Determined to still run, Walsh instead ran two 13-mile loops in Brookhaven, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. Players, coaches and staffers supported him along the route. Former Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce was waiting for him at the finish line.
“I had a front office guy who started it at 7 a.m.,” recalls Walsh. “He was out there for the first mile. Him and his wife. I was like, ‘What the heck are you guys doing?’ And as I kept going I was like, ‘Okay, I see what you guys are doing.’ They were all in their cars cheering. It was awesome.”
Still, Walsh hoped a chance to run Boston would come again. His wife, Morgan, has family from Worcester, Mass. Walsh’s father, Tim, spent his early childhood in the Boston area. As an NBA staffer, Boston’s mid-April race date, which coincides with the start of the NBA playoffs, was problematic. Even the chance the Hawks could make the postseason made it impossible to plan for.
With Atlanta making the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, Walsh had no plans to run Boston this year. Then the Hawks stunned Miami in the play-in opener, sending Atlanta to Boston—on Marathon weekend. Walsh texted his Celtics counterpart, Andy Mannix, asking for help getting a number. Mannix (who, full disclosure, is my brother) reached out to the Celtics Shamrock Foundation. For the last ten races, the Shamrock Foundation has fielded a running team, Green Runs Deep, which since 2014 has raised $1.7 million for children in need. Representatives from the Shamrock Foundation worked with the Boston Athletic Association, and on Saturday, Walsh had a number.
“I’ve known Zac over 20 years, so I knew how much running the marathon meant to him and how disappointed he was when the pandemic cancelled the race in 2020,” says Mannix. “The fact he still ran it in his own neighborhood that day is not only slightly weird, but very much on brand for how he’s always done things. When the playoff schedule was released and the stars aligned, it obviously seemed like something he had to do.”
To run, Walsh needed a day off. He approached Hawks GM Landry Fields. Hell yeah, Fields told him. Head coach Quin Snyder offered to take him to dinner Sunday night. When word got to the players on Sunday, several asked about changing Monday’s practice time so they could meet him at the finish line.
“So they can carry me across,” says Walsh, laughing. “We’re all like family. They know I run all the time. The support has been amazing.”
Atlanta trails Boston 1-0 after dropping Game 1 of its first round series on Saturday. On Monday, Walsh will have a new number: 32191, his official marathon designation. Walsh admits he isn’t in peak marathon shape. He broke his foot last November and only resumed running in February. “Instead of doing it in three hours and something, I’m hoping to do it in four,” says Walsh. Still, the chance to be a part of the world’s oldest annual marathon was too good to pass up.
“I'm obviously nervous going into it,” says Walsh. “But that's anytime you go for something like that, or a race like that. After you do three miles you're like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm almost done.’ No, you have 23 more miles to go. But it's something. I don't know, I'm a masochist, I guess. But I can’t wait.”
