Tim Walz says he kept a shotgun in his car to hunt pheasants after soccer practice.

Since being chosen as Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has made it a point to remind Americans many times that he was once an assistant high school football coach.

But during Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, he revealed to everyone the details of another sport he worked on after practice while working at Mankato West High School.

In his segment on gun control policy, Walz claimed that when he worked as a football coach at Mankato West, he kept a shotgun in his car so he could hunt pheasants after practice.

“I was old enough to carry a shotgun in my car, so I could go pheasant hunting after soccer practice,” Walz said.

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The statement came when Walz, who had previously opposed a ban on assault weapons, was asked if he supported the ban. Walz, a former NRA supporter, said his stance on gun control changed after meeting the parents of the Sandy Hook victims and befriending the school shooter.

“Yeah, I sat in that office with the parents at Sandy Hook. I befriended a school shooter. I've seen it. NRA, I've been in the NRA for a long time. “They were teaching gun safety,” Walz said.

Walz's hobby is pheasant hunting, something he has talked about and bragged about in the past. In July, Walz boasted in an interview on Anderson Cooper 360 that he was a better pheasant hunter than Vance.

“That's J.D. Vance's stick talking about guns. I guarantee you he can't shoot pheasants like me,” Walz said.

Walz is also one of the main organizers of the state's governor's opening pheasant hunt. He celebrated the 2023 event last October, declaring himself a lifelong pheasant hunter.

“As a lifelong hunter and Pheasant Forever member, pheasant opening is one of my favorite times of the year,” he said in a statement.

Pheasant hunting is one of the most popular bird hunting sports, especially in south-central South Dakota, which borders Walz's Minnesota and is known as the “Pheasant Capital of the World.”

However, pheasant hunting has also led to significant declines in pheasant populations in the United States over the past 50 years. Although pheasants are not considered an endangered species, they are considered at risk in many areas across the country.

The species' population in New York state has declined by nearly 90% since 1970, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Protection. But in Minnesota, the population decline has been more stable and less steep.

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Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Walz's habit of hunting birds after football practice may have contributed to the decline during his time as an assistant coach at Mankato West in the 1990s.

The team won a state championship in 1999 during Walz's tenure as a staff assistant. Walz's first job after college was as a teacher in China, then he was hired by Mankato West in 1996, where he served as a geography teacher.

He was also the founding teacher of Mankato West High School's first Gay and Straight Alliance and was instrumental in organizing a summer educational trip to China for high school students.

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

Even though Walz has never coached beyond high school and has never been a head coach at a high school, he began his career as a football coach by serving as a head coach at four different NCAA powers. He compared it to the career of Congressman Tommy Tuberville. He worked with five football programs from 1995 to 2016. Tuberville led Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati as a head coach and also won the SEC Championship with Auburn in 2004.

“I feel like part of my role in this issue is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville and to show that football coaches aren't the stupidest people,” Walz said in early August when he spoke to Boston. He spoke at a fundraising event held at

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks at a campaign event in Detroit on August 7, 2024. (Andrew Harnik)

Walz even claimed during a campaign speech in Wisconsin on Sept. 17 that his experience as an assistant high school football coach meant he was “taking football back” from the Republican Party.

But when the governor visited Saturday's Michigan-Wisconsin game, football fans weren't too kind to Walz. Several attendees booed him, while another fan yelled, “Get out of here!”

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