As ‘Coach Walz’ joins the Democratic team, NC football coaches take notice | Opinion
That Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is a former public high school teacher has won him support among many of the nation’s teachers, but his other school job also resonates – football coach.
As she campaigns for president, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken to calling her running mate “Coach Walz.” The title strikes a chord of Americana, of a regular guy exhorting young men under the Friday night lights.
And the coach connection is enhanced by the story of Walz, who as a defensive coordinator for Mankato West Scarlets, helped the once-struggling program win its first state championship in 1999.
The Minnesota governor’s coaching background has been noticed by those still in the field. I spoke this week to North Carolina high school football coaches about having one of their own in the running for the nation’s second-highest office.
Cary High School Coach Coleman Tyrance said he was not paying attention to the presidential race until Walz was named on Tuesday.
“When they made that statement that he was a teacher and also a coach, I started smiling. I can relate to that,” said Tyrance, whom students call “Coach T.”
Tyrance thinks a coaching background is good sign for a leader. He said, “I just think there are skills and experiences that a coach or teacher might have that can carry you on to be successful in business or just working with people in general.”
At Chapel Hill High School, football coach Ryan Horton also liked Walz’s coaching background.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “You would hope that would help him stay connected to everyday folks as opposed to someone who’s agreed from the beginning that they wanted to be in politics.”
At Friendship High School in Apex, coach Adam Sanders, who also teaches a course in U.S. government, said Walz’s experience in the classroom and on the football field connected with him. “To have someone who has a viewpoint from what I do every day, I think is pretty good,” he said.
Sanders is impressed by the turnaround Walz helped create at Mankato West High School. “Coaching at its best is about communicating and getting everyone on one page for one goal,” he said. “If he was able to do that with a losing team, there’s a reason why a lot of people are excited about him politically.”
At Charlotte’s Myers Park High School, Christopher James serves as dean of students and is also the football coach.
He said working with young people involves “molding the future of America,” but the work involved, especially for coaches, is often unappreciated.
James said people see a coach on the sidelines, but “They don’t see you doing laundry, painting fields, looking at transcripts, talking to parents or helping a kid who has an issue at home.”
That Walz has known the visible and the unnoticed work of a coach “tells me a lot,” James said. “It tells me how much he can juggle, and how much of a hard worker he is. There are so many different pieces to being a coach.”
Ken Lathan, a counselor and head football coach at Carrboro High School, said of Walz’s coaching background, “It was cool to see somebody up there that has the makeup of a high school coach. You think of a person who is just giving everything to others, a team-first kind of guy.”
But Lathan added, “Whether it prepares you for the big stage or not, that’s yet to be seen.”
On a Minnesota podcast this week, Walz’s own coach spoke about him. Rick Sutton was the head coach at Mankato West who hired Walz as his assistant in 1997.
“In coaching, Xs and Os obviously are important, but it’s more about the relationships you can build and the trust you can foster with your team, that’s obviously always been one of Tim’s biggest strengths,” Sutton said. “That dedication, that enthusiasm, that ability to get to know students on an individual basis is all a big part of that success.”
The Democrats have made a shrewd move. They’ve put a coach into the game. So far, he’s playing well.
This story was originally published August 11, 2024 at 12:00 AM.