The week after the game, Camryn, now 15, happened to spy a local television segment about Walsh’s visit to Northpoint Elementary, located just north of Minneapolis. First graders at the school had written Walsh letters of encouragement the week after the miss; in response, he visited the school, delaying a planned trip home to California. One student told Walsh he wished he had made the field goal—that made two of them—but loved him anyway. Another asked if he owned a guinea pig. Another called him the “best kicker in the universe,” while another described him as “handsome,” and yet another told him “better luck next time.”
This only reinforced Camryn’s love for Walsh. “Mom, look at him,” she said. “He missed that kick and everyone is soooo mean and he’s still trying to improve himself.”
Camryn was impressed with how Walsh blamed no one, blamed nothing—not the holder, not the weather, not the Kicking Gods—but himself. He wasn’t Ray Finkle in Ace Ventura, plotting revenge on Dan Marino and Snowflake the Dolphin, yelling laces out! “I kicked it,” Walsh says, a year-and-a-half later. “The ball left my foot. That’s on me.”
