Tim Walz Allegedly Told Former Player Dealing with Alcohol Issues to Keep Playing: ‘Don’t Care About That Other Stuff’ Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Minnesota Governor and Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz reportedly told a former player to “keep playing” as he battled criminal and alcohol-related issues.

An article in The Ringer on Wednesday featured a story about a member of Walz’s 1998 Mankato West High School football team in Minnesota.

Dan Clement, a former linebacker for Mankato West, told The Ringer how his experimentation with alcohol in high school eventually turned into an alarming situation in the summer between his junior and senior seasons when he was arrested multiple times for underage drinking.

Faced with a suspension going into his final season, Clement decided not to play at all. That decision reportedly did not sit well with Walz, the team’s defensive coordinator at the time, who told Clement the team “needed him.”

“We need you,” Walz reportedly said.

“He knew I was struggling,” Clement told The Ringer. However, regarding his off-the-field struggles, Clement said Walz was insistent: “I don’t care about that other stuff,” Walz reportedly said.

Clement did as Walz advised and played the second half of the season. Though his problems with alcohol persisted and wouldn’t be conquered for several more years, Clement believes the advice Walz gave was correct.

“The caring attention he gave, that positive support can pull you through really dark times in your life,” Clement said. The troubled linebacker 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.’”

Clement added, “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.”

Walz’s status as a former assistant high school football coach has been a focal point of the Harris-Walz campaign’s attempt to portray the Minnesota governor as a “man’s man,” embodying the right balance between masculinity and liberal politics.

That plan hit the skids over the weekend as Walz – or someone posting on his X account – made a glaring and nonsensical football statement by crediting New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with knowing how to “run a mean pick 6” after she played the governor in a game of Madden during a live stream.

As almost everyone, with the apparent exception of the person who wrote the post, knows, you can’t “run” a pick-6. A pick-6 is an unplanned play in which a defender returns an interception for a touchdown.

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