Coach answers the call: Tim Walz accepts VP nomination with biggest ‘pep talk’ of his career

Tim Walz gave the biggest speech on the biggest stage of his career as he accepted the Democratic party’s nomination for vice president in front of a roaring crowd in Chicago.

In keynote remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, the Minnesota governor leaned on his experience as a public high school teacher and football coach to outline a vision for an America defined by care for neighbors and a kind of “freedom” he put in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s agenda.

“It’s the fourth quarter, we’re down a field goal, but we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball,” Walz said in his closing statements. “And boy, do we have the right team.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate want to “build a country where workers come first, healthcare and housing are human rights, and the government stays the hell out of your bedroom,” Walz said.

“That’s how we make America a place where no child is left hungry, where no community is left behind, where no one is told they don’t belong,” he said.

His remarks served as another introduction to a candidate that many voters are still beginning to learn about after he made his debut on the campaign trail just two weeks ago.

Walz — a former member of Congress whose students encouraged him to run for office in 2006 — coached football, basketball and track and taught geography at the same school where his wife Gwen Walz taught English.

He was brought on the stage by one of his former students and next-door neighbors, Ben Ingman, and former members of Mankato West High School’s football team.

Several other Mankato West alumni — including members of the school’s first-ever gay-straight alliance on which Walz served as faculty adviser — had traveled to Chicago on Wednesday to cheer him on.

Walz grew up in small-town Butte, Nebraska, where he learned that “everybody belongs and everyone has a responsibility to contribute.”

“That family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do but they’re your neighbors, and you look out for them, and they look out for you,” he said.

He signed up to serve in the National Guard two days after his 17th birthday and served for 24 years.

“Eventually, like the rest of my family, I fell in love with teaching,” he said.

His students convinced him to run for office when he launched a campaign for Congress in 2006, with “zero political experience and no money running in a deep-red district,” he said.

“You know what? Never underestimate a public school teacher,” he said.

Walz represented the state in the House of Representatives for 12 years before running for governor.

“While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banning hunger from ours,” said Walz, touting his administration’s extensive K-12 policy, including a law that mandates free breakfast and lunch meals to all students, regardless of income.

“We also protected reproductive freedom, because, in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the choices they make,” he said. “We’ve got a golden rule: mind your own damn business.”

Walz and his family also endured “the hell that is infertility,” and “praying each night for a phone call” to experience “the agony when we heard the treatments hadn’t worked.” The family’s two children were conceived through intrauterine insemination.

“Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world, and we love you,” Walz said.

In an emotional moment, his son Gus stood up and applauded his father, shouting out: “That’s my dad.”

“This is a big part of what this election is about: Freedom,” Walz said. “When Republicans use the word ‘freedom,’ they mean the government should be free to invade your doctors’ offices, corporations free to pollute your air and water and banks free to take advantage of their customers.”

The Trump-allied Project 2025 agenda is “an agenda that nobody asked for,” he said.

“And it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors,” he added. “Is it weird? Absolutely. And it’s wrong and it’s dangerous. … We’ve got something better to offer the American people: It starts with Kamala Harris.”

Walz’s prime-time remarks — to an audience expected to top the reported 81 million people who watched the convention’s second night of programming — arrived just two weeks after he made his debut alongside Harris at Temple University in Philadelphia.

The Minnesota governor’s background as a high school football coach has figured prominently in his public profile since he joined the Democratic ticket, with Harris often calling him “coach” rather than “governor.”

The title is also part of the decor at the United Center, where whole sections of the walls have been plastered with multicolored signs that simply read “COACH.”

At a fundraiser in Massachusetts last week, Walz said he could provide a counterweight to another former gridiron coach in government: Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama

“I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville,” he said, “to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people.”

Andrew Feinberg contributed reporting from Chicago