Jimmy Childress

Background

Orphaned, Childress was reared in the Louisiana Methodist Children's Home in his native Ruston in Lincoln Parish in North Louisiana, His mother, Edith Zell Childress Cobb (1915-2014) was married c. 1940 until his death to Albert Jesse Cobb (1907-2002). The Cobbs, who lived in West Monroe, are interred at Mulhearn Memorial Park in Monroe, Louisiana. Childress had a step-sister from Albert Cobb's first marriage, Mary Catherine Schim and husband, Dan, of Coconut Creek, Florida.

Childress and his wife, the former Christine O'Neal (born September 1932), have two children, Cynthia Alline Childress Bohrer and husband, Philip, of Baton Rouge and Daniel Lloyd Childress and his wife, the former Maribel Tuten, of Bella Vista in Benton County in northwestern Arkansas. The Childresses lost an infant daughter, Katherine Bernice Childress.

Career highlights

Childress graduated from Ruston High School and played on the 1947 state championship football team. As the subsequent head coach at Ruston from 1979 to 1991, he led the Bearcats to a 131-27 (.829) record and four state championships: 1982, 1986, 1988, and 1990. The 1990 team, 15-0, was Childress' most successful. It was ranked No. 1 nationally following a 52-10 victory in the state championship game. The 52 points remains a state Class 4A state finals record at a time when 4A was the largest classification in Louisiana.

Childress was considered a "forward-thinking defensive strategist", credited for having made the four-man front a widely used play in high schools across North Louisiana. The mechanics of the game, however, were said to be less important to Childress than what he most valued, "character and integrity, words that every Ruston Bearcat heard over and over again." Brad Laird, Childress' last quarterback at Ruston High School and the current head coach of the Bearcats, said that Childress believed especially in his later career that a team could win based on character and integrity.

From 1958 to 1973, Childress was an assistant coach at Neville High School in Monroe, which he helped to lead to four state titles. Neville's 1972 state championship team won three games in eight days, all shutouts. When he went to Ruston near the end of the decade, the rivalry with Neville was intense and ever-present. In the 1982 Class 4A state championship game, for instance, Ruston beat Neville, 8-0, scoring on a blocked punt and a safety.

In 1973, Childress coached at Carroll High School in Monroe and from 1976 to 1978, he was the coach at the private Cedar Creek School in Ruston. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, then known as Northeast Louisiana State College. A member of the ULM coaching staff from 1974 to 1976, he was the head baseball coach in 1975. He was later inducted into the ULM Hall of Fame. He completed his graduate studies at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.

The Ruston teams under Childress included Louisiana State University signees, the linebacker Bobby Williams and defensive back Rodney Young, later a player for the New York Giants, and running back Roymon Malcolm, who signed with Auburn University and finished his career at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. On that 1990 team, Brad Laird, son of the late Ruston coach Billy Laird, was the quarterback, and John Carr, son of the National Football Leaguer Roger Carr, was the receiver. John Carr coached at Ouachita Parish High School and became the director of football operations at the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg. Carr said that Childress' teams "looked forward to playing for him so much but you also learned there was an expectation that ... you better live up to."

Death and legacy

Childress in his later years had retired to Choudrant east of Ruston. He died of a brief illness in Ruston at the age of eighty-three. His services were held on July 15, 2015, at the Alabama Presbyterian Church in Choudrant, with Dr. Allison Moody and the Reverend David O'Neal of Tyler, Texas, his nephew by marriage, officiating. He is interred at Sibley Cemetery in Lincoln Parish.

The Jimmy "Chick" Childress Field House at Ruston High School is named in his honor.

Joe Raymond Peace, a former head football coach for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, said of Childress: "He made a tremendous impact on Louisiana high school football and the lives of so many young men. He had the gift of getting the very most out of his players and staff -- and he did it with class."