An enthusiastic football mom, and now legislator, who during the COVID-19 pandemic led a grassroots movement of Minnesota high school athletes and parents that lobbied Gov. Tim Walz and the state’s high school sports league to let them return to competition, is stepping out this week to, in her own words, tell American voters “who Tim Walz really is.”
“I was just a mom raising my kids out in greater Minnesota,” Rep. Dawn Gillman, R-Dassel, said in a three-minute commentary she posted to social media on Monday evening, which critiqued how the now vice-presidential running mate of Kamala Harris placed restrictions on youth sports in 2020 and 2021. The video gained a viral audience on X not long after it was shared.
“But after seeing what Tim Walz did to our kids and those across the state and how he lied about it, I knew I needed to run for office,” Gillman explained. “So I will take you back to the summer of 2020 when Tim Walz set up his COVID targets on kids’ backs and youth sports.”
Gillman, a mother of five, went on to lay out a number of COVID-related restrictions she said Walz placed on youth sports during the summer and fall of 2020, and into the spring of 2021, including requiring masks for athletes while they competed outside, and indoors at arenas.
Gillman’s son, Eli, was a star running back for his high school football team at the time. He now plays for Division 1 University of Montana.
“[Gov. Walz] shut down our schools in the spring and we had in the state of Minnesota one of the highest nursing home death rates in the country,” Gillman said in the video. “But Minnesota had some of the highest [long-term care facility] death rates in the country because [Walz’s] policies and protocol was to release COVID-positive patients from the hospital into our nursing homes, into long-term care facilities with our dear ones that are the most vulnerable.
“So when he got called out on that he doubled down and never even apologized for it. And again, let’s remember, we were not allowed to see our loved ones that were suffering in the nursing homes. So what did he do instead? He decided to blame our kids.
“He blamed kids and youth sports to distract from his failings, even though the science showed that kids playing sports and physically moving their bodies and being together spread COVID less. Then he decided to shut down our fall football season and our fall volleyball. So we filed a lawsuit to get sports back.”
Gillman’s group, “Let Them Play Minnesota,” with the help of their grassroots network and its legal team, was successful in pressuring the MSHSL and Walz administration to reinstate football and volleyball seasons in the fall.
Walz denied ‘Let Them Play’ a permit to protest amid shutdown of youth sports
The organization lobbied on behalf of parents and students whose schools faced partial and full school building closures throughout the school year. And they sued the Walz administration in December of 2020 when the governor denied “Let Them Play” a permit to gather and peacefully protest outside the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul.
Let Them Play also successfully obtained a ream of emails between and among members of the Walz administration during 2020, discussing their plans and strategies for when and how to impose and lift restrictions on businesses, schools and sports and how to market those restrictions to the public.
“So we brought a lawsuit and discovered emails from inside the governor’s office, again that was made up data to fit the narrative,” Gillman said.
“There is one infamous email that even suggests that [officials in Walz’s Department of Health] blame people for eating popcorn in the stands [at youth sports contests] and link it to long-term care deaths, to our nursing homes.
Here’s just one example of the crazy emails that were discovered. Our group was the one pushing back. pic.twitter.com/81kyCikRJL
— Rep Dawn Gillman 🇺🇸 (@dawn_gillman) August 27, 2024
“So that’s who Tim Walz is,” Gillman said. “He’s a liar. He blames others. He does not take accountability or apologize. He could care less about free speech or our personal liberties. He says mind your own damn business. But he didn’t do that.”
Football mom sounds off on ‘Coach Walz’ narrative
When reached by Alpha News for comment on Tuesday, Gillman said she thought it was important to tell her story and the story of countless youth athletes who strongly opposed Walz’s restrictions and became frustrated when they found out many of those restrictions were influenced more by politics than they were by what was purported to be “the science.”
“What surprised me through our lawsuits is that we discovered that Gov. Walz wasn’t following the science or listening to experts like he promised,” Gillman told Alpha News, “But was making these decisions unilaterally and without data or the support of his experts. The emails (“Let Them Play” obtained) show point blank that these were Gov. Walz’s unilateral decisions.
“For someone that likes to claim they’re a coach, I would have thought he’d understand the value and importance of participating in sports for students and the positive impact during COVID it would have on them mentally and physically.
“At the DNC this year, Tim Walz and Kamala Harris announced they’re the candidates for freedom, but our experience in Minnesota is anything but that,” Gillman continued. “When Gov. Walz was given total power over the state during an emergency, he didn’t choose moderation or balance like most other governors. Instead he chose some of the most severe lockdowns and refused to work with the legislature.
“So my advice to Americans is don’t listen to Tim Walz’s words about freedom, look at his actions. When he was given power, he abused it and then lied about it.”
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
