Each week this summer, the Valley News will profile a local high school coach. It’s a chance to better know some of the people guiding the area’s student-athletes. Today, we meet Lebanon High football coach Chris Childs, a powerfully built person who was nonetheless recently shown on social media performing a full backflip into his swimming pool.
Local start: Born in Portsmouth, N.H., Childs moved to Grantham when he was in second grade. His mother, a nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, married former Lebanon road agent Mose Sanville, for whom the town’s public works facility was named in 2010.
Sports standout: Childs was a running back and linebacker in football, a forward and center in hoops and a catcher on the baseball diamond. His career goal was to be a physical education teacher and high school coach, but that plan changed when he left college before taking a class.
Quick exit: “I played in the 1995 Shrine (Maple Sugar Bowl all-star) game and training camp was at Plymouth State for two weeks. Then I played the game and Monday I was back at Plymouth State for the start of college football practice. I just decided I’d had enough of school and was going home. I didn’t want to waste money on something I didn’t want to do. It didn’t make my parents very happy.”
Regrets: “I’ve never walked away from anything else, so it eats at me a little bit. I tell my kids that you can make a living if you don’t go to college, but you’re probably going to have to work a little harder. It’s not for everyone but that (diploma) is going to make your life easier.”
Weed whacker: Childs was working for a lawn care company when Lebanon High boys soccer coach Rob Johnstone helped him land at a local appliance company. Childs began by making deliveries, moved on to counter sales and purchasing and now handles regional sales and design. He works with contractors and visits job sites, spending roughly half his time on the road.
Whistle and clipboard: At 21, Childs began helping coach the Windsor High junior varsity football team. “Dave Boisvert took me under his wing and we did a lot of scouting and I began to understand a different side of football,” he said. “It’s not just calling plays. It’s doing your homework and breaking down film at night.”
Stevens stop: Boisvert became Stevens’ varsity coach and brought Childs with him as an assistant in 2000. When Boisvert stepped down a year later for family reasons and the Cardinals program teetered on the verge of extinction because of low numbers, Childs took a year off from coaching. He returned in 2002 at the Lebanon Middle School. He coached there for three years and took over the high school program, which had declined during his absence.
Raider return: “I wanted to run my own program, and Lebanon was where I wanted to be. My second year at LMS, the seventh-graders included Cody Patch and Jon Roth and 10 others who came up to the high school program with me. Nine of them went through all the way to senior year and I coached them for six consecutive years. It was neat to be able to shape them and see them grow into men.”
Title time: Lebanon was 4-5 during 2009, but went 11-0 and won an NHIAA title the next fall. “We had struggled for so long and I thought we’d be good, but maybe just 7-2 or something,” Childs said. “I never thought we’d be undefeated. That group was really special because I spent so much time with them. Now, I spend so much time with mostly the older kids on varsity that it’s not quite the same feeling.”
Psychology today: “The toughest part of coaching is trying to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes with a kid so you know which ones need an arm around them and which ones need you to be more stern. If you can get close enough to them, they will open up and let you know. But I always find myself at the end of the season finding out something I wish I’d known from the start.”
Flag of love: Chris and Marilou Bagley Childs have been married 15 years. “She was a flag girl in the band and used to catch my eye here and there,” said Chris of his wife, a 1991 Lebanon High graduate. “She’s the aunt of my best friend from high school. One day when I was 20, his mom put her on the phone with me and then we went to a Dartmouth hockey game for our first date. I became my friend’s uncle when we got married.”
C.J.’s coming: Childs’ son, C.J., is 13 and a rising seventh-grader at LMS. He plays football, basketball, lacrosse and baseball, but it’s the anticipation of him playing for his father that most excites the family. “It will be special to coach him if I can hang on that long,” Childs said. “He helps me break down film and draws up plays for me on cards, so we already have a special connection. It’s going to be like having another coach with me.”
Farmer Chris: “I cut and stumped and hydroseeded a field at our house so my son could ride his dirt bike. I’d wanted a couple of cows since I was a kid, so I got some and then my neighbor got some with us. Now we have 15 beef cows and 18 chickens. I enjoy messing around with them and sitting on the deck and watching them eat. It’s a lot of work, but the reward at the end is a nice piece of steak or hamburger.”