Brad Childress: Vikings' Top gun

There are heightened expectations after an active offseason. Still, the man at the controls, Brad Childress, is taking all the talk in stride. Brad Childress leaned over his computer and clicked. A picture of the Vikings coach holding a 65-pound goliath grouper flashed on the projection screen in his Winter Park office. Childress smiled at the memory of landing the whopper off the Florida coast, although the fish put up a long fight and left Childress with a sore back for a few days. Returning from vacation last week rested and sporting a full beard -- which he subsequently trimmed into a goatee -- Childress also enthusiastically agreed to fly in a Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet. "I'd like to believe it's pretty safe," he said. "It's an $18 million machine." At age 52, Childress is not experiencing a midlife crisis as... [read full story]