About coach Erik Woods
Coach Woods is a USA Wrestling Certified Coach (Copper and Teal), is Safe Sport certified and is a certified personal trainer (ACSM). He has coached the ISI Wrestling Club since 2022. He has previous coaching experience at Shepherd Community Center (Jireh Sports Wrestling Club; 2008-2012) as well as at Arsenal Tech High School where he served as an Assistant Wrestling Coach (2008-2010). He is passionate about fitness generally and loves the sport of wrestling.
“The lessons I took from the wrestling room still serve me today. The payoffs from hard work, the accountability and of course the level of fitness attained from this sport are tough to match. While I was pretty good when I competed, I actually learned a lot more from losing. I ended my career in high school as a dreaded "woulda coulda shoulda". Wrestling matches are often decided by a very small margin, I made peace with that final loss a long time ago, but to this day I over-prepare, practice a strong work ethic and have mental toughness that I attribute to the overall wrestling experience as much as anything. I hope that we can create an environment at ISI for our children to have the same experiences and look forward to doing what I can to help.”
Coach Woods also holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (Purdue University) and is a Board-Certified High Complexity Clinical Laboratory Director (American Board of Bioanalysis). He is the Co-Founder, Chief Science Officer and Executive Vice President of Ossium Health, Inc.
