Tim Walz allegedly told high school football player struggling with crime and alcohol to keep playing

Minnesota Governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz's high school football coaching career was the subject of a recent article in The Ringer. 

One of Walz's former players on the 1998 Mankato West team shared details of his interactions with Walz while dealing with alcoholism and issues with the law. 

Former Mankato West linebacker Dan Clement told The Ringer that he began to experiment with alcohol when he was in high school. Then, the summer between his junior and senior year, Clement said he was arrested multiple times for underage drinking. Clement had a suspension from football to begin his final high school season and said he decided "I’m just not going to play at all."

But Clement said Walz repeatedly approached him in the hallways that year and told the teenager, "We need you."

"He knew I was struggling," Clement told the outlet, adding that Walz told him, "I don’t care about that other stuff."

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Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a get-out-the-vote rally on October 22, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin polls open today for in-person early voting.  (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Clement said, after Walz's intervention, that he eventually returned to the team for the second half of the season. 

However, Clement said he did not get sober until a full decade after Walz pushed him to return to the field for his final season, The Ringer reported. Still, Clement thanked Walz for his impact on his life. 

"The caring attention he gave, that positive support can pull you through really dark times in your life," Clement said, adding that he told Walz,"I’m leaning on you. I’m trusting you here. I think partying is a better idea. You don’t think so. And I’m going to trust you on that.’

"And he was right. I was wrong. And later in life, when I continued to do that, when I continued to trust other people who love me, then it led my life in this beautiful direction. Just like it did back then."

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign and the Minnesota governor's office for comment, but has not received a response at the time of publication.

Walz's short tenure as an assistant football coach has been a talking point for the Harris campaign since he was announced as the running mate for Harris on Aug. 7. 

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Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a campaign stop, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manitowoc, Wis.  (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

The campaign has made multiple attempts to tie the Minnesota governor's candidacy to his stint as the assistant coach of the Mankato West High School football team in Minnesota in the 1990s. During Walz's tenure as an assistant on the staff, the team won the state championship in 1999. 

On Sunday, Walz did a live stream of him playing Madden NFL with Democrat congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But the event was mocked by football fans after Walz sent a since-deleted post on X that read, "AOC can run a mean pick-6."

When Walz attended a game between Mankato West and rival Mankato East in early October, pro-Palestine protesters were seen at the venue to coincide with Walz's appearance, seen in posts by Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter J.P. Lawrence. 

Walz brought out members of Mankato West's 1999 state championship team during his speech at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 21, when he formally accepted the nomination. During that speech, Richard Grenell, former U.S. ambassador to Germany, critiqued the display in a post on X. 

"He was the Assistant Coach not the Coach," Grenell wrote. 

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Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When Walz attended a Sept. 28 game between Minnesota and Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, fans waited outside afterwards and gave him a harsh farewell. Several in attendance booed him, with another fan even yelling, "Get out of here!"

Walz, despite never having coached past the high school level or even as a head coach in high school, compared his background as a football coach to that of Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who served as the head coach at four different NCAA Power 5 football programs from 1995 to 2016. Tuberville led Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati as head coach and even won an SEC Championship with Auburn in 2004. 

"I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people," Walz said during a fundraiser event in Boston in early August.

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