The Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, made an appearance at a high school football game on Friday night, a team he once coached as an assistant.
The game took place at Mankato West High School, where Walz's presence was met with mixed reactions from the crowd.
According to Fox News, the Governor's visit coincided with protests outside the high school, with pro-Palestine supporters making their presence felt. Footage from the event showed Walz mingling with families in the bleachers, with the crowd's response ranging from indifference to mild enthusiasm. The most notable reaction came when Walz joined both teams for the coin toss, eliciting a smattering of cheers from the Mankato West bleachers.
However, not everyone was pleased with Walz's appearance. Former Republican Minnesota congressman Jeremy Munson had previously encouraged people to boo the Governor at the game. Yvonne Simon, chair of the Blue Earth County GOP, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Walz's appearance was a sign of desperation. "Theyre getting desperate to get the word out," Simon said.
The Harris-Walz campaign has been attempting to leverage Walz's past as an assistant coach for the Mankato West High School football team in the 1990s, a period during which the team won the state championship in 1999. Walz's early career included a stint as a teacher in China before he was hired by Mankato West in 1996 as a geography teacher. He also served as the first faculty advisor of Mankato West High School's first gaystraight alliance and organized summer educational trips to China for high school students.
Walz's role as an assistant football coach has been a focal point for the Harris campaign since his vice-presidential nomination on August 7. During his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on August 21, Walz brought out members of Mankato West's 1999 state championship team. However, Richard Grenell, former U.S. ambassador to Germany, criticized the move, stating, "He was the Assistant Coach not the Coach."
Walz's reception at Mankato West was warmer than at other football games he has attended since joining the ticket. At a game between Minnesota and Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on September 28, fans booed him and one even yelled, "Get out of here!"
Despite never having coached past the high school level or as a head coach, Walz compared his background as a football coach to that of Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who served as the head coach at four different NCAA Power-5 football programs from 1995 to 2016. "I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people," Walz said during a fundraiser event in Boston in early August.
Walz's attempts to leverage his past as a football coach and his controversial appearances at games reveal a campaign strategy that may not resonate with all voters. As the election approaches, it remains to be seen whether his past in education and coaching will be an asset or a liability.
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