General
Tim Walz Was a Clear Eyes, Full Hearts Kind of Coach
“The guy was never negative,” another coach said. “That’s what we loved about him. Everything was a positive.”
Minneapolis’s Metrodome hummed, its sidelines jammed on a fall Friday night. The Mankato West Scarlets, who had started the 1999 high school football season with a miserable record of 2-4, had improbably swaggered into a state championship game. Now, less than three minutes stood between them and a title.
Their defense, though, would first have to repel the Cambridge-Isanti Bluejackets, who were from north of Minneapolis and trailed by a single touchdown. The quarterback hurled a desperate pass toward the end zone. But inside the 10-yard line, a Scarlet defender intercepted the ball, effectively clinching a 35-28 victory and Mankato West’s first championship.
A coach lifted Tim Walz, then the defensive coordinator and now the Democratic candidate for vice president, skyward. In Mr. Walz’s telling, the victory also eventually proved a launchpad for politics.
Tim Walz, the defensive coordinator of the Mankato West high school football team, at work during the 1999 state championship game.CreditCredit…By Calen Wilson
Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign are touting Mr. Walz’s coaching to broaden the Democratic ticket’s appeal, a time-tested strategy that Mr. Walz himself has long used.
His time as a coach serves as a glimpse into the personality he is bringing to the playing field of politics, with friendliness and warmth masking a contagious competitiveness. And Mr. Walz’s years in coaching show a ruthless willingness to change tactics as necessary.
