Chazz Woodson, a former Major League Lacrosse player, and Hampton Roads native, was announced on July 20, 2020, as the new Hampton University Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach. Coach Woodson will make his collegiate coaching debut in 2022 when the Pirates take the field as newly inducted members of the Southern Conference (SoCon), a conference that features regional powers Richmond and High Point.

From 2005 to 2017, Woodson competed in Major League Lacrosse alongside the best lacrosse players in the world. He was recognized as one of the most electrifying players in the game and was no stranger to ESPN’s Sports Center Top 10 list. During his tenure as a professional player, Chazz captained the Ohio Machine and made two all-star appearances.

He was also a part of two USA Men’s National Team training cycles. Prior to his professional playing career, he was a standout at Brown University where he captained the team as a senior and was twice named the team’s Offensive MVP, earning All-Ivy League and All-New England honors as both a junior and a senior. He was also recognized as a 2000-2009 Brown University Lacrosse All-Decade Team member.

Woodson was impactful beyond the lines of the lacrosse field as well. He served as an at-large member of the Board of Directors for USA Lacrosse. During that time, he helped to develop the Sankofa Lacrosse Clinic Series a partnership between USA Lacrosse and his charitable foundation (the Sankofa Lacrosse Foundation) to provide free lacrosse clinics to boys and girls in communities that are underrepresented in the lacrosse landscape. He was a consultant and development director for the Thailand National Team program for five years, and he was a founding board member and coaching director for Nation United Lacrosse, an organization that uses elite-level high school lacrosse to showcase and increase diversity in the sport and beyond. Coach Woodson was also a big brother with Big Brothers, and Big Sisters of Miami (FL), and informally mentored numerous young people through his work on and off the field.  

He spent two years as a fourth-grade teacher at Phyllis Wheatly Elementary School and six years as a middle school physical education teacher at the Ransom Everglades School, both in Miami. During that time, he coached lacrosse, basketball, football, and one season of cross-country.

His ties to the area cannot be overlooked. Woodson grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where he was a three-sport athlete at Norfolk Academy through eleventh grade, before graduating from the Blue Ridge School in central Virginia. The Hampton Roads product graduated from Brown in 2005 with a degree in Education Studies and a focus on Human Development. He also holds a master’s in Coaching and Athletic Administration from Concordia University, Irvine.