A look at Tim Walz's early years as a high school teacher and football coach

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Vice President Harris is also swinging through purple states, introducing her running mate, Democrat Tim Walz, to the country. In Eau Claire, Wis., today, like last night in Philadelphia, she spent a lot of time talking about how the Governor of Minnesota started his career.

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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: To his former high-school students, he was Mr. Walz.

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HARRIS: And to his former high-school football players, he was coach.

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HARRIS: Coach.

CHANG: Walz taught global studies and was an assistant football coach at Mankato West High School until he won a seat in Congress in 2006. NPR's senior White House correspondent, Tamara Keith, spoke with some of his former students.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Students say Walz taught his global studies class in a way that got everyone involved in the conversation and pushed them to expand their horizons. Noah Hobbs was a C student - the kind of kid who could easily slip through the cracks. But he says Walz took an interest in him, and the enthusiasm rubbed off.

NOAH HOBBS: Leaving his class, going to the next one - it was really hard to not want to continue to learn 'cause it's like the sugar high that doesn't stop.

KEITH: Walz was known for drinking Diet Mountain Dew, and former student Will Handke fondly tells the story of watching his teacher down a bag of Oreos during a field trip to China.

WILL HANDKE: I heard some crunching and munching and looked out over the side and saw Walz's hand zipping into the bag of Oreos as fast as I possibly have seen any hand move. And that bag of Oreos disappeared very quickly.

KEITH: When Walz ran for Congress, Handke worked as an unpaid intern on his first campaign, including helping out at parades.

HANDKE: He doesn't let any hand get unshaken. Walz would run back and forth, back and forth, shaking hands. This man does not stop.

KEITH: Former student Sam Hurd also volunteered on the 2006 Walz campaign.

SAM HURD: And we even got to go to the party at the Holiday Inn downtown on election night and see all of our teachers having a few beers at, like - at about midnight. It was great (laughter).

KEITH: Hurd now works as a teacher himself. And when I caught up with him, he was in the car with another former student, headed to the Harris-Walz rally in Philadelphia.

HURD: There's still very much like a Mr.-Walz-goes-to-Washington feeling about all of it, even though he's been doing that for, you know, 15, 20 years.

KEITH: Kristina Rothenberg was a student the last year Walz taught and then saw him on a school field trip in Washington, D.C.

KRISTINA ROTHENBERG: You know, one year, you have him as a teacher. The next year you go see his office in D.C. It was pretty amazing.

KEITH: Rothenberg says he went out of his way to get her and a friend a tour of the White House.

ROTHENBERG: He had to, like, walk to the White House, show his, like, I'm-a-Congressman badge so that we could do the tour, and then he, like, went back to his job of being a congressman. I think he'd still do that today, by the way.

MITCH SALSBERY: What I see is kind of the same person that I grew up with.

KEITH: Mitch Salsbery was a freshman on the varsity football team Walz helped coach that won the State championship.

SALSBERY: You know, a lot of coaches will bring energy - kind of that fake energy, where it's rah, rah, rah. But Mr. Walz brought passion every day. He loved to coach. He loved to teach.

KEITH: And he had a way of pushing people to meet their potential - of making you want to be better, says Salsbery. A couple of years after leaving the classroom for Congress, Walz returned to speak at Mankato West High School. Noah Hobbs says Walz made it clear he remembered him.

HOBBS: Like, I wasn't a bad enough student that I should be remembered. I also was not a good enough student that I should be remembered. But two years removed of being my teacher and remembering that I was habitually tardy - I mean, to his class and every other class - like, that is - that's pretty incredible.

KEITH: Years later, Hobbs ended up running for office himself and just wrapped up six years on the Duluth, Minn., City Council. He says Walz showed him that you don't have to go to an Ivy League school or come from money to get into politics and make a difference.

Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.