Tim Walz, the running mate for Kamala Harris, was a successful high school football coach

United States vice president Kamala Harris has picked her running mate for the 2024 presidential election and it is Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

Harris chose Walz, 60, to join her on the ticket and potentially become her vice president. Currently the governor of Minnesota, he previously served as a six-term congressman. Walz is also a military veteran and a former public school teacher in the Mankato School District.

He taught social studies and geography and he was also a football coach as well.

Walz said he believed his football background, winning a state title in 1999, has helped him in the process (via Pod Save America):

“I did 24 years in the military. I was teaching and then I started running for congress. I am absolutely convinced, and people have told me this, that it’s because you won that state championship. We were 0-27. When I took the job, they said we’re kind of struggling … But I had some other coaches who I worked with who were great guys and we said this is nonsense. Let’s turn this thing around. Three years later, they were state champions. Now, they’re a state powerhouse.”

This was the first-ever state championship for his school.

football fans for Tim Walz
pic.twitter.com/uikHMrc2nN

— gr (@sotruegrant) August 5, 2024

So what was his role and what was his football philosophy? He continued:

“I was a defensive coordinator … We ran a 4-4 where we read guards at the time. I had good athletes and good linebackers … That was an age, when I was coaching, that it was unusual to see a 2,500 to 3,000 passer on the other side. But it was starting to come along.”

According to Walz, his goal was to pull a guard to determine where the ball was going against a rushing attack.

Walz also coached junior high girls basketball and was the faculty advisor for the gay-straight alliance at the high school.

Tim Walz also coached junior high girls basketball. From the Scottsbluff (Nebraska) Star-Herald in 1994: pic.twitter.com/2BkWlgoon7

— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) August 6, 2024