Chris Woods - Track & Field Coach

Chris Woods

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
cwoods@athletics.msstate.edu
Phone:
662-325-4811

Chris Woods was named head coach of the track and field program on June 14, 2019.

In his six years as head coach, Woods has directly overseen 27 NCAA finalists, 60 All-American honors, four SEC Champions and six Olympians.

In addition to serving as head coach, Woods personally coaches Bulldog 800m great Marco Arop. Arop has seen multiple accolades under Woods’ tutelage, including the 2023 World Champion title, the 2022 World Championship bronze, multiple Diamond League golds, the Pan-American Games title, and multiple national and North American records in the 800m and 1000m. Most recently, Woods oversaw Arop in Paris at the 2024 Olympics, where he won the silver medal with the fourth-fastest time in world history. Most recently, Woods coached Arop to the 800m bronze medal at the 2025 World Athletics Championships.

Woods has also coached other Bulldog middle distance stars such as Navasky Anderson and Brandon McBride. Anderson earned multiple accolades while running for MSU, highlighted by the 2022 SEC Champion and NCAA runner-up titles in the 800m. He has made world-stage appearances, including the World Championships and Paris Olympics, representing Jamaica. Anderson currently holds the Jamaican national record in the 800m. Brandon McBride represented Canada at the Tokyo Olympics, his second Games, joining former teammate Arop. McBride earned the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor 800m title and the SEC title under Woods's coaching.

Woods’ athletes have made significant rewrites to the university record book in his time as a coach at MSU. His middle distance athletes own all the top five spots in program history in the outdoor 800m for the men, as well as multiple entries for the women across the indoor and outdoor races. Since becoming head coach, his staff has overseen 34 university records broken and 125 new entries into the school’s all-time top five lists.

In the 2025 season, the men’s team put up the best performance in program history at the NCAA Indoor Championships, tying for sixth place and earning seven first-team All-American titles across four events. He directly oversaw Abdullahi Hassan to both the NCAA and SEC runner-up in the indoor 800m, as well as the SEC runner-up at the outdoor championships. His athletes earned 11 All-American distinctions in the 2025 season between indoor and outdoor.

In the 2024 season, he led three athletes to podium finishes at the indoor and outdoor national championships. Peyton Bair was the national runner-up in the decathlon, Remi Rougetet earned sixth in the javelin at the outdoor championship and Rosealee Cooper earned eighth at the indoor championship in the 60m hurdles. State sent 22 athletes to the outdoor championships, the largest group in over a decade, with seven earning All-American honors.

The 2023 season was highlighted by Cameron Crump earning gold at the indoor conference meet, then the runner-up spot at the NCAA indoor championships in the long jump. Eight All-Americans were produced at the outdoor championships, with Tony Jones tying for fourth and Cameron Crump finishing fifth.

In the 2022 season, Woods saw Navasky Anderson and DJ Jónsson two SEC titles in the 800m and javelin, respectively. Eight All-Americans emerged from the NCAA Indoor National Championship, and three All-Americans were produced at the Outdoor Championships, highlighted by Anderson finishing as the national runner up.

The first full season with Woods as head coach came in 2021. His team produced two All-Americans from the NCAA Indoor Championships while developing nine All-Americans for the Outdoor Championships. The men had three first-team All-Americans in the javelin. Woods saw four current and three former student-athletes compete at the USATF Olympic Trials, with six former athletes making their nations’ Olympic Teams for Tokyo. Woods joined the Team Canada staff as an assistant coach for Marco at the 2021 Games.

Woods’ first season was cut short by COVID-19. During the 2020 indoor season, Charlotte Cayton-Smith, Dejon Devroe and Jesse Henderson reached the finals at the SEC Indoor Championships in College Station, but the outdoor season would be canceled, halting the State alumni’s first year at the head coach position.

Woods served as interim head coach during the 2019 season, after five seasons as a sprints and relays coach for the MSU men and women. In his time as an assistant, Woods coached Bulldog athletes to 17 All-American selections and two SEC championships. In 2018 alone, Woods’ athletes put 15 new marks among the top five in MSU history.

During his interim year, MSU’s men put together the most decorated outdoor season in program history, claiming more SEC Athletes of the Week and USTFCCCA National Athletes of the Week than ever before, along with four All-America accolades. The Bulldogs put six men on the podium at the SEC Championships, the most since State earned eight medals in 2003. They finished the conference meet with 57 points, their highest total since 2012. MSU’s eighth-place men’s SEC Outdoors finish was its best since 2015. Woods spearheaded the Bulldogs to nine medals, representing the most since 2003 on the men’s side.

In addition, a total of 28 men and women athletes qualified for the NCAA East Prelims, which was a program record. The Bulldog men broke two school records, including the oldest, untied, Championship-event record in the program’s record book at the time.

The highlight of the 2019 outdoor season came when The Bowerman semifinalist Peters led an MSU javelin sweep of the podium. Peters successfully defended his national title, becoming the first MSU athlete to claim consecutive national championships. He threw a personal-best 86.62m (284-2), breaking his own school, meet and national records. Peters landed three attempts beyond 84.00m and threw six collegiate all-time top-10 marks this year alone. State’s trio of Peters, Curtis Thompson and Tyriq Horsford was just the 11th sweep of any event podium in NCAA history. On the women’s side, Tiffany Flynn and Logan Boss both earned All-America status to close their storied careers. Flynn finished eighth in the triple jump with a leap of 13.32m, while Boss tied for 12th in the high jump, clearing 1.78m.

After guiding the Mississippi State men’s team to its third-highest point total in school history at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships, Chris Woods was named head coach of the Bulldog men’s and women’s track and field teams, Director of Athletics John Cohen announced June 14, 2019.

Woods competed as a middle-distance athlete for the Maroon and White from 2005-08. As a student-athlete, Woods garnered two-time All-America honors and four-time All-SEC accolades.

Before coming to MSU, Woods served as head coach for the men’s and women’s cross country and track and field teams at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Before his time with Claflin, Woods was instrumental in the success of Abilene Christian University’s track and field program as the men’s and women’s long sprints and middle and long-distance coach. Under his direction at Abilene Christian, Woods aided his team to back-to-back NCAA Division II National Championships in men’s track and field.

He oversaw 10 athletes to multiple All-America honors in his time with ACU.
A native of Covington, Georgia, Woods graduated from MSU in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in clinical exercise physiology. Woods is married to former two-time Olympic sprinter Wanda Hutson. The couple has two sons, Trace and Cade.