Football players coached by Tim Walz took the DNC stage Wednesday; here’s how it happened

The 14 former players from the Mankato West High School football team who jogged onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention say it’s been surreal seeing their glory years unexpectedly celebrated on the national stage.

The players were flown out to Chicago to support Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on the night of his acceptance speech as the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate Wednesday.

Walz had been a coach for Mankato West’s football team during its championship runs in 1999 and 2002, before the former geography teacher ran for Congress and then governor. And just as Walz’s star has quickly soared in the weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate, so have those teams from long ago ascended past local legend into the national consciousness.

Now in their late 30s, the former players, wearing old football jerseys that didn’t quite fit, marveled at how their school’s fight song was being played in front of a national audience.

“It was unreal, like pinch me now,” said Drew Hood, 38, a former outside linebacker at Mankato West.

They relished reliving tales about football games decades past that are now being retold across America: How the team suffered a winless 0-27 run in the years prior to Walz joining as the defensive assistant, how the team ran a 4-4 scheme — four linemen and four linebackers — on their way to an unlikely championship.

Many of them had scrambled to get to Chicago on short notice. The Harris-Walz campaign flew them in and paid their expenses, they said. A spokeswoman for the campaign confirmed it flew the former players to Chicago, as well as Rick Sutton, head coach at Mankato West during those years.

For many of the former players, it was the first time they’d reunited in decades.

“The world’s best high school reunion,” said Sean Koomen, 42, a kicker on the 1999 team. Koomen had flown into Chicago from Washington state. After graduating high school and college, he moved to the West Coast and now teaches people how to build wooden boats.

Like the other players, Koomen said he wanted to support his former coach. Several of the players are members of a group, Mankato West Alumni for Harris-Walz, in support of his campaign.

“He changed our life,” said Tim Wussow, 42, a tackle on the 1999 team.

Wednesday night in Chicago was a blur, Wussow said. Before walking on stage, the former players marveled at the celebrities and politicians who seemed to be starstruck by them.

“I’ll never forget, Bill Clinton walking down the hallway and saying, ‘That’s the Mankato West football team!’” Wussow said.

As Walz gave his acceptance speech, the players said friends and family watching the convention in Mankato kept sending them messages whenever their hometown was mentioned.

Later, the former players said they gave Walz a football they had signed, shook hands and hugged him.

Sutton could be seen grinning ear-to-ear with Walz after the speech. He said he was glad to support his former assistant coach and see players he hadn’t seen in decades.

Sutton, 62, spoke in the middle of football practice. Now co-head coach at Farmington High School, he flew to Chicago after practice Tuesday, attended the convention Wednesday and took a 7:15 a.m., flight Thursday so he could still run morning practice, he said.

Sutton said he’s heard the criticisms that Walz is taking too much credit for the 1999 and 2002 runs, but said Thursday that he doesn’t put much stock in them.

“People have inferred in the media that he’s coach and that means head coach — Tim has never said that,” Sutton said. “Tim and I had and have a good relationship. People are going to think what they’re going to think.”

The former players on Thursday said they were flying back home, having first attended a breakfast with Walz. Hood, the former outside linebacker, said while people may disagree with his former coach on policy, he believes in Walz’s character after seeing him again.

“The person that might be the next vice president is the same coach and teacher we knew,” Hood said.