At Hampton, Chazz Woodson Focused on Development

Chazz Woodson speaks about coaching with the same level of confidence and passion as the shakes he used to put on defenseman in Major League Lacrosse. But unlike his moves on the field, Woodson prefers to go about coaching in a simpler, straightforward way.

It starts with teaching. Simple as that. When opposing teams take the field against his Hampton men’s lacrosse players this spring, Woodson wants it to be abundantly clear that the Pirates will compete. The wins might not come, but he hopes outsiders recognize the scrappy, competitive nature that he and assistant coach JT Giles-Harris have instilled in their players.

“I hope this year, in addition to that, I hope they’ll see that we’re well coached,” Woodson said after his presentation on coaching at the 2023 USA Lacrosse Convention. “And not from the standpoint of JT’s a good coach or I’m a good coach, but from the standpoint that these guys listen, they absorb and they put things into action. I think that’s one of the knocks on some of these players, that they don’t know the game. Well, if you teach them the game, they’ll know it.”

Ironically, Woodson, 40, never wanted to attend LaxCon earlier in his lacrosse life. He loved the sport so much that he wanted to maintain a healthy balance. It wasn’t until his early 30s, when he started to take the prospect of head coaching seriously, that his father, Ed — a longtime coach himself — encouraged him to attend.

What he found was that he was missing more than he thought. The teaching sessions were what got to him. It was more than the X’s and O’s, something that the former pro was pretty sure he had a firm grasp of. But at the time, Woodson was coaching in Miami, and some of the newer trends that were being taught in hotbeds hadn’t made their way south.

LaxCon was his chance to soak in as much as possible.

“It was right in that timeframe when I was starting to get that itch to be a head coach and when I was diving into what coaching really means,” Woodson said.

Calling coaching Woodson’s profession hardly begins to cover it. He received his master’s degree in Coaching and Athletic Administration from Concordia University, Irvine in 2016. During his presentation at LaxCon — “I’m the head coach … now what?” — he waxed poetic about the importance of good coaching.

Not just coaching sport, but coaching life. He quoted a college basketball legend to describe how he best approaches his job:

“I always knew the reason I had their attention was basketball. Basketball was my instrument to make them listen to everything else.” — former Georgetown men’s basketball coach John Thompson Jr.

Woodson was hired to be Hampton’s head coach on July 20, 2020, right after the Pirates went 0-6 and lost the remainder of their season to the pandemic. While many programs across the country restarted to some degree in 2021, Hampton administration made the decision to go fully remote for the entire year — meaning another lost year of on-field development.

That put Hampton in a precarious position in 2022. Its juniors had just six games of college experience but were expected to help lead the team. Its sophomores hadn’t played a competitive lacrosse game since their junior years of high school. Not to mention that most played little to no lacrosse at all the previous year.

That means the focus is squarely on continued learning of lacrosse, just as Woodson did while growing up down the street in Hampton Roads, Va.

“One of the toughest pieces as it pertains to our team is just helping these young men to navigate the process,” Woodson said. “As a building program, they want it now. They want success now. They want to be winning now. Just knowing that that’s not going to happen, especially now that we moved from the SoCon to the CAA. Everything just ramped up. When a program is in that situation, we’re navigating that. The guys who were in successful programs in high school, they want it now. And that’s not necessarily going to happen.”

Still searching for its first win against a Division I team since the program’s inception in 2016, Hampton begins its 2023 journey on Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern against Division III Guilford College. It plays its first Division I opponent of the season on Sunday, Feb. 19, at home against Queens, a team making its first splash in Division I this season.

While juggling the desire to win with the desire to improve, Woodson has kept lines of communication open as it pertains to the mental health of his athletes.

“We spend a lot of time talking to guys about that in general,” Woodson said. “One of the tough things for young men in general, but young Black men more specifically, we’re often not taught to ask for help. Our guys need help. On the field, off the field, whatever. A lot of it is trying to convince them that asking for help is OK.

“Probably not unlike a lot of programs in the country, but our guys are dealing with all kinds of different personal issues. Whether it’s deaths in the family, depression, whatever. I’m very aware of that. I hope that I’m handling it as well as I can as a coach.”

The lacrosse world at large is rooting for Hampton to find success. Of course, success is measured in different ways. With Woodson steering the ship, the Pirates are well on their way.