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Vikings tab Childress as coach Jan. 6: New Minnesota Viking coach Brad Childress says he’ll do everything he can “to bring an NFC championship and Super Bowl to the people of Minnesota.”

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Childress inherits a team that had plenty of off-the-field distractions for most of Tice’s four full seasons as coach.

In 2005 alone, the Vikings had to deal with Tice being fined $100,000 for scalping Super Bowl tickets, running back Onterrio Smith being suspended for the season for substance abuse and being caught at the airport with “The Original Whizzinator,” a device used to beat drug tests, and the now-infamous boat party on Lake Minnetonka that brought misdemeanor charges against four players.

Tice was a fiery, emotional coach, and his team seemed to adopt that temperament. Under Tice, the Vikings were erratic, prone to winning and losing streaks and late-season collapses.

Childress brings a much lower-key demeanor and an even-keeled approach — like his mentor, Reid.

“He’s a classy, determined individual,” Vikings running back Mewelde Moore said. “Those are the characteristics you love to see in a head coach.”

McNabb called Childress “a great human being.”

“It’s well-deserved and as sad as it is for me to know that he is leaving, I am very excited to see that he has an opportunity to fulfill a dream and get their program kick-started in the right direction,” McNabb said.

And Childress knows all about dealing with distractions, having coached Terrell Owens for two seasons. He said the Owens saga taught him “that it was about the team, the team, the team, the team.”

With Childress in tow, Wilf now will concentrate on hiring a personnel man to work with Childress and salary cap guru Rob Brzezinski to remake the Vikings’ image.

“The most important thing to me is that people do the right thing,” Childress said. “If it’s good for you and right — do it and do it with great vigor and enthusiasm. If it’s bad for you — jump away from it like it’s hot lava.”

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