Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 9, 1993 TAG: 9312090361
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN DeVIDO STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Barnard would see the younger Childress, fresh from practicing for William Byrd's middle-school team, peering through the gymnasium door, watching the teen-age boys hustle around the court. This was the varsity. The big time.
Barnard, Byrd's head coach, remembers seeing the younger Childress crouching as he watched, so he wouldn't be noticed by any coaches or players.
And Barnard remembers seeing the boy look inside the gym wistfully, then telling him to come on in, that he was welcome to watch William Byrd's varsity team practice whenever he wanted.
Most of all, he recalls Donald Childress, then a sophomore, speaking to him one day about something he wanted to see before he graduated.
"He said, `I want to play one year with my younger brother.' "
As it turned out, he got to play with him for two years.
That happened when Chris Childress became the first freshman to play the entire season with the varsity in Barnard's 21 years as coach at Byrd.
There was concern, at first. Donald had played on the varsity for two weeks as a freshman, but after that stint, he joined the junior varsity. Barnard figured Chris also would play for the junior varsity during his freshman year.
That is, until he saw Chris play in summer pickup games at the Terriers' gym.
"He was timid at first," Barnard said. "He wouldn't take the ball to the basket. But after seeing him play that summer, it was easy to see the varsity was where he belonged."
Donald, a 6-foot-2 senior guard who is a three-year starter, averaged 13.1 points per game last season. Chris, a 6-3 sophomore forward, averaged 4.6 points for the Terriers, who won the Blue Ridge District tournament as the fourth seed.
Both will start this season. Donald is expected to provide leadership to a team with only two returning starters. Chris is expected to pick up his rebounding and his defense.
After winning the district tournament last season, the Terriers were eliminated by Martinsville in overtime in the first round of the Region III tournament.
The Childress brothers remember the feeling well. It carried over to the summer, when their days revolved around basketball.
"That's all we had on our minds, that overtime loss to Martinsville," said Donald, who has received letters of interest from the basketball coaches at Hampden-Sydney, Ferrum and Randolph-Macon. "We said we wouldn't come up short again."
Each weekday morning during the summer, the Childress brothers would reach the high school by 10 a.m. They would lift weights, then work on shooting drills, passing drills - whatever else they thought would make them sharper - until noon.
"There're no kids that have come in here and dedicated themselves to this team as much as them," Barnard said. "You can't say enough about their work ethic."
The brothers would return to the gym at 7 p.m. to play full-court basketball at the high school's open gym.
All that work wasn't easy.
"We played with all kinds of people," Donald said. "Once, we played a 17-game series in one night. Straight to eight points, by ones. You'd go home at night, and you knew you'd been in a battle."
They battled the entire summer. It shouldn't come as a surprise, though. The Childress family is rich in basketball tradition. A cousin, Lisa, starred at Byrd and went on to lead Division III in scoring one season while playing at Ferrum in the early 1980s. Their uncle, James "Hoolie" Childress, still holds the single-game school scoring record - 59 points.
"There's pressure," Barnard said. "You'd better play, in that family."
But the two brothers seem to be low-key about it all. They are best friends first, basketball players second.
"We've just been taught by our dad that we have to look out for one another," Donald said. "I can tell him things I can't tell anybody else."
They look out for each other, and they look out for William Byrd's basketball team.
It's time for opposing players to look out for them.
by CNB