Before he was a politician and long before he was Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was a social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School from 1996 to 2006, when he left to make his successful run for Congress.

In the days since he was announced as Harris’ pick for the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a slew of teachers and former students have spoken publicly about his time as a teacher, as the defensive coordinator for the 1999 state championship-winning football team and as the faculty advisor for the school’s first gay-straight alliance.

Visiting Mankato, Minn., this week, Spectrum News caught up with two of his former colleagues who recalled working alongside Walz and his wife, Gwen Walz, who also taught at the same school.

“My experience is entirely positive. They were part of, you know, the world that I lived in, right? There was no national media or state media around and it was about educating kids, and it was about being with kids. It was about the well-being of kids,” said Tania Lyon, a former English teacher at Mankato West who was also neighbors with the Walz family. “It was about all of those things that go with being a teacher that I think resonates so deeply with people around the state and the nation right now.”

Aaron Miller, a former social studies and history teacher at Mankato West, described Walz as a “Renaissance man” during his time in education, willing to chip in wherever he could. Walz has long talked about how he thought it was important to become the faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance as “the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married. Miller said, knowing Walz, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all he would volunteer for that role.

“He coached football. He helped with other sports. He helped run clocks. You know, basketball clocks during basketball season, he helped build sets for plays,” said Miller, who coached football alongside Walz. “Basically, just, ‘hey, this is my community. ‘I'm gonna help, you know, I'm gonna help the best way that I feel I can.’”

Gov. Tim Walz, then a social studies teacher, appears in the 2005 Mankato West High School yearbook. (Courtesy of the Blue Earth County Historical Society)

Lyon said the Walz seen on the national stage is “very similar” to what she saw during his teaching days, remembering him as “energetic” and “motivating” to the students.

“Students were inspired. And that is one of the things that I remember a lot about, is that students would feel positive about being with him. Students would write about him,” Lyon said. “I was an English teacher, and specifically a writing teacher, and so I read a lot of papers about Tim and his influence.”

Numerous former students have come forward with their stories of both the governor and his wife’s influence and inspiration to them during their time in high school. Former linebacker Daniel Clement told CNN he “would not have finished high school without Coach Walz,” crediting Walz with showing him “the care that a young 16, 17-year-old boy raised by a single mother really needed” as he struggled with substance abuse and lacked male role models. Jacob Reitan, the student who pitched Walz on starting the gay-straight alliance in 1999, told the Associated Press he came out to Gwen Walz before he even told his parents he was gay. Noah Hobbs, a former global geography student of Walz’s, wrote on social media he was a “C-ish” student, but that “Walz took the time to make sure that I was successful. Not only in his class but others. He made learning exciting.”

Lyon said Walz was known for his empathy and sensitivity towards students in times of tragedy and crisis.

“We shared many students. I often taught juniors and seniors. He often taught juniors and seniors. And you know, when you're a teacher, you go through different things like student suicide or faculty death or a crisis in in the national headlines like 9/11 or [former Minnesota Sen.] Paul Wellstone's death [in a plane crash in 2002] that impacted kids,” Lyon said. “Kids also have personal things that happen. And with all of those things, I think the common ground was that there was always a real empathy and sensitivity to the very human situations that were in front of him.”

Both Lyon and Miller, in their separate interviews, spoke on the importance of having someone with a public schools teaching background on a major party ticket, particularly as debates over the role of education have become heated national political issues.

“It would definitely help kind of reshape, maybe, how the public perceives public school teachers. I think some people demonize us for a tremendous amount of reasons that… I don’t quite understand where that’s coming from,” Miller said. “People talk about, ‘oh, they're indoctrinating. Teachers are indoctrinating.’ We don't have time to indoctrinate. We've got a curriculum. We've got students. We've got human beings that we're trying to work with. We're not slapping the same label on every box. Public education is not a factory business.”

Lyon argued that Walz’s perspective as a longtime public school teacher helps inform his policy perspectives across the board, not just when it comes to education policy. 

“One of the really interesting things about being an educator, especially in light of some of the things that COVID brought forward, is that educators really see all sectors of society, and they're on the front lines in a different way than his military service might be. But a teacher experiences a lot of social issues,” Lyon said. “And to me, one of the real important things about having Tim be in national leadership is that I personally know that he sees all of those things, and that I have worked with him on those things in terms of making a school better, in making life better, in in in a community with those things at the center of his belief system.”

Gov. Tim Walz, top left, appears in the 2006 yearbook for Mankato West High School, where he worked as a social studies teacher for a decade in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. (Courtesy of the Blue Earth County Historical Society)

Gwen Walz, Lyon said, is a leader in her own right and she hopes to see the governor’s wife continue to push for the policies they championed in Minnesota on a national level, like the implementation of universal school lunch. Lyon described her as a “servant leader.”

“I've seen him fight hard, and I believe that he will continue to fight hard for those things. And I also know that Gwen fights hard for those same things. And while the subject right now is not on her, she is a skilled leader, and she is a servant leader as well, and is a fighter for what's best for kids,” Lyon said. “I saw that in her as an English teacher as well. We worked closely together in the English Department. And, you know, we taught some of the same literature classes and tried to get at the same nuggets of ‘what does this mean about the human experience, and what can we learn from it?’”

To Miller, Walz is just “a normal guy” who he used to watch game film with during the football season who used to beat him by five strokes when they went golfing and “was not afraid to rub that in.” He went to see the governor speak in Eau Claire, Wisc., at a rally last week and left feeling “very excited for him,” but also “a little sad.”

“Because if he does become the next vice president, it’s amazing -- it’s what I want because I believe that’s what he wants -- but at the same time, we’re going to lose a hell of a governor. I’m going to have, obviously, far fewer opportunities to get in contact with him, so I’ll lose that friend for a little while,” Miller said. “I also know that when all of this comes to its end, whenever that is however it is, I'll have a friend. I'll have a guy that I can get back to, and we can swap stories about stupid things, like, ‘yeah I had a three foot putt and I missed it three times,’ you know? Or, you know, just ‘I can’t believe I put these shoes on with those pants.’ Just, sort of the silly things we talked about before.”

Lyon said she’s “proud” of Walz as someone who knew him decades ago, as a teacher whose classroom he walked into the day after he won his first congressional race to offer a big hug and say “we did it,” and as a neighbor who would come by with his kids to trick or treat on Halloween. But she also said she’s thrilled “as a citizen,” too.

“Before he became famous in politics, he believed deeply in the political system, he was a social studies teacher who was so passionate that he shared that love with students, and that passion was always inspiring,” Lyon said. “And so I'm certainly proud of that, but it also makes me believe deeply in the political process, because this is what the process was set up for. A citizen who believes in running for office, a citizen who does it, a citizen who gets elected, and a citizen who keeps serving the public good, who continues to move up the political ladder.”