Jack Childs

Category
1996
About This Inductee

Having guided the Dragon wrestling program for the past twenty seasons, Jack Childs is second only to men’s lacrosse coach Randy Voigt in tenure among active Drexel coaches. Along the way, he has posted a record of 231-132-8, including fifteen seasons with ten or more victories, and has collected three Coach of the Year awards, in 1980, 1985, and 1994. Addition-ally, Childs has coached several individual conference champions and NCAA qualifiers; in 1995, he sent four grapplers to the national championships in Iowa, the most ever by a Drexel team. Childs recorded his 200th career victory during the 1993-94 campaign while leading the Dragons to their second consecutive East Coast Wrestling Association regular season co-championship. Following his initial season at Drexel, 1976-77, he finished second to Iowa’s legendary coach Dan Gable in the Amateur Wrestling News rookie Coach of the Year balloting. During the 1989-90 campaign, he was voted president of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, the main governing body of collegiate and high school wrestling in the U.S. Childs presided over the NWCA from 1991 through the 1992-93 season. Prior to Drexel, Childs piloted Stevens Trade School (Pa.) to an 89-17 record in six seasons after beginning his coaching career at the high school level. A 1967 graduate of East Stroudsburg University with a degree in physical education, Childs earned six varsity letters while competing in football, wrestling, and track and field as an undergraduate. He went on to earn his Masters in Physical Education from Cortland State in 1970. Recently inducted into the Northeast Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, Childs is also a member of the East Stroudsburg Athletic Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the Athens (Pa.) Area High School Hall of Fame. In addition to his coaching duties at Drexel, Childs is an assistant professor and assistant director of physical educa-tion at the university. Jack and his wife, Anne, have three children, Jesse, Mike, and Beth, and reside in Wayne, Pa. Both his sons wrestle for the Dragon program.