Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has attributed his early success in politics to his local reputation as a high school football coach, culminating in a state championship in the late 1990s—a role he may embrace onstage as his party’s vice presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.
Walz, a former social studies and geography teacher, coached linebackers as a defensive coordinator. ... [+]
Walz, a native of West Point, Nebraska, accepted a yearlong teaching position with a China-based volunteer group after graduating from Chadron State College in Nebraska in 1989.
After returning from China, Walz—who 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 the 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, and both were hired at Mankato West High School, where Walz taught social studies and geography.
Mankato West’s football team had lost 27 straight games in the three seasons prior to Walz joining the team’s coaching staff as its defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, he told 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, the Mankato Free Press reported, and later defeated Cambridge-Isanti High School in the Class 4A state championship.
Walz coached until 2002 — before the school’s 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 being elected to the U.S. House in 2006, Walz told “Pod Save America” he was “absolutely convinced” his success at the polls was “because [I] won that state championship” in 1999.
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Several former presidents and vice presidents played or coached football before their political careers. Dwight Eisenhower was the halfback for the Army football team before suffering a career-ending injury during the 1912 season, and later coached at Peacock Military Academy and St. Louis College. Gerald Ford, whose No. 48 is retired by the University of Michigan, won national championships as the university’s football team center in 1932 and 1933. 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 each played for their high school teams in Delaware and California, respectively.
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 fairly conservative area. Walz told The Minnesota Star-Tribune in 2018 the group’s adviser “needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married.”
Walz is scheduled to speak at the DNC during prime time Wednesday. It’s unclear whether he’ll highlight his coaching accolades, but mentions of his teaching—and coaching—roles have become standard fare at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rallies, with Harris sometimes calling him “Coach Walz.”
Harris named Walz as her running mate earlier this month, following weeks of speculation over her choice after Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed her for president. A Nebraska native, Walz, 60, enlisted in the Army National Guard as a teenager and retired in 2005 after a brief deployment to Italy in 2003. Walz, who was still teaching, entered politics as a member of former Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, after he said some of his high school students were questioned for having a Kerry sticker when he took them to a campaign rally for then-President George W. Bush, MinnPost reported. Walz said in 2020 it was “at this moment” that he decided to run for office, though he didn’t clarify why. He served in the House from 2007 to 2019 and has been governor of Minnesota since 2019. As governor, Walz enshrined abortion rights into state law, banned conversion therapy, provided protections for gender-affirming healthcare and ensured tuition-free meals at participating state universities. The Trump campaign has attacked Walz and labeled him as a “left-wing extremist,” saying Walz has tried to “reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State.”