Hannah Meredith Gardner | 27 September 2024
When describing Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz, one of the most popular titles given to him is “coach”. It was referenced multiple times during his speech at the DNC and even his former athletes came out to the DNC for “Coach Walz’s” nomination. Making note of the politician’s former role as a high school football coach has been a major part of the campaign strategy in the Democratic Party and it’s working. If you didn’t grow up in US sports culture, this may be considered odd. Why would anyone care? This article will begin to explore the intersection of American football, identity, politics and why “Coach” is such an important title to the potential future Vice President of the United States from the perspective of a Midwesterner that has lived in American football culture her entire life.
I need to preface this by acknowledging that I did not grow up watching American football every week at home. However, while my parents are artists and academics with no deep desire to engage in the culture of American football, I grew up near Canton, Ohio. For anyone who knows anything about the sport, you may recognize that name -Canton, Ohio is the home of the Pro-Football Hall of Fame.
It would be fair to say that American football culture is more than just a sport for those who love it. It is a religion. These games captivate over 17 million people in the US every year and a person’s favorite team can be a driving factor in their lives. As important as professional football is to Americans, high school football also holds a special place in many people’s hearts. Many schools spend massive amounts of money on stadiums to host Friday night football games, games that I went to as a member of my high school marching band. Almost every Friday night for 4 seasons between 2014 and 2017. I watched fans cheer in the stands, the theatrics of the players entering the field, the announcers making comments, the roar of cheers with each touchdown and the silence that settled when a player got injured. The feelings of connection and community, even for followers of a team that doesn’t win very often (here are my old high school’s records), are important and emotionally significant. For many people in the US, this makes the role of high school football coach truly significant in the political arena.
This brings us back to Tim Walz. Walz’s repeated references to his time as a coach make more sense when taking the emotional component of American football culture into consideration. Not only are coaches seen as the head of a team, but they are also often seen as mentors and important community members. In a political scene where democrats are often painted as “out of touch elitists”, there is a huge value in highlighting these ties to the community and this is exactly what Walz is doing. While Walz’s two terms as the governor of Minnesota have come with their highlights and criticisms, it would be fair to say that a large part of his rising popularity comes from his “down to earth” persona paired with several popular policies. This combination made him a good choice for Kamala Harris’s running mate.
This leads us to another key factor that should be taken into consideration when discussing the choice of Tim Walz, the ways that American football, US politics and ideas of masculinity all intersect.
American football is often at the heart of US masculinity. It is seen by many as the height of what it means to be a “man”: strong, athletic, part of a team, able to take a hit. These are characteristics that are often ascribed to American football players, while also being seen as ideal masculine qualities in general. The ties of masculinity and politics are important in today’s political landscape as much of the strategy of US right wing politics is to target and appeal to men that feel threatened by expanded definitions of gender and gender expression, especially in left wing circles. One can easily see right wing commentators making claims that “men are under attack” and that “men need to be men again”. This is where the choice of Tim Walz comes into play. Not only his former role as a football coach, a job seen as stereotypically masculine, but his military experience and close-knit family exudes a particular brand of wholesome masculinity that those promoting the "manosphere" lack. His mannerisms and attitudes remind many in the US of the best characteristics of their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles and it makes the ticket more appealing to those who would otherwise view the Democratic Party as full of coastal elites who don’t know what the life of the average middle class family looks like and don’t understand small town values.
It is clear that I am excited about the choice of Walz.Walz reminds me of the best personality traits of a lot of my male relatives. The Harris and Walz campaign are clearly leaning into midwestern masculinity with their merchandise and campaign videos that center Walz. The camo grill apron and trucker hat feel like something I would see at a family get together in Ohio. The video of him talking about his 1979 truck makes me oddly nostalgic. Frankly, it was designed simultaneously for people like me and my conservative rural family members, even if our politics are often worlds apart. Does Walz's brand of masculinity solve the growing problem of toxic masculinity in the United States? Absolutely not, the Republican Party has already laid out attacks on not only Walz’s democratic policies but also his masculinity (look to nicknames like "Tampon Tim"). Maybe the GOP is realizing what many have already figured out, Coach Walz was a wise choice for the Harris ticket and may act as a key factor for a potential win on November 5th.
Keywords: #USElection #VicePresident #Sports #AmericanFootball
Hannah Meredith Gardner is a Lund University master’s student in the Human Rights Studies program. Her focuses are on the intersections of human rights, food, the arts, and colonialism. She is originally from the United States and did her undergraduate degree in Political Science at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
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