Woods brings big time athletics experience

Tiger athletes all welcome the idea of fresh legs coming into the game. Recently, the Princeton Athletics Department affirmed its belief in this strategy by hiring a new assistant athletics director.

Athletics Director Gary Walters '67 announced on Jan. 4 that Kelly Woods had been named the new assistant director of athletics for compliance and general administration. Woods replaced Greg Busch, who left the office to become associate director of athletics at Rider University.

Woods certainly brings new experiences to the table — she was a four-year varsity letter-winner in field hockey at Ohio State University, an intern at the OSU department of Compliance, a graduate of the OSU Moritz College of Law and the former director of eligibility services at Rutgers.

"Kelly brings a different perspective having come from places like Ruters, and Virginia Tech and Ohio State that are higher-profile athletic programs," Senior Associate Director of Athletics Erin McDermott said. "But [she] has a real sense for the Ivy ideal in academic integration, and [the] athlete ideal of being academically focused but being in a very competitive Division I place."

It was that vision and sensibility that led Woods to Princeton. Princeton Athletics saw in her just what she sees in them: a passion for academics to match the passion on the sports field.

"It's interesting coming from huge universities that had huge football programs and huge basketball programs," Woods said. "It was always unspoken that we were in the business of making money, so to speak, off of our student athletes, in a way that was good for the university [and] good for everyone."

"And it's a little different at Princeton, in the Ivy League. It's not the same kind of venture-capital market. [Focusing on] selling tickets isn't going to benefit the University. It's not going to benefit the athletic department to do that, so there's not a whole lot of incentive to advertise and get that out into the community like it was with the other schools."

The change is a welcome one for Woods, who as a student athlete always put her education first, graduating magna cum laude from Ohio State with degrees in journalism and communication as well as behavioral and social sciences. She was rewarded for her hard work and dedication with All-Academic honors both nationally and from the Big Ten.

Today she is grateful for everything she learned as a student athlete. A strong work-ethic and excellent time management skills were hard-earned over her 12 quarters at OSU, and they continue to impress friends and family. In fact, Wood's fiancee was so impressed by her that he gave her a very special opportunity: carrying the Olympic torch through Columbus, Ohio, on its way to Salt Lake City in 2002.

"I was given the opportunity to [carry the torch] because my fiancee wrote an essay about me, which won," Woods said. "He had to write a little essay about why I was an inspiration to him."

Woods might not admit it, but it is easy to see why her fiancee was inspired. Always a high achiever, Woods even outdid herself while carrying the torch through the streets of Columbus.

"I remember when I got the flame, I took off — like, sprinting," Woods said. "Everyone told me to slow down because I was going too fast. And you didn't run very far, so I took off running and everyone was saying, 'You have to slow down, we can't keep up with you!' It was really neat."

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Just as she is an inspiration to her fiancee, Woods wants athletes at Princeton to be inspirations to others by involving them in local community events. Woods feels student athletes can make a big difference and wants to increase their visibility on campus.

Lucky for her, her goal should be quite attainable. Her biggest challenge so far hasn't been stirring up interest, but finding ways to let the athletes get involved without tripping over NCAA bylaws.

"I had some individuals on one of the women's teams contact me because they want to do their own bike-a-thon, and they want to raise money on their own," Woods said. "I want to make sure they can do what they want to do and raise money for charity, but I want to make sure they don't violate any rules and jeopardize their eligibility at the same time."

Woods calls such applications of her law degree "unorthodox," but it allows her to encourage Tiger student athletes to become more than just their uniforms.