Jack Childs, retired Drexel Hall of Fame wrestling coach, has died at 80
He coached the Dragons for 35 seasons, and his combined 512 career victories at Drexel and Stevens College rank him seventh on the all-time wrestling wins list.
Jack Childs, 80, of Wayne, retired Hall of Fame wrestling coach and director of physical education at Drexel University, former three-sport coach at what is now Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, onetime president of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, longtime summer camp director, mentor, and volunteer, died Tuesday, March 11, of complications from pneumonia at Paoli Hospital.
Mr. Childs coached wrestling at Drexel for 35 seasons, from 1976 to his retirement in 2011, and his combined 512 career victories at Drexel and Stevens rank him seventh on the NCAA all-time wrestling wins list. His Drexel teams won the 1985 East Coast Conference championship and 10 or more matches in a season 25 times.
He was named ECC Coach of the Year four times in the 1980s and ’90s and Colonial Athletic Association Co-Coach of the Year in 2002. His former wrestlers praised his gregarious personality and coaching and recruiting skills. One dubbed him the “mayor of college wrestling.” Another said in a Facebook tribute: “He inspired and guided us on and off the mat.”
Mr. Childs ran his teams like his family, he said, and stayed close to many of his wrestlers over the years. His sons, Jesse and Michael, both wrestled on his team. “I would recruit the parents as much as I would recruit the athletes,” he said in a 2018 Mattalkonline podcast.
He told The Inquirer when he retired: “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.”
Colleagues called him “dedicated,” “special,” and “an innovator for Drexel and the sport of wrestling.” Maisha Kelly, Drexel vice president and director of athletics and recreation, said that his career achievements were “unmatched” and that he “impacted countless lives” in a tribute.
“I show kids the moves, but I can’t get down on the mat with them. Even my 126- and 134-pounders hurt me.”
“Jack Childs is Drexel wrestling,” Lehigh University coach Pat Santoro said in 2011. Eric Zillmer, then Drexel athletic director, said: “He’s a walking legend.”
In addition to Drexel, Mr. Childs was inducted into seven wrestling halls of fame, including the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2006. He was a board member and president of the National Wrestling Coaches Association in the 1990s and served as a score table official for years at the annual NCAA wrestling national championships.
He was on the board of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association and spoke often at clinics and camps about coaching and education. He appeared many times in The Inquirer, and New York Times writer David Vecsey called him “a true champion of the spirit of collegiate sports” in 2011.
His father and mother were coaches and athletes, and he played football and threw the javelin in high school. He fell in love with wrestling in college. “I always thought I’d be a college football coach or maybe even a professional coach,” he said in 1995. “But that first time I wrestled in the intramurals, that was it.”
“Anybody that puts in that much time, that much dedication to the sport, is special in my eyes.”
Before Drexel, he spent six years as a health and phys ed teacher, head wrestling coach, and assistant coach for the track and field and football teams at Stevens in Lancaster. Earlier, he coached and taught at three high schools in New York after earning a bachelor’s degree at East Stroudsburg University in 1967.
He also directed summer camps in Vermont for 11 years, coached Little League Baseball, and volunteered at the Wayne Methodist Church men’s club and Radnor Scholarship Fund. “Jack’s unwavering dedication to his athletes and their holistic growth was a hallmark of his coaching philosophy,” his family said in a tribute.
John Philip Childs III was born Oct. 6, 1944, in Scranton. He was the oldest of six children, and his family moved to Georgia during World War II, and settled later in Athens, Pa., about 100 miles northwest of Scranton.
He earned a football and track scholarship to Ithaca College in New York, transferred to East Stroudsburg, and earned a master’s degree in health and physical education from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1970. He met Anne Vastine through his brother, and they married in 1970 and had sons Jesse and Michael and a daughter, Beth.
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Mr. Childs was on the alumni board at East Stroudsburg and volunteered at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences. He followed the Eagles, the Phillies, and golf.
He doted on his grandchildren and his dogs, and traveled the world with his wife in retirement. One of his favorite mottos was: Control the controllable. The wresting locker room at Drexel is named in his honor.
A longtime friend noted his “fierce competitiveness” and “genuine kindness” in a tribute. His son Michael said: “We had to share him with a lot of people, but we were always included.”
In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Childs is survived by seven grandchildren, two sisters, two brothers, and other relatives. Two brothers died earlier.
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Visitation with the family is to be from 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday, April, 3, at Wayne Methodist Church, 210 S. Wayne Ave., Wayne. A service is to follow at 11.
Donations in his name may be made to Drexel University Wrestling, Box 8215, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101; and the Wayne Methodist Food Pantry, 201 S. Wayne Ave., Wayne, Pa. 19087.