MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Strolling through the Starplex softball park early Friday afternoon, Bernard Childress stopped to watch a few pitches at each of the five fields hosting state tournament games.
For Childress - an unassuming and thoughtful leader throughout his 13 years as the TSSAA's executive director - this was a chance for a brief respite from what is always a hectic end to the prep sports year in Tennessee.
With each inning that passed, another annual Spring Fling was coming to a close, and for Childress, time was also running out on a career in high school athletics.
On April 6, Childress announced he would be retiring from his role as head of the state's prep sports governing body.
"I'm just enjoying getting to watch all the kids play and their families here to support them," Childress said between games. "This is a special event, and after what we all lost two years ago with COVID, I'm sort of like a lot of the folks here, I just want to enjoy it."
Childress came to the TSSAA in 1995 as an assistant director, making him the association's first Black employee to work in an executive capacity, and 14 years later he became only the fourth executive director in TSSAA history, which dates to 1946.
"The thing about Bernard is that he has always been accessible," said GPS softball coach Susan Crownover, who is also retiring after a lengthy career in prep athletics. "Whether it was information on rules or just being supportive of our sport, he's always been easy to talk to. You knew you could call him, and even if he didn't answer, he would return your call, and that's important to coaches."
Childress had considered retirement in 2020, but when COVID-19 hit the United States in earnest in early March that year, he decided it wouldn't be fair to leave his successor to deal with all the challenges that came with maneuvering through the pandemic.
That decision spoke volumes for the quiet leadership he had displayed throughout his tenure, which included guiding the TSSAA through the complete public-private split and helping the association regain financial footing after a decade of exhaustive litigation - which included the original private school lawsuit reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.
Five years into his tenure, the TSSAA began distributing shares of football and basketball championship revenue to the participating schools, a sign of the improved financial stability of the organization.
Then came the pandemic, when Childress had to announce not only the cancellation of the public school state tournaments for boys' and girls' basketball, but later the shutdown all of spring sports before many teams had played a single contest.
"It was awful enough having to call off the basketball state tournaments, but what hurt most during COVID, what weighed on me then and still does, was when we had to cancel the spring season. It was a decision that had to be made at that time, but I think about those kids that didn't get to play at all that spring. Especially the seniors," Childress said.
"I have a competitive nature, so I took it as a challenge that we were going to find a way to not only start the fall sports, but make sure that we got to finish them. I'm very proud of the patience and hard work our staff put in to get that done. I always believed the best coaches were the ones who surrounded themselves with great people, and then allowed those people to do their job."
Mark Reeves, who has been with the TSSAA for 14 years and helped oversee football, track and field, soccer and wrestling during that time, has been named the association's new executive director, beginning July 1.
A native of Columbia, Tennessee, Childress was an all-state basketball player in high school who went on to become a team captain and all-conference player at Nashville's Belmont University. He then taught, coached and worked in administration at both the high school and middle school levels before joining the TSSAA staff.
"I get up every morning and ask God to give me the strength to make the right decision for the young people," Childress said. "Beyond that, I don't worry about what the adults say or take it personally when someone says something negative about the TSSAA. Every decision I have made in this job has been with the kids in mind. I never took my focus off the kids.
"That's what makes this week very rewarding. Just walking around the venues, hearing the people cheering for the kids, this is a good way to go out."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.