Eastern Connecticut State University

Walter N. McNally was one of the school’s most versatile basketball guards in the era of the 1950s who also lettered in the formative years of the intercollegiate baseball program. A four-year basketball and three-year baseball letter winner under Francis E. Geissler, McNally became a high-scoring set-shooter, accurate passer and tenacious defender in basketball. He scored 873 points (13.2 ppg.) in 66 career games for the “Educators,” who averaged 10.5 wins per season and never had a losing record. The 6-foot, 165-pound Pomfret native scored 200 or more points in each of three seasons and averaged 16.2 points per game over his last two seasons. In that span, he recorded team-highs in points 16 times and game-highs in points seven times. He had at least 30 points twice, including a career-high 33 against Keene State College Jan. 7, 1952. As a senior in 1952-53, he led the team with 257 points (17.1 ppg.). In an overtime loss to Albany in his final collegiate game Feb. 23, 1953, McNally made a career-high 13 field goals and scored 30 points for the “T.C. Warriors”. Although he did not play high school baseball, McNally was a middle-infielder under Geissler on the second baseball team in school history in 1950 and also lettered in 1951 and 1953, missing the ’52 campaign with an injury. He had career-highs of four hits and three runs scored in five at-bats in the 1951 season opener against the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and handled 58 chances as the starting second baseman as a senior in 1953.