John Raffel
To play football or not to play football.
That was the question for a Division I basketball prospect in mid Michigan recently.
Brandon Childress of Baldwin was identified as one of the top 25 football prospects in the state by Michigan news services in the spring. Childress did it all for Baldwin last season, throwing for 987 yards and 11 touchdowns while also running for 1,073 yards and 19 touchdowns. He converted nine point after touchdown attempts, handled punting duties, and was named an all-state honorable mention.
In spite of all his football success, in early June Childress told football coach Doug Bolles that he needed to focus on his goal of being a successful basketball player at the Division I level.
Childress has received 12 offers for basketball from Division I schools including Boston College, Central Michigan University, and Penn State University. He played basketball all spring and summer and was with an AAU team from Michigan that played in a California tournament during the spring.
So Baldwin used Childress’ brother, Braeden, a freshman, as its No. 1 quarterback during summer workouts and passing camps. However, when the first day of practices came on August 11, Brandon, who had changed his mind the previous week, was back at the controls.
“I’ve been throwing the ball all summer with my younger brother,” Childress said, referring to Braeden. “I was getting him ready when I thought I wouldn’t [be playing football].”
Besides Braeden, Brandon has another younger brother on the team, Brenton, a junior.
“I knew as soon as he said he wasn’t coming back that he was coming back,” Brenton said. “I knew he couldn’t resist it.”
Observers thought Brandon would be wise to skip football to avoid injury.
“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve been playing football since the second grade. When you worry about getting hurt is when you get hurt. You can get hurt doing anything. You can get hurt playing basketball. We saw what happened to Paul George [of the Indiana Pacers].”
Bolles said he had a discussion with the Brandon prior to the start of practices. “We went for a ride and talked about an hour, the pros and cons of it,” Bolles said. “I said ‘I treat you guys like you’re my own kids; I don’t want you to have any regrets. If you don’t want to play, I’m 100 percent behind you. I don’t want you 20 years from now to [regret it].’ ”