Written by Tink Edwards (@DadgumYall)
On a cold Saturday in 1993, Tim Walz stormed a football field in Lincoln, Nebraska, as the Cornhuskers, led by legendary coach Tom Osborne, defeated rival Oklahoma 21-7. Walz traveled more than 6 hours to watch the game. That Nebraska team would end the season with an 11-1 record, just short of a national championship. Osborne, not one to give up so easily, proceeded to win three national titles over the next four years. Tim Walz enjoys the game of football, and he knows how to back a winner.
When Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate, most people outside Minnesota and Nebraska collectively asked, “Who?” The Harris-Walz campaign proceeded to tell us exactly who Tim Walz is. A governor. A former US representative from Minnesota. An Army veteran. A high school social studies teacher and football coach. And now we know, via a New York Times profile on Walz, that he was (and maybe still is) a fan of another type of American pastime: video games.
According to the article, Walz often told relatable stories to his former football players. One of the stories was about his addiction to the Sega Dreamcast – a video game console released in the US in 1999. He played the console so much that his wife, Gwen, had to take it away from him. Upon reading this revelation, many people took to social media to enthusiastically talk about Walz and his Dreamcast. Sonic the Hedgehog memes and ponderous questions about what types of games Walz played filled feeds across many gamer profiles on Twitter.
A user who goes by the handle “Aaron” on the popular gaming forum ResetEra revealed that, in 2012, he bought the Dreamcast that once belonged to Walz. His initial post came in 2018, a mere three days after Walz had secured victory over Republican Jeff Johnson to become the elected governor of Minnesota. When the New York Times story came out, ResetEra users gleefully posted about it and how it made the already-likable Tim Walz seem like an even more perfect candidate to represent them. Aaron joined in on the fun and reminded everyone of his fateful purchase.
I excitedly contacted Aaron in hopes that he could provide some context and tell the story about how he found the Dreamcast. He graciously accepted my request to ask him some questions, and I’m happy to report that he gave some fantastic answers.
First, I asked Aaron (real name Bryn) to share some details about himself:
Bryn: Definitely — my name is Bryn Tanner. I'm a Minnesota native, avid gamer, political junkie, and I'd say "thespian," but I find that when people label themselves as such, it's a red flag for being insufferable, so let's just say I do a lot of theater. I've directed and performed around the Twin Cities and produce original work under the label Albino Squirrel Productions. We've done a lot of pop culture parodies, including drawing heavily on video games like Mario, Zelda, and Ace Attorney, although we are remounting our 2017 production, "Wellstone: A Minnesotan Musical," based on the life of another extraordinarily iconic Minnesota politician, Paul Wellstone. So, it's been a very cool way of infusing my interests with an art form I love.
Me: In a post you made on November 9, 2018, you claimed to have bought a Dreamcast once owned by Tim Walz. How did you happen upon this newly relevant console?
Bryn: I've been doing some digging to try and see if I could find any sort of reference point of who I bought the Dreamcast from, as they'd probably know more about Walz and his gaming habits, but I haven't been able to find anything - I did, however, find a Facebook post I made on December 19, 2012, talking about buying it, so I'm pretty confident that's the day I picked it up.
Basically, I was looking to buy a Dreamcast and looked on Craigslist, where I found someone selling one for $25. I probably would have bought it regardless, but I think what stuck out to me was a curious note tucked away in its description - "this was once owned by a Congressman if that floats your boat." I emailed the guy a few times back and forth to make a plan to meet up, and once we'd made the plan, I asked which Congressman it belonged to, and he told me it was Tim Walz. As a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, I was pretty relieved that it didn't once belong to Michele Bachmann or something like that.
A friend of mine came with me (given that it's Craigslist) to the guy's apartment in downtown Minneapolis, and he elaborated: the guy selling it was one of Walz's high school students in Mankato. His friend went to work on Walz's first Congressional campaign, and Walz, at some point, approached him and said, "Hey, we have this old video game console we're not using. Do you want it?" and the friend accepted it. The seller and the friend ended up becoming college roommates, and after college moved out to Minneapolis together. The friend who Walz had given the Dreamcast to ended up moving out, but he'd left behind the Dreamcast. So there were a few degrees of separation before it got to me, but it's been with me ever since.
