Gay student says "Coach" Tim Walz protected him from homophobic bullies

And he didn’t just protect one kid. The football coach, the manliest man in the entire school, was the faculty sponsor for the Gay Straight Alliance club that welcomed everyone. In the 1990s.

Seriously. In the late 90s and early aughts it was common to hear teenage boys and young men throwing around words like f_g and using “gay” in a derogatory way. This was common even in liberal areas and among groups that weren’t outwardly homophobic. We have come a long way in a relatively short period of time.

You're underselling just how homophobic we were back then.

In the 1990 General Social Survey, only 12% said that gay sex wasn't wrong.

In 1988 (closest year to the 90s the question was asked) only 3% of Americans "Strongly agreed" the gay people should have the right to marry.

Also, in 1992, 19% of non-black respondents believed there should be a law against interracial marriage, which is super disturbing.

It’s not hard to be saintlier than the catholic church. Just don’t systematically abuse kids and you’re good.

Its because he just seriously did his job. And apparently thats super rare in todays america. He did politics and good policy without it being a media circus. He didn't do it for attention and visibility. No scandals, no media stunts.

This is what politics shoud be. Not that media circus it is in the US with the goal being to have the most headlines and the most press attention not to make good politics.

To answer your question. Minnesota. They found him in Minnesota.

There's actually a lot of great politicians that most people haven't heard of because they're too boring for our 24/7 news cycle to care about. Walz has just been quietly being an excellent governor to Minnesota, like how Pritzker is doing a pretty good job as governor of Illinois or how Whitmer is doing a pretty good job as governor of Michigan. There's not much of a reason to learn about politicians that don't represent you though, so these kinds of working politicians don't get much attention.

i think this is just like, legally mandated in the midwest. You just have to be moderately based, at all times.

I'm a person that regularly forgives people for "sins" committed in a time where what they were doing was considered normal by that time's standards but regressive by today's standards.

Honestly, it just feels refreshing to have a guy that's actually been pushing his ideals ahead of the status-quo and hasn't shirked from being "too radical".

Working class policies cross party lines and its why places like Fox spend so much time and money demonizing people like AOC. They saw how easily Bernie was able to talk to republicans and really reach them on both Fox News pannels and on town halls on the campaign trail in 2016. If the Democrats want to pull republicans instead of relying only on higher turnout people like Walz are exactly how you do it.

I'm not a huge fan of Manchin myself, but at the very least he's pretty upfront about what his priorities are (even if they're not good) and hasn't boarded the crazy train - as opposed to RFK, for example - so it doesn't really surprise me that he'd rather support a down-to-earth midwestern school teacher with progressive policies over whatever the fuck's going on in Trump/Vance world

I think we just call him Vladimir Futon now.

Went to highschool in an Alabama school. Football is a religion, and the football coaches were given the respect of preachers. They were also given cushy teaching jobs like health or drivers ed. They were generally not very bright.

The school might be run down and underfunded, but the football field was immaculate with huge bleachers, the locker rooms were nice.

In contrast, I had one coach teacher that taught history. Baseball coach. He taught me to love history. His tests were almost all long answer, didn't care about dates. He wanted you demonstrate understanding of the causes and results of events. Brilliant man with deep knowledge and love of his subject.

Got tired of the two week long headaches and quit football, switched to cross country even though I wasn't built for it. Forget the term, but my body type is large muscles and bones.

Had a cross country coach. He didn't care if you won races or were able to be very competitive. He just expected you to do your best and would push the hell out of you. I saw him take lots of fat little freshman and turned them into lean endurance machines over several years. Don't remember anyone ever quitting the team. I will always remember him leaning out the window of his 60's pickup yelling at kids to push through and push harder. He was poor, shitty salary, tires on his truck were bald and leaky, he had screws in them he couldn't remove cause they would go flat.

Those two men earned the title of Coach in my life.

No need, he already has the homophobic bully vote.

As a football coach, Tampon Tim would often get very close with gay students

I apologize in advance if they steal this headline 😬

When the worst fucking scum in the country hate a guy, he must be doing a lot of shit right :D

Because good people - the people who would make the best leaders, aren't narcissistic enough to believe they should run for president. They're happy helping in whatever way they can, but they generally don't have the audacity to think they have any business trying to run for the most powerful position in government. Partially because they're humble, but also they aren't in it for power, they just want to help people.

There's definitely a conversation to be had that the role of president should be one of humility and neighborliness, but there's a group of voters in America who just want somebody who can throw their dick around on the world stage and intimidate the rest of the world like a pro wrestler. And most politician types try to be both the helpful neighbor and pro wrestler, but end up seeming fake and not very genuine because usually both the macho and the neighborly aspects are an act, and they just want power.

I think good people try to help those around them, they think more in terms on the local level, they want to be more hands on in helping and less about commanding militaries or directing a huge bureaucratic behemoth like the US government. That's for people with a lust for power for the sake of power or for building a legacy or whatever. I keep waiting for some sort of crack or bad thing to suddenly pop up about Walz and he just seems like a genuinely nice guy, it's kind of weird, but not in a Republican kind of way.

He didn't have the kind of national profile it takes to pull that off. He's not perfect either — just absolutely fabulous compared with somebody like Vance who seems determined to serve vampires.

Honest question, and probably one with an obvious answer, but this guy seems too good to be true at times - why hasn’t he considered a run for president?

probably because kamala was the VP, walz is literally out of the middle of nowhere land midwestern US. The VP role is perfect for him, if this goes well, he might run for president afterwards.

As a potential VP he's somewhat in line of potential future presidents though, no?

I don't think good people actively seen major roles of power, at least not within govt .

Yeah, I saw "Gay student says coach" and went "oh no, not AGAIN?!?!" Then saw "Tim Walz" and was briefly all "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" until I read the rest.

How bad is it that headlines about terrible abuse are so much more common than positive stories that my brain just went to bad first thing.

One day I want to see news as something other than filler to grab ad revenue.

I'd like institutional reform in the athletic sector too, but I can't decide which is less likely to actually happen.

Breaking news: Multiple highschoolers accuse Tim Waltz of being a really great guy

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lol, dude who makes up these ratings can get absolutely fucked for expecting an LGBTQ news website to fucking both sides LGBTQ rights.