Rob Childress ready for next chapter at Nebraska

Rob Childress is ready for the next chapter of his career as director of player development at Nebraska. He returns to Lincoln after a successful 16-year run as head coach at Texas A&M.

Childress compiled 622 wins as the Aggies head baseball coach, as well as two College World Series appearances. As the Huskers pitching coach under Dave Van Horn, Childress was a part of all three of Nebraska’s CWS trips.

Life sometimes comes full circle, and it seems to be doing so with Childress’ return to help the first player recruited to Lincoln during the DVH era in Will Bolt.

“It’s something we have been talking about for the last month,” Childress said about the genesis of his return to Lincoln. “Certainly, I think it was something that was intriguing on both of our parts.

“Certainly, I’ve got a fondness for the state of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska, especially the baseball program, after spending eight years there. Certainly, I’ve followed what those guys have done in a short period of time. It’s been a lot of fun to watch.”

NU head coach Will Bolt and his staff’s rapid success did not come as a shock to Childress.

“Not even a little bit,” Childress stated emphatically. “That team took on those three coaches’ identity. I mean, they play together, they play with a chip on their shoulder, and you know, they love to compete. That’s the way those three guys were as players.”

In addition to his playing days under Childress and Van Horn at NU, Bolt was an assistant coach at A&M for several seasons under Childress.

“I think for a total of five years, in two different stints,” Childress recalled. “He was a volunteer for two years before he went to Texarkana as a head coach, and then, back again for three years before he took the head coach position at the University of Nebraska.

“Really, just even as a player, (Bolt) was just so competitive. As a player, other players gravitated towards him. We brought in so many guys [to Nebraska] that first year and they were all new to one another, and you just knew he wanted to win as much as anybody. Other players just naturally gravitated to him as a leader.”

There’s a level of comfort in his return to Lincoln for Childress because he has such longstanding relationships with so many in the Nebraska baseball program.

“We are just great friends, and our wives are great friends,” Childress said of Bolt. “Not only Coach Bolt, but Coach (Jeff) Christy and Coach (Lance) Harvell, and Curtis Ledbetter. All those guys. Including Renne Brinkmann in the office. We’re all good friends and we have been for quite some time.”

Childress will be managing several tasks in his capacity as the Big Red’s director of player development.

“Well, I think I will wear a lot of hats. I will do my very best to support the coaches and inform the players, and do whatever I can to help make the program better. Whether it be on campus recruiting, scouting reports, and just being a servant to those coaches and staff members there. Whatever those three coaches need, I’m going to be there to serve them.”

Childress’ daughter just graduated from UNL and is now working on a master’s degree at Doane College. His wife and son plan to stay in Texas for another year until he graduates from high school in 2022, but Childress will be making the move up to Lincoln.

Whether or not he ever pursues a head coaching position again is still to be determined, but for now, his full focus is on making the Nebraska baseball program better in the near future.

“I have my head down and blinders on for the next opportunity ahead, and that’s the University of Nebraska,” Childress explained. “That’s as far over the horizon as I’m willing to look at this point. I don’t think I could do that program the job it needs if I felt any other way.

“Everybody [in college baseball] has built up bigger and better, and it’s not just the facilities, it’s the baseball operations side of things. You know, the locker rooms, the player development center. You know they certainly have one of the best in the country in the Alex Gordon player development center; but the onsite weight room and those sides of things, you’ve got to be able to compete on a national level. You have to do that in every area.”

Trev Alberts’ time at Nebraska was before Rob Childress arrived, but he’s impressed with what he’s read and seen about the Huskers’ new athletic director.

“He was already in the NFL when we got there,” Childress recalled. “But certainly, his reputation as a football player preceded himself. I have followed his career from afar and he’s done a wonderful job at Nebraska-Omaha with all of their programs and the development of their facilities there.

“I know they just opened up a new baseball/softball complex there that is certainly going to speed those guys ahead in their conference. I mean, it’s a magnificent facility that was built in Omaha. So, certainly, I’ve followed Trev Alberts’ career, and I know there’s nobody that loves Nebraska football and Nebraska athletics more than Trev Alberts.”

Childress was asked what his relationship was like with Tom Osborne, and he replied:

“I’ve gotten the chance to meet him a couple times, but I haven’t gotten the chance to know him quite well. Coach (Frank) Solich had just taken over when we got there, so I got the opportunity to me Coach Osborne in passing a couple times.”

College baseball continues to grow and expand seemingly each and every year, and Childress doesn’t see that ending anytime soon.

“I think it’s at an all-time high,” Childress opined. “There have been bigger and bigger commitments across the country by athletic departments to baseball programs, and you can see that with the expectations, the salaries, and the facilities that are being built. I mean, especially in the Power Five conferences.

“More and more [high school] players are going to school. You look at this MLB Draft in the last few days where they cut it back to 20 arounds, and I think that 80% of the kids who were drafted are college kids. So, the product of college baseball is certainly at an all-time high. There’s just the polish and the talent that is there now in college baseball.”

Major League Baseball seems content to consign the development of young players to college baseball now for the most part, and Childress believes that’s a very positive development for the college game.

“I think so,” Childress said. “You see so many guys that are drafted out of college and you always see one or two who are called up in September. So, that’s how good college baseball is from a development standpoint when major league teams can take a kid in the draft and put him in the big leagues in September. I mean, that is a good thing for everyone.”

Looking back at his tenure at Texas A&M, Childress is proud of what he and his staff were able to accomplish during their time there.

“We certainly feel like we left it better than we found it. We went to a Regional for 13 straight years, we won six of those Regionals, and moved on to Super Regionals, getting to Omaha twice. We certainly wish we could have gotten to Omaha a couple more times than we did, but we helped grow young men and develop players. A lot of them had the chance to win championships and leave with an awful lot of relationships. We certainly have great memories of our time here at Texas A&M.”

Working with and developing young men has always been of the highest importance for Rob Childress, and that will continue in his new role at Nebraska.

“The most important piece of my career is the relationships after baseball, and really certainly, during baseball as they come in as young people and leave as better men, and end up becoming great husbands, great fathers, and pillars in the community. Those relationships I maintain are probably the most important to me.”