Did you purchase anything else from the source who sold you the console? Games? Memory cards with old save data on them? I'd be interested to know what games Walz was playing.
Bryn: I did not — as far as I can tell, the person only ended up with the console itself, or at least wasn't selling anything else with it. The console came with the necessary plug-ins (AV cable and power cord), two controllers, a controller extension cable, a third-party rumble pack, and a VMU. However, I have checked the VMU and it doesn't have any old save files on it, unfortunately. I don't remember if this was the case when I originally bought it, and I wiped it clean, or if it'd already been wiped, but them's the breaks. As a longtime Sonic fanatic, though, I can only feel comfort and joy in the knowledge that Tim Walz might know who Big the Cat is.
Editor’s note: for those unfamiliar with the Dreamcast console, the VMU unit is a memory card with an LCD display that fits into the controller, allowing you to save game data, among other functionality.
What were your thoughts when you first bought the console?
Bryn: Thought it made for an extremely cool piece of trivia, but mostly just elated at the deal I got on the Dreamcast.
And how about when you learned Tim Walz would be the vice presidential pick?
Bryn: It's been an interesting journey because it's definitely become more and more interesting of a conversation starter as Walz has climbed through the ranks. Even at the time I bought it, a Minnesota Congressman is only representing 1-8th of the state, and not the slice that I live in. But once he became governor, he became known statewide, and now that he's on the ticket, that's happened 49 more times over. I personally am elated that Walz is on the ticket, with or without the cool piece of gaming-related trivia - I always felt he was too "nice" for national politics and didn't see him really having the ambition, but sometimes "nice" is what we need.
And what are your thoughts now, upon the revelation that your Dreamcast is likely the very console from the New York Times story?
Bryn: So here's the thing - I will fully admit I cannot 100% authenticate the story I was told about who the DC originally belonged to. That being said, the specificity of it, the fact that Walz was a relatively unknown politician at the time (it's not like he claimed it belonged to Obama or something), the fact that he even thought to mention it at all when he could have made the sale just by saying "it's a Dreamcast," etc. I've never lacked much confidence in the story being true. The NYT story dropping felt sort of like as a kid finding out that Santa Claus is real. Sure, you believed it before, but now you'd be crazy not to. It was such a cool little nugget of information to see pop up in one of the many articles written about Walz because, like, who the hell cares, right? But I'm glad they thought to include that, and knowing that he would play it himself and that it wasn't just something lying around for the kids to play with made it feel extra special (though it occurs to me now that Walz only would have had [his daughter] Hope by the time he ran for Congress, and she only would have been 5, so who else would the Dreamcast have been for?)
Were you aware of who Governor Walz was before you bought the Dreamcast?
Bryn: Yes! As a clued-in political nerd, I was aware that Tim Walz was a U.S. Congressman at the time. Tim flipped a long-held Republican seat as part of the 2006 blue wave election and managed to hold onto the seat in the 2010 red wave that otherwise took a major toll on the Democrats' standing in Minnesota (losing both the State House and State Senate, as well as long-time Congressman Jim Oberstar losing his seat in Minnesota's 8th district). So, I think even then, I admired his tenacity and ability to hold on in tough races and environments. If you look through his electoral history, both before and after, he's had a number of close calls - to think, if any one of them had gone the other way, we likely wouldn't even be talking about this.
It must be cool to know you possess something that is at least tangentially related to such an important presidential campaign. Do you plan to display the console or preserve it in any way? Or do you actively use and play it? I'd be torn on what to do with it!
Bryn: Oh, I've used it. Since the console didn't come with any games, my friend and I swung by a Pawn America on our way home, and I managed to find a copy of Crazy Taxi for $4, which was always my favorite DC go-to alongside the Sonic Adventure titles (which I've of course since bought and played the hell out of). It's currently hooked up to our living room TV.
