Teacher, coach and family man: Tim Walz is the Midwest dad courting the White House

The governorship of Minnesota may have launched Tim Waltz onto the national stage – and now into a battle for the White House – but it was the former teacher’s wife who brought him to the Land of 10,000 Lakes in the first place.

Gwen Walz, nee Whipple, was born and raised in Minnesota before making a fateful foray after college into teaching across the border in Nebraska; there, she met another young educator and member of the Army National Guard. Tim Walz had grown up in West Point, a small Cornhusker enclave nearly 300 miles south of his future wife’s hometown, and already counted several years of military service under his belt when he decided to ask Gwen out.

Thanks to encouragement from her sister, she agreed; their first date at the only movie theater in town – followed by a stop at Hardee’s, naturally – soon blossomed into a romance, then a 1994 marriage. Exactly 30 years later, the two teachers and their two children now proudly hold the title of First Family of Minnesota — while throwing their hats in the ring for Second Family of America.

Family – both the one who raised him and the one he’s built with Gwen – has deeply molded Walz’s professional path and political positions.

His parents, a public school administrator and homemaker, “were certainly New Deal,” Walz told Minnesota Public Radio, outlining a pedigree that made him born to be a Democrat.

“Growing up Catholic, we had John Kennedy memorabilia in the house … she was pregnant with me when he was assassinated, and I guess there was a debate about calling me ‘John’ when she was picking names,” Walz said.

“Timothy” won out in the end, but his parents continued to instill their Democratic values throughout his youth as he played football and basketball on the small-town high school teams (his graduating class comprised just 24 students.) He was still a teenager when he witnessed firsthand, tragically, the benefits of the party-of-the-people’s support policies.

“My dad, he took me, the day after I turned 17, drove me to Springview, Nebraska; we got a lieutenant in the Guard off their tractor and they swore me into the [Nebraska] Guard, standing there on the side of that field,” Walz told MPR.

In addition to his father having served in the military himself during the Korean War, Walz said: “He did it because at that time, he knew he was sick, and he knew it would be the GI bill” that would fund Walz’ education.

Walz’s father died the year after graduation following a battle with lung cancer, leaving the family in a “pretty precarious” situation.

“Then I watched that with my mom on Social Security survivor benefits, so I’ve used the line on this, to be very candid: I don’t really feel like I went to the Democratic party,” he told MPR in 2022. “They came to me in the forms of those policies.”

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Walz earned a degree in social science education in 1989 from Chadron State College in Nebraska, then spent the following year teaching high school in China “as a part of the first government sanctioned groups of American educators to teach in China through a program at Harvard University,” his congressional bio states.

He returned from Asia to teach high school back in Nebraska – luckily, since that’s when he met Gwen. She might have refused him a kiss on their first date, but she did acquiesce to a honeymoon trip back to China, with 60 students in tow. Shortly afterwards the couple moved to her home state of Minnesota, where both Walzes got jobs teaching at Mankato West High School and moved into a home within walking distance.

Gwen taught English for most of her career, following in the footsteps of her parents, described on her website as educators and small business owners. Walz taught social studies and geography and coached football, serving as defensive coordinator when Mankato West took the state title in 1999 – a first for the school, which has gone on to win four more titles since.

But his impact extended beyond the field, with Walz sponsoring the school’s first gay-straight alliance in the 1990s to combat bullying.

“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz told the Star Tribune of his role in the effort – which was not lost on the students.

“There was no mandate to do this,” former student Jacob Reitan, who went on to become a Minneapolis attorney, told the paper. “It was one teacher saying I know kids are suffering in the silent closet of fear and misunderstanding.”

As the married teachers won over and schooled local teenagers – one former student who had both for different classes in the same year called it “Walz homeschooling” – they were privately struggling to start a family of their own.

Grappling with infertility during the early years of their marriage, the Walzes turned to the Mayo Clinic for help, undergoing seven years of grueling treatment. That time was so foundational that Walz has been outspoken in his political career about the need to protect IVF access and reproductive rights for women

“Even if you’ve never gone through the hell of infertility, someone you know has,” Walz tweeted last month. “When Gwen and I were having trouble getting pregnant, the anxiety and frustration blotted out the sun.”

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Eventually, however, Gwen called him crying one day – with good news, for once.

“I said, ‘Not again,’” he told the Star Tribune. “She said, ‘No, I’m pregnant.’ It’s not by chance that we named our daughter Hope.”

The couple welcomed their firstborn in 2001; a son, Gus, followed in 2006 – the same year Walz was first elected to the US House of Representatives.

“The teachers are still in disbelief; the entire staff loves it,” Mankato West then-senior Sam Hurd told MPR in 2006. “I think, whether you support him or not, it’s just really cool to have said: We have a public school teacher who’s going to Congress now. He’s from Mankato West. We all know him.

“Everybody’s just really behind him … we all knew that if anybody was capable of doing it, it was him,” the high schooler said. “He’s got the kids on his side, he’s got the adults on his side; he has the credentials to be, what I think, is just a perfect candidate – a total likeable guy.”

His former geography student’s words proved more than just a little bit prophetic.

After Walz took office in 2007 representing Minnesota as a Democrat, he became the highest ranking retired enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress. Hewas re-elected to the office five times – before winning the gubernatorial race in 2018.

Minnesota, then, has effectively watched Walz’s young family grow up; his younger child, who turns 18 in October, was just weeks old when his dad was first elected to statewide office.

And Walz leans into the role of publicly proud dad. As both congressman and Governor, Walz posts regularly about his children’s life accomplishments, whether it be wishing happy birthdays, showing family trips or congratulating his son on passing his driving test.

The governor introduced another member of the clan, too, during his first year at the helm of the state.

“I’m excited to announce that Minnesota has a new First Dog!” he wrote on Instagram in 2019, introducing rescued lab mix Scout.

“And more importantly, I fulfilled my commitment to get my son a dog if I was elected Governor.”

He’s shared other fun moments that likely contribute to his likable, Midwest-dad popularity; one video from the Minnesota state fair last year shows Walz and Hope screaming on a slingshot ride she “tricked him” into taking, while he gently ribs her about her culinary preferences by suggesting they get a corn dog.

“I’m vegetarian,” answers Hope, prompting her dad to counter: “Turkey, then.”

When Hope reminds her dad that turkey is meat, he jokes: “Not in Minnesota. Turkey’s special.”

The Walz kids may not yet be social media stars in their own right yet – like Ella Emhoff, for example – but the First Family of Minnesota is already seeing its profile launch into the stratosphere.

The governor’s personal Instagram page on Tuesday tagged a newly-created account on the same platform for his wife – whose followers began to skyrocket. Gwen Walz’s page, meanwhile, follows exactly three others: her husband, Kamala Harris and the Second Gentleman.

“Walzes, assemble!” the governor wrote alongside a photo of his wife, two children and two others. “Off to Philly!”

And maybe off to the White House within just a few months?

Minnesota – and America – will decide soon enough.