Broadcasting comes ‘natural’ for Randolph Childress

The jitters were the weird part for Randolph Childress, an all-but-foreign aspect to him when entering a basketball setting.

Wake Forest’s legendary guard said he only felt that anxious and nervous energy at one other time, and it wasn’t even in his playing days. When Childress coached his son, Brandon Childress, at Wake Forest, he had these feelings in his first couple of seasons.

Now they were back as Randolph Childress was approaching his latest role in basketball – as an analyst for the ACC Network.

Would the jitters dissipate, the same as they eventually did while coaching his son?

In short: Yes.

“When I got to shootaround, it just – everything went calm,” Childress told Deacons Illustrated via phone interview. “It just felt like, ‘All right, this is where I’m supposed to be and doing what I’m supposed to do.’ It just felt natural at that point.”

It’s been a winding road for Childress to get here, but the journey seems worth it with his fledgling broadcasting career pointed upward.

Childress resigned from his assistant coach position at Wake Forest in the spring, ending a string of eight seasons with an on-court coaching role at his alma mater and 10 total on the Deacons’ staff. In the summer, Childress was a guest coach with the San Antonio Spurs during the NBA’s summer league.

While he was in San Antonio, the ACC Network asked him to audition. Having been given an opportunity by the Spurs and wanting to fulfill his commitment to them, he asked if the audition could be pushed back.

It was, but only by a week – still within the summer league schedule.

“I can’t just leave in the middle. I was asking can I push it back?” Childress said of that process. “They were like, all right next week. I knew I couldn’t push it back again.”

After the audition, things went quiet. Childress said he was on a golf course about a week before Christmas, enjoying the warm temperatures, when he got a call offering him a couple of games to see how it went.

The first one was Pittsburgh-Louisville on Jan. 5.

“You’re like wow, OK. You’re hoping to get more and do well, but you can’t do anything – no matter what you’re doing – unless you’re relaxed and calm about it,” Childress said. “When I walked into shootaround and it was Pittsburgh. Hey, there’s Jeff Capel over there and Jason Capel. I know these guys, I know this team.

“Oh, that’s Chris Mack over there, that’s Mike Pegues over there. I know these guys.”

Childress is ingrained in the ACC in a couple of senses. His name still carries weight as a player, beyond the hearts of Wake Forest fans, for his 1995 ACC tournament performance.

And his experience on Wake Forest’s coaching staff means he’s been around the league in that capacity for a decade, and has coached against the majority of players in the ACC.

“Being familiar with where I was in the environment and the people I was around, and the players, it just brought a sense of calm,” Childress said. “When you got into the action, the game is just the game, just explaining and analyzing the game. And I know I can do that.”

Making a move into broadcasting wasn’t a spur – not intended – of the moment decision; Childress said he’d talked with a couple of analysts who he played against in high school and college, Grant Hill and Cory Alexander, about making the shift in the last couple of years.

“When I did that (first) game, Grant Hill texted me and said, ‘Hey, I want my 5%,’” Childress said with a laugh.

For the record, Childress has not yet called a Wake Forest game – though he said he’d have no problem with that assignment.

“I’m cheering for those guys, I’m their biggest fan,” he said. “My experiences with Wake and everything has been great. I have more satisfaction doing this, and it was just time.”

Childress has called the majority of his games alongside Mike Monaco, who joined ESPN and the ACC Network in 2019. Monaco has experience also with FOX Sports and the Big Ten Network, as well as calling Boston Red Sox games for NESN.

It hasn’t taken long for Monaco to enjoy working with Childress.

“He has been an absolute pleasure to work with, on a personal and human level,” Monaco said. “And then from a broadcast perspective, he’s really good. He has, in my opinion … pretty unlimited potential.

“I think he can be exceptional with this, and he’s already really, really good.”

Monaco and Childress called N.C. State’s home win against Virginia on Jan. 22 together, and stayed in the Triangle for UNC’s win over Virginia Tech two days later.

When the broadcast duo parted ways, Childress told Monaco he was open to any critiques or suggestions he had – broadcasters review their film in the same vein teams do – that could help.

“As players and even as coaches, they’re so used to feedback and being graded on their work and that stuff, and they’re on film and it’s getting talked about in a film session with your team,” Monaco said. “I think it also lends itself to the careers these guys have as players, and you might want that sort of feedback and hearing what you can do better and being really open to feedback of whatever kind.”

Coaching is now a part of Childress’ past; broadcasting is his future, he says.

“There’s really nothing that would make me go back, unless I was just so bad they were like, ‘You suck, go back to coaching,’” Childress said. “That would be the only way that I would go back.”

Naturally, he’s moving forward.