Do you think knowing Governor Walz was an avid gamer helps his perception with young voters? It could end up being a minor footnote in the history of this campaign, but it does seem to be resonating with people online.
Bryn: It just seems to me like the type of candid story that makes a politician instantly relatable, and it definitely reinforces the appeal that Walz already has. The fact that it's a Dreamcast especially feels like kind of a deep cut these days, like that makes it such a specific point in time even compared to saying Nintendo 64 or PlayStation or any of its contemporaries. It's not something that I think is going to swing any votes on its own; it's just one of those little details that endear him to certain types of people who might otherwise see him as a phony or a fraud.
We'd love to know more about your background, your history with SEGA and/or the Dreamcast specifically, your thoughts on the current election cycle, etc.
Bryn: Well, I'm turning 33 next week, so I'm a child of the 90s. I wouldn't really say we were a "Sega household." I grew up having an NES, Sega Genesis, and the original PlayStation, but like I mentioned before, I am a fiend for Sonic, which is what instilled the most brand loyalty in me (though I am also a lifelong fan of the comparable mascot games, like Mario, Crash, and Spyro). I am probably neurodivergent, which led to a lot of hyperfixating on certain things, and Sonic definitely fit that bill. We had internet fairly early on in my house, and Dreamcast launched about a year earlier in Japan than it did in America, so I'd see all these screenshots and write-ups and incredibly low-quality videos of Sonic Adventure, which just blew me away. I was so hungry for the Dreamcast I made a deal with my parents that it could be my Christmas '99 gift if I went the entire year without any allowance, and it was worth every penny. The Sonic games were my favorite, of course, but there was also stuff like Crazy Taxi, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Jet Set Radio, Soul Calibur, [and] Rayman 2 that I have pretty fond memories of.
Unfortunately, I sold that Dreamcast at a garage sale for $40 a few years after Sega left the hardware business (a dark day, truly), but obviously, had I not done that, I wouldn't have ended up with Tim's Dreamcast! So it all works out. And I still have my copy of Sonic Adventure 2 (which has gotten shockingly pricey over the years) and my Dreamcast-branded carrying bag, so it's not like I'm without any relics of my childhood.
I kind of talked about my more general background earlier on, but I would absolutely like to plug again Albino Squirrel's upcoming production of "Wellstone: A Minnesotan Musical," which debuts at the Phoenix Theater in uptown Minneapolis the first two weekends of October. We did this show in 2017, and while most of my theatrical work is frivolous pop culture stuff, this is one of the few times I've really swung for the fences in terms of writing something sincere and personal, and there's been nothing more fulfilling than sharing that story with the people who were there and remember Paul and his legacy, as well as with the people who've never heard of the guy. Continually refining that show and making a better version of it was my main inspiration to go to grad school and pick up my MFA in Playwriting, just one of a million little ways Wellstone touched a person's life, even years after he was gone. And get this - Tim Walz is an inaugural graduate of Camp Wellstone, a training program for first-time progressive political candidates. It all comes back around and only reinforces my belief that this is an incredibly important story to tell. So, I hope anyone in the area with an interest in progressive Minnesotan politics checks us out; I'm very proud of it.
As for our current election, I was very much a Biden defender but couldn't deny the creeping sense of dread that we were slow-walking our way to another Trump presidency. I'm very glad things shook out the way they did. Just about everyone I know is extremely excited about the Harris-Walz ticket. There's a sense of overwhelming jubilation I haven't seen in politics since Obama's first run, and Walz is very much a part of that. Like I said, I never thought I'd see Walz on the national stage in a meaningful way. I know a lot of my fellow Minnesotans have said they'll miss him as governor, but to be honest, I'm just really happy we get to share him with the rest of you. I hope he wins and is able to make the Minnesota Miracle the American Miracle because we need one.
I’d like to thank Bryn for his time and thoughtful answers. His production of “Wellstone: A Minnesotan Musical” debuts this October at the Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis.
