University of South Carolina Upstate

Michael Wood enters his first season as an assistant coach at USC Upstate during the 2025 season after being announced to the coaching staff on Aug. 12, 2024.

Wood joins the Spartan staff following a five-season stint as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Northwest Florida State College. During his tenure, the Raiders won 30-plus games in each of his four full seasons—the Raiders won 18 games in the shortened 2020 season—on staff while more than 50 student-athletes signed with Division I programs with eight student-athletes selected in the Major League Baseball Draft.
 
In 2024, Wood helped Northwest Florida to its second NJCAA National Tournament appearance and first trip to Grand Junction, Colo. since 2015. En route to the World Series, the Raiders captured their second consecutive Florida College System Activities Association Panhandle Conference Championship, winning in successive seasons for the first time in program history.
 
Culminating the Panhandle Conference season and the FCSAA Tournament, four Raiders brought home major conference awards as Jaquae Stewart (FCSAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player), Brock Tapper (FCSAA Tournament Most Outstanding Pitcher), Cayden Gaskin (Panhandle Conference Player of the Year), and Mack Estrada (Panhandle Conference Pitcher of the Year) taking home the honors.
 
The 2023 season saw Northwest Florida capture its first FCSAA Panhandle Conference Championship since 2019 as the program earned both the regular season and tournament championships.
 
During his time in Niceville, Fla., Wood helped the Raiders to three FCSAA Tournaments, qualifying for the Championship in 2021, 2023, and 2024—no championship held during the 2020 season.
 
Prior to Northwest Florida, Wood began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at St. Lawrence University, spending the 2018 and 2019 seasons with the Saints. In his tenure in Canton, N.Y., he coached two position players to All-Liberty League honors and five players who garnered All-Liberty League Academic honors, including 2018 St. Lawrence University valedictorian Isaac Lewis.
 
Supplementing his collegiate coaching stops, Wood spent two summers coaching in collegiate summer leagues. He served as the head coach of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League’s Watertown Rapids in 2019, being selected as the league’s West Division manager in the All-Star Game. In 2018, he served as an assistant coach and assistant general manager for the Boynton Beach Buccaneers of the South Florida Collegiate Baseball League.
 
Wood played collegiately at Davis & Elkins College (W.Va.) from 2016-17 and Jefferson Community College (N.Y.) from 2014-15). With Davis & Elkins, he started 89 of the 93 games in which he appeared and ranked as the third-toughest hitter to strikeout in NCAA Division II in 2017.
 
A native of Seneca Falls, N.Y., Wood graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Sport Management from Davis & Elkins in 2017 before earning a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership in 2019.