Vice President Kamala Harris’ pick for her running mate is widely reported to be a former Minnesota high school football coach whose team won its first state championship ever.
But it is important to more precisely describe Tim Walz as a one-time assistant coach who served under head coach Rick Sutton at Mankato West High School.
Being number two has its particular challenges, and if Harris were to consult with Sutton about her choice, she would be assured that Walz proved a quarter-century ago that he is well able to make his informed opinion known and then set his ego aside if the head coach felt otherwise.
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“Tim was really great at selling his point of view and then accepting a different direction,” Sutton told the Daily Beast Tuesday. “You can have disagreements, but at some point somebody has to make that decision, and that’s going to be the head coach.”
Walz had previously been an assistant coach and geography teacher at Alliance High School in Alliance, Nebraska, the state where he was raised. His wife, Gewn, was an English teacher there and remained one when they moved to her home state of Minnesota in 1996. He joined her as a social studies teacher at Mankato West High. He also became an assistant football coach after what Sutton recalls as “an informal interview.”
“It was very obvious to me, right from the start that Tim was the guy that we definitely want on our staff,” Sutton remembered.
Defensive coordinator Tim Walz, center, and head coach Rick Sutton, right, with the Mankato West football team before winning the state championship game in 1999.
Courtesy Rick SuttonHis strengths as a coach were the same he brought as a teacher.
“I think anybody will tell you that good coaching is good teaching: enthusiasm about your subject, being knowledgeable, very competent, very energetic, very organized, very good at building relationships with players,” Sutton noted.
The Mankato West Scarlets were on an extended losing streak of 27 consecutive games when Walz started as linebacker coach and defensive coordinator in 1996. The team was determined to change that.
“We talked a lot about the process of getting to where we wanted to go,” Sutton recalled. ”Staying positive on a day-to-day basis and keeping the overall goal in mind. Getting players to believe and trust.”
But, even with Walz doing his upbeat part, Sutton guiding the overall effort and everybody giving everything, the Scarlets still lost their first four games in the 1999 season. But those defeats were all against bigger schools. The remaining games were against opponents closer to their own size, and the Scarlets felt sure they could still become state champions.
“We had very high expectations that year,” Sutton recalled. “Our team thought that was something that was achievable, and we just had to keep staying positive, talking about the good things that were happening, and keep bringing the energy.”
Sutton added, “Coach Walz was always an extremely positive guy.”
Then, on Nov. 26, 1999, came the state championship game against the Cambridge-Isanti High School BlueJackets at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Bluejackets had one of the best running backs in the state, but the Scarlets’ defense managed to largely control him. The Scarlets’ offense staged a final, 45-yard drive in the last minutes and won 35 to 28.
“A really, really, really great high school football game,” Sutton remembered.
Waltz went on to become a U.S. congressman and then Minnesota governor, a role in which he proved to be a number one who could work closely with the number two, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
Sutton said that after Walz left Mankato West, he sometimes encountered his former colleague in person, and other times saw him interviewed. Walz seemed to be exactly the same man who signed on as an assistant coach a quarter-century ago.
“He is who he is,” Sutton said. “He’s not trying to change, to be somebody else because of whatever position he may be in.”
Walz remained very knowledgeable, very competent, very energetic, very organized, and very good at building relationships.
“It’s the same things that have made Tim successful as a politician as well,:” Sutton said.
On Monday, the news broke that Harris had picked Walz to be her running mate. And Sutton—now co-head coach at the high school in Farmington, MN—was confident that she made a wise decision.
As his team approaches a November championship of another kind, with democracy itself at stake, Walz is sure to be his positive, energetic, good-natured self, helping to send out the message that the team can win the really big one.
