The former defensive coordinator of Mankato West High School is now running for vice president of the United States.
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign announced Tuesday it had selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in November’s election. Walz has deep ties to sports dating back decades.
After his long stint in the military and before he jumped into politics, Walz spent about a decade teaching and coaching at a high school about 80 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis. He taught social studies, was the faculty ambassador to the gay-straight alliance, and coached basketball and football. As defensive coordinator, Walz helped recalibrate a program that has since racked up several state titles.
“When I took the job, they said, ‘Well, we’re kind of struggling, we’re 0–27.’ But I had some other coaches I worked with who were great guys, and we said, ‘This is nonsense. Let’s just turn this thing around,’” Walz said in a February episode of Pod Save America. “Three years later, state champion. Now they’re the state powerhouse.”
Since he was elected governor in 2018, Walz has made sports a key part of his public presence. As the Timberwolves started picking up speed in this year’s NBA playoffs, he posted a simple message: “Naz Reid.” Later in May, as fans latched onto Anthony Edwards’s viral “bring ya ass” invitation to Charles Barkley, Walz jumped on board, posting a suggestive eye emoji on social media when charged to make the phrase an official tourism slogan for the state. The governor followed up with an official proclamation of “Wolves Back Day” to mark the start of the Western Conference finals, with the first letter of each line spelling out Edwards’s iconic line.
Like many governors, he loves an official sports-related proclamation. When the Olympic gymnastics trials came to Minneapolis in June, he declared “Gymnastics City USA Week.” Walz announced the day of the opening ceremony in Paris would be “Minnesota Olympians Day.” The state does have plenty of prominent Olympians to celebrate, including Edwards, Suni Lee, Napheesa Collier, and Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve. “I am immensely proud of the passionate, hard-working, determined individuals who will be representing Minnesota in the Paris Olympics,” Walz said.
But Walz has been elbow deep in policy-related issues in the sports world, too, starting with the financing of the Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The venue was built before his time in office, but the state and city still owed $377 million in the public-private venture. Walz signed a bill in May 2023 that allowed revenue from electronic pull tabs—which were approved with the intention of aiding stadium financing but made more money than anticipated—to pay off the debt, a move that saved taxpayers $226 million in interest. Walz also approved $15.7 million for a new 8-foot-tall security fence built around the stadium to replace the chain-link one. The Vikings have asked for $62 million more public funding in this year’s legislative session.
The governor has also met with the NHL’s Wild about potentially providing state funds for a stadium renovation, and this weekend congratulated Minnesota native Joe Mauer, who spent his entire career with the Twins, on his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Not everything in the sports world has gone according to plan for Walz. A hunter himself, he lost the support of the state’s largest deer hunting organization due to his stances on gun control and wolf hunting. Minnesota is also one of only 12 states that hasn’t legalized sports betting, despite ads for Betway on the Timberwolves’ floor. The state’s Native American casinos and horse racing tracks haven’t come to an agreement on how to split the revenue, but Walz has said he’d support a bill that “meets all those constituency needs.” And Minneapolis lost the bid to WWE’s 2025 WrestleMania to Las Vegas despite organizers and public officials, including Walz, teasing they’d get the event.
“This is the place to be. Those are the things we need to be doing. … Whether it’s coming up with the USA Gymnastic Trials or the US Junior Hockey Championships … [a]nd we’re not going to forget WrestleMania and things like that,” Walz said. “You know, when they told me that, I’m like, ‘Oh,’ but want to know [the best thing] about this? That thing is a $20 million impact in the local economy. It’s big.” Luckily for Walz, the city stuck the landing on WWE’s SummerSlam in 2026.
At 60 years old, Walz is still an avid runner, and last year threw a strong first pitch for the Triple-A St. Paul Saints. His sports background is reminiscent of Barack Obama’s basketball games at the White House, the likes of which haven’t been seen with the two most recent presidents. As sports and politics become increasingly intertwined in Washington—take one look at the NCAA’s elaborate lobbying campaign to get a glimpse of the intersection—it’s clear Harris wanted a sports guy on her ticket.
