Drexel's Childs leaves a wrestling legacy

One of the best coaches Philadelphia has ever known isn't known by Philadelphia at all. Not really. Not in a way equal to his accomplishments.

Among active coaches, no one has more wins than Jack Childs, who is fifth on the all-time Division I wrestling list. His career yielded 421 victories - 89 more if you count the junior-college coaching he did before he got to Drexel. Any coach with those credentials in another sport would be whispered about, revered, idolized. Even though the Wells Fargo Center was sold out for the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Friday, the sport gets no real love outside its small community - which means a treasure like Childs, an oversize personality who would have been a national name if he had coached basketball or baseball or just about anything that attracts more cameras, never got the attention he deserved.

Childs coached the final match of his 35-year career on Friday, when 165-pounder Joe Booth bowed out of the tournament with a 2-2 record. When it was over, Childs walked off the mat and into the tunnel beneath the stands. It's how things go in wrestling. Any outrageous pomp and pageantry is reserved for other coaches in other sports.

When he initially announced his retirement after 31/2 decades, Childs got a nice, if humble, send-off. About a thousand people showed up for Drexel's final regular-season match. The wrestlers gave him a rocking chair and he said a few words into the microphone. Next season, a Jack Childs banner will hang from the rafters at Drexel's arena, and there will be a roast in his honor in May. But if Childs was thinking about his career on Friday, he hid it well.

"I feel bad for Booth," Childs said. "He fought his heart out. All these kids do. . . . It's unfortunate, not for me personally but for the sport, that they don't get more attention. North Carolina-Greensboro just dropped the sport. They had four kids make the national tournament this year. And next year they won't have a program. How must they feel? There are only 80 schools [with wrestling programs] now. Even though it's an Olympic sport, it's looked upon as a minor sport by some. These kids deserve more recognition."

So does Childs, though he swore he's received more than enough of late. Jay Wright - who became friends with Childs while he was an assistant basketball coach at Drexel in the '80s - recently sent him a note to congratulate Childs on a great career. And of course there are the kids he talks about endlessly. They haven't stopped calling to wish him well.

That's the first thing you notice about the 66-year-old - the easy way he builds relationships. The first time I met him, I stood in a narrow corridor outside his office in the Daskalakis Athletic Center on Drexel's campus. The space was made even more cramped by all the people seeking an audience with Childs: Drexel wrestlers past and present, prospective recruits, parents, friends, well-wishers, fans, students, even an NCAA wrestling official - they all came to pay respect or ask a question or just talk for a while. It was a never-ending line. It reminded me of the scene in The Godfather when Vito Corleone serves as the final stop for a procession of favor seekers during his daughter's wedding.

That's always been Child's biggest strength - dealing with people. He was, by his own admission, "an average wrestler but a damn good recruiter." His best recruiting job at Drexel was probably his first. When Childs was hired at Drexel, the program was all but defunct. Only three wrestlers remained from the previous season. Childs went to the administration and found all the guys on campus with wrestling backgrounds. He wrote them letters and stopped by their dorms. He recruited random students in the cafeteria and urged fraternities to get involved.

At his first practice, 40 prospective wrestlers showed up. By the end of the year, 29 remained, and Drexel had its first winning season of many - the Dragons were 6-5-1 that year - under Childs. For resurrecting the program, Childs finished second in rookie-coach-of-the-year voting behind legendary Olympian Dan Gable (then in his first year as head coach of storied Iowa). Even more impressive: Childs coached at least one wrestler at the national tournament in 26 of his 35 years at Drexel. For a small school - for any school that isn't Iowa or Penn State, actually - the feat seems impossible.

"When I first came in, I wanted to make it a family commitment," Childs said. "I recruit the parents as much as I recruit the athlete. That's the hardest part. It's not the winning or losing, it's the association I have with these guys and their families. I'm like a kid when I'm with them. We play tricks on each other and tell jokes. . . . That's what I'll miss more than anything, more than the matches or the preparation or anything. The kids, the people - they make it tough to walk away."

Difficult as it was, he did that on Friday - walked off the mat and into the tunnel and away from the sport he loves. He is one of the greats, and whatever spotlight we shine on him here isn't nearly bright enough.