Democrats Don't Need a Coach, They Need a Teacher
The choice to campaign as “Coach” Walz may be as tactically bankrupt as it is morally so: if Americans truly want an American football coach, isn’t that the “you’re fired” persona Trump already embodies?
Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva
“It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense. We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team to win this.”
Those were part of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s closing remarks on the penultimate night of the Democratic National Convention. Before he took the stage that night as Kamala Harris’ running mate, about a dozen members of the high school football team he coached to a Minnesota state championship appeared in front of an arena filled with signs reading “Coach Walz.”
“Coach” Walz is often seen as the Democratic Party’s not-so-secret weapon in the unfolding campaign for president as he currently leads JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, in likability by 11%. That appeal appears to have a lot to do with his history as a football coach — and the way we tend to think about coaches — something the Democratic party will not allow us to forget.
During his DNC speech, which began with a crowd chanting “Coach! Coach! Coach!” Walz also said of Project 2025, which the Trump campaign has distanced itself from, “I coached high school football long enough, I promise you this — when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it.”
In fact, right from the moment Vice President Kamala Harris introduced Walz as her running mate in Philadelphia, where she referred to him as “Coach” more than “Governor,” it was clear Democrats have consciously highlighted his football bonafides as a central part of his appeal. Indeed, The Washington Post was quick to praise the choice of Walz, calling him “a former rural football coach who is more comfortable in Carhartt pants and trucker hats than a suit and tie.”
There’s only one problem with all this: our research has shown us that football coaches, particularly at the college level, are often responsible for significant malfeasance on the gridiron resulting in immeasurable harm. While potentially politically savvy, the choice to fetishize Walz as a coach also tacitly launders the actual role of the football coach too often in America: as overseer of coercion, harm, exploitation and even abuse. In August alone, at least six school kids died during football training activities.
Dave Zirin, in a piece for The Nation, first surfaced these issues in late September, writing that “the platforming of football as a patriotic totem cannot be separated from the sport’s embrace of hypermasculinity and violence.”
“Claiming this sport and the NFL means claiming all the violent detritus that comes with it,” Zirin said later in the piece. “When Colin Kaepernick took a knee in protest of police violence and racial inequity in 2016, he was banished from the league; a reminder to all players that any kinds of resistance politics would not be tolerated. This is what the Democratic Party is buying into — and it comes with risks.”
This reality has had little effect on the Democrats’ strategic calculus.
In fundraising emails, the Democrats are quick to capitalize on Walz’s gridiron credentials. One such email reads, “Kamala Harris is tough. She’s experienced. And she’s ready. Our job is to get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling. One inch at a time, one yard at a time, one $25 donation at a time.”
The strategy has persisted. Prior to the vice presidential debate against Vance, President Joe Biden tweeted, “Coach, I got your back tonight!” Then, just minutes before the debate started, Vice President Harris added, “It’s game time.”
Likewise, after the debate, Walz leaned into his coaching background as justification for a perceived shaky performance, calling it “not bad for a football coach.”
For our forthcoming book The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game, we spoke to 25 former college football players about their experiences with coercion, exploitation and harm in the sport. Their testimony makes it impossible for us to be at ease with the seemingly ubiquitous embrace of Walz’s gridiron overseer identity, even if his own specific history in the game has not raised red flags.
Some of the things we heard from players were positively harrowing — suggesting that too often coaches are the opposite of role models.
One player told us of his time in high school, that his coach “was actually abusive to me. He hit me across the face a couple of times after practice with the helmet off. He had this big ring, and he had this fat hand. I actually got the flu one time, and I lost 10 pounds. I was trying to gain weight. And I said, ‘I just lost 10 pounds.’ And he smacked me across the face hard. And I said, ‘I just had the flu.’ And he smacked me across the face again, and I said, ‘I’m going to gain it all back.’ And he is like, ‘That’s what I want to hear.’”
Another player remembered that coaches would consistently abuse one of his teammates: “They didn’t even refer to him by his name for about a year, they would just call him ‘stupid.’ I remember one specific time they had him read out the workout. And, of course, he was terrified. … He was stuttering. And every time he stuttered, the coach slapped him on the back of the neck. It’s like, ‘Come on, dum-dum. Come on, idiot. Spit it out.’”
One reason that the celebratory narrative around coaching that is currently enveloping Walz is so pervasive is that bad experiences are seldom publicized, in part because players face backlash for doing so and in part because there is often a profound difference in the treatment of elite players versus their less-acclaimed teammates.
A former big-time college football player we spoke to for this story who asked for anonymity explained, “I would definitely say there is a lot of abusive behavior…. A lot of it was neglect, meaning if you weren’t one of the two-deep on the depth chart you most likely weren’t going to get coached in any way, they’d skip your reps in film and not even correct you when you were doing them live.”
A second former college football player we spoke to — who was quick to add that he supports Harris/Walz and quite literally said “Fuck Donald Trump” — nevertheless also worried about the impact of the pro-coach chatter.
“I think that the issue is that the title of ‘Coach’ in small towns across rural America is a cultural title that holds a lot of weight,” he explained. “They are the mentors, the holders of social power, and seen as a holder of some great wisdom. It’s almost a necessary step in the process of becoming a man to go through a coach’s program.”
A third former big-time college football player we spoke to for the story viewed this in a favorable light.
“I actually find the coaching part appealing,” he told us. “I honestly haven’t associated any of my negative experiences with Walz. I think in large part it’s because of his current image/what I know of him. I think the Coach Walz bit is a positive for me because he just happened to be a coach. It isn’t his whole personality, and it looks like he hasn’t brought the dehumanizing methods that some coaches use into his family life.”
“In a way, I feel like Walz is challenging the idea of the American Coach. I mean, the guy is posting hot dish recipes on his Twitter.”
While it is clear why all of this contributes to Walz’s appeal, it can also have consequences.
“Football requires conformity, which usually leads to close-mindedness,” explained the first player we spoke to. “Football requires internalizing and hiding of personal needs, which leads to the demonization of things like vulnerability, seeking help, and advocating for self and others. Football requires physical aggression and the dampening of emotional vulnerability … unless it is rage and violence.”
The insistence on the wholesomeness of “Coach” Walz — the instrumental value of all this for the Democrats — is most problematic for the way it distorts, even launders, the brutality of so much of what is presided over by coaches on America’s football fields. The genial image of “Coach” Walz disappears the harm that saturates the gridiron under the authority of so many others who bear that moniker.
Indeed, in retrospect, perhaps the gleeful assumption of an identity inextricable from the supervision and prescription of corporeal violence was the first clue that the Harris campaign was preparing to pivot to the right by attempting to court GOP endorsements and, most importantly, by not adopting a more humane policy position against the genocide in Gaza, as so many on the left had first hoped they would.
In that sense, the choice to campaign as “Coach” Walz may be as tactically bankrupt as it is morally so: if Americans truly want a football coach, isn’t that what Trump already embodies in all but title?
There was, of course, a simpler path available to Democratic leaders had they the courage to take it: Walz the public school teacher. He could be a symbol of the robust welfare state that might be, where funds are allocated to schools and healthcare rather than the military industrial complex and genocide.
For all these reasons, we agree with the second player, who ultimately told us, “I hope the Coach bit ends up in the trash bin.”
There’s still time, albeit not much.
Disclosure: Views expressed are those of the writer. As a 501©3 nonprofit, In These Times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.
Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. He is the co-author of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, December 2024) and co-host (with Johanna Mellis) of The End of Sport podcast.
Derek Silva is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at King’s University College at Western University. He is the co-author of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, December 2024) and co-host (with Johanna Mellis) of The End of Sport podcast.
