Savannah KucharUSA TODAY
To Minnesotans, Tim Walz is their governor of six years. To Vice President Kamala Harris, he is her newly official 2024 running mate.
But to Nate Hood, he was Coach and Mr. Walz.
"I'm much more excited about the race now that he's involved," Hood, 40, said. "The energy that he's bringing right now to the campaign reminds me of the energy that he would bring to football practice."
Formerly Hood’s eleventh grade geography teacher, Walz is now #2 on the Democratic presidential ticket. Harris announced the decision Tuesday.
Walz was one of a handful of candidates said to be in the running for theVP spot. Weeks ago, the governor was relatively unknown outside the Midwest. Today, his name recognition and popularity have rocketed among a crowd of freshly energized Democratic voters.
Live updates: Minnesota governor Tim Walz named Kamala Harris' running mate
Hood said the Walz he knows has always been adored.
“Tim Walz is a very down to earth human being. When you see him and when you talk to him, he's very relatable,” said Hood, a city planner in St. Paul, Minnesota. “I think that's a huge asset for the Harris team.”
Walz taught social studies and coached a championship team
Walz, born and raised in Nebraska, began his teaching career in South Dakota at a Native American reservation, then spent a year teaching in China, before returning home to the Cornhusker State.
He and his wife – and fellow teacher – Gwen moved again to her home state of Minnesota in 1996.
Walz taught social studies and geography at Mankato West High School in southern Minnesota, where he was also a football coach and helped lead the team to their first state championship.
“When he wanted to amp up players before a game, he did a great job of it,” Hood, a 2002 graduate of Mankato West and defensive line player at the time, said.“Just like the fiery speeches that you see him give today that might go viral, that's what he was doing. Except he was yelling at a bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds.”
In his new role, Walz will be expected to help amp up the entire Democratic base and any Midwestern moderates still deciding between Harris and former President Donald Trump in 2024. And he began that work even before Harris called his name, credited with coining the insult “weird,” now popularly used by Democrats against Trump and MAGA conservatives.
More: Why Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro as her running mate
"These are weird people on the other side," Walz told MSNBC in July. "They wanna take books away, they wanna be in your exam room, that's what it comes down to and don't, you know, get sugar-coating this, these are weird ideas. Listen to them speak, listen to how they talk about things."
A teacher "universally beloved"
Other students at Mankato West remember Walz bringing that same energy and passion to his classroom.
“I was a ‘C-ish student in high school,” Noah Hobbs wrote on X ahead of the Harris campaign’s official announcement.“Mr. Walz took the time to make sure that I was successful. Not only in his class but others. He made learning exciting.”
The now-governor had a reputation for being the fun and favorite teacher, even by those who didn’t have him for history class.
“Everybody liked Mr. Walz,” said Emily Scott, who did not have Walz for a teacher but remembers him leading their school trip to China when she was 17.
More: 'Boring' vs 'weird': Trump campaign tries to define Walz after his Vance criticism stuck
Scott said Walz, who was also a lunchroom supervisor, acted as a bridge between the student cliques.
“There were jocks that did football. There were history nerds like me that wanted to go to China,” Scott said. “Debate and speech nerds, band nerds. And Mr. Walz stood in the middle of all of that and was pretty much universally beloved.”
When a student at Mankato West wanted to start the school’s first gay-straight alliance club in 1999, Walz agreed to be the group’s faculty adviser.
"It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said of his role in a 2018 Star Tribune article.
Educator to politician, he's still Mr. Walz
Walz made the shift from educator to politician in 2006. He ran for a seat in the U.S. House, flipping what had been a reliably Republican district in southern Minnesota.
Six terms later, Walz set his sights on governor. He is currently in the middle of his second term.
More: Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' VP pick: Minnesota governor named running mate
Peter Williams, a 2002 alumnus like Hood and Scott, has watched his former geography teacher go from Mankato to Congress to the governor’s mansion, and now to representing the Democratic presidential ticket out on the campaign trail.
He described Walz as a local celebrity back home in Mankato.
"He was already a pretty big figure in town that was always so nice to everyone,” said Williams, a 41-year-old attorney in Minneapolis. “It doesn't matter whether he's running for (vice) president or whatever, he's still the same guy. So, yeah, I think of him as Mr. Walz.”
