Top line
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz attributes his early success in politics to his reputation as a high school football coach that culminated in a state championship in the late 1990s, a role he may also reprise on the Democratic National Convention stage Wednesday as his party’s vice presidential candidate.
Walz, a former social studies and geography teacher, coached linebackers as defensive coordinator. … (+)
Key data
Walz, a native of West Point, Nebraska, accepted a one-year apprenticeship with a China-based volunteer group after graduating from Chadron State College in Nebraska in 1989.
After returning from China, Walz – who had played football in high school – returned to Nebraska to teach at Alliance High School in Alliance, Nebraska, where he met his wife, Gwen, while also working as a coach for the girls’ basketball team and as defensive coordinator for the football team.
In 1996, Walz and Gwen moved to Mankato, Minnesota, reportedly to be closer to Gwen’s family after Walz pleaded guilty to reckless driving in 1995. Both were hired at Mankato West High School, where Walz taught social studies and geography.
The Mankato West football team had lost 27 consecutive games in the three seasons before Walz joined the team’s coaching staff as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, he said on the “Pod Save America” podcast in February.
Mankato West started the 1999 season 2-4 under then-head coach Rick Sutton before winning eight straight games and later defeating Cambridge-Isanti High School in the Class 4A state championship, as reported by the Mankato Free Press.
Walz coached until 2002 – before the school won its second state championship – and remained a teacher at Mankato West until he ran for Congress in 2006. At the same time, he served in the National Guard – which he enlisted in as a teenager – before retiring in 2005.
After his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, Walz told Pod Save America that he was “absolutely convinced” that his electoral success was due to “(me) winning the state championship” in 1999.
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Surprising fact
Several former presidents and vice presidents played or coached football before beginning their political careers. Dwight Eisenhower was a halfback on the Army football team before suffering a career-ending injury during the 1912 season. He later coached at Peacock Military Academy and St. Louis College. Gerald Ford, whose number 48 is no longer played by the University of Michigan, won national championships in 1932 and 1933 as center on the university’s football team. Ronald Reagan played for Eureka College in the 1930s. John F. Kennedy played for Harvard University’s junior varsity team, while Joe Biden and Richard Nixon played for their high school teams in Delaware and California, respectively.
tangent
In the late 1990s, Walz also served as the first faculty adviser for Mankato West High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance, a significant moment for a high school in a relatively conservative area. Walz told The Minnesota Star-Tribune in 2018 that the group’s adviser had to be “the football coach who is a soldier and straight and married.”
News Peg
Walz is scheduled to speak at the DNC in prime time on Wednesday. It’s unclear if he will highlight his accolades as a coach, but mentions of his teaching and coaching roles have become standard at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rallies, with Harris sometimes calling him “Coach Walz.”
Important background
Harris named Walz as her running mate earlier this month after weeks of speculation about her choice after Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her. Walz, 60, is a Nebraska native who joined the Army National Guard as a teenager. He retired in 2005 after a brief deployment to Italy in 2003. Walz, who still worked as a teacher, entered politics in 2004 as a member of former Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign. He said some of his high school students were questioned for wearing a Kerry sticker when he took them to a campaign rally for then-President George W. Bush, MinnPost reported. Walz said in 2020 that he decided to run for office “in that moment,” but did not explain why. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019 and has been governor of Minnesota since 2019. As governor, Walz enshrined abortion rights in state law, banned conversion therapy, provided protections for gender-equitable health care and provided free meals at participating state universities. The Trump campaign team has attacked Walz and called him a “left-wing extremist”. Walz tried to “reshape Minnesota along the lines of the Golden State”.
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