FORT CARSON, Colo. — Spencer Woods couldn’t pull his opponents or gain leverage without a sharp pain shooting through his arm.
As a sophomore on his high school’s varsity wrestling team in 2013, the ailment hindered his movements.
After getting examined by a doctor, X-rays returned negative. He continued to wrestle with injury and tried compartmentalizing the pain.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Woods, now a Soldier and Army World Class Athlete Program Olympic hopeful.
He couldn’t extend his right hand and the pain limited his offensive shots.
“I was pretty much just wrestling left-handed,” he said.
A coach thought he couldn’t handle the mental pressure of big matches.
“He thought I was just folding,” Woods said.
That only made Woods train harder; setting him on a path that would make him one of the nation's top Greco-Roman wrestlers.
Molded in the Deep Cold
Growing up in the tiny Inuit village of Shungnak, Alaska, he aspired to be a collegiate wrestler. But he found the prospect daunting while living north of the Arctic Circle with limited access to training facilities.
The son of a retired Soldier, Woods and other villagers in Shungnak depended on hunting and harvesting wild foods to survive northern Alaska’s harsh winters. Located in the sprawling, sparsely populated Far North of the state, an area the size of Indiana, the region housed only 10,000 people.
Woods spent most of his childhood in Alaska’s vast wilderness. He hunted caribou, he fished and also rode with his father’s sled dogs.
Woods and his family spent entire summers preparing for the winter, gathering firewood and packaging frozen meat.
“It’s a subsistence lifestyle,” he said. “There’s no Walmart or McDonald’s … you have to secure your food, secure your firewood. Last thing you want is to be in the middle of winter at 70 below, and you don’t have any firewood or meat in the freezer.”
By Woods’ high school years, his family moved more than 100 miles west to Kotzebue, a town on the Baldwin Peninsula overlooking the Chukchi Sea. There in the coastal settlement of 3,000, Woods’ wrestling future would change.
Finding his groove
At Kotzebue High, he happened to be coached by Mark Lane, a former collegiate national champion at Montana State University Northern and his wife, a former women’s freestyle Olympian, Marcie Van Dusen. The couple spent hours in the gym with Woods and simplified his approach.
“[Lane’s] national experience and [Van Dusen’s] international experience really just lay down … more of just like the mental side of the sport,” Woods said. “It's going to be tough, but as long as you keep it simple, you can stay in control of your mental training. Whenever times get tough, you have the mental toolkit to overcome any kind of obstacle.”
Then, as he navigated his way through his sophomore season, something clicked. While Woods struggled to beat the elite wrestlers with his aching arm, he competed well enough to place fourth in the Alaska state tournament at 138 pounds.
Eight months after suffering the arm injury, Woods had an accident with a snowmobile. He said he further damaged the injury. This time a second doctor reexamined his arm found a previous hairline fracture.
He had wrestled his entire sophomore year with a broken right arm.
Woods finally had surgery in March 2014. After his arm healed, Woods surged past his competition the next two seasons, winning the state tournament two straight years at 152 and 170 pounds, respectively.
“I realized that I had what it takes to wrestle in college,” he said.
“[The injury] kind of taught me to just persevere in situations like that, it was just kind of eye opening what I could do. I couldn't imagine doing it again.”
Woods showed promise as a redshirt freshman going 16-17 his first year at the University of Maryland. However, he struggled in conference matches and opted to transfer to Northern Michigan University, which hosts a Greco-Roman program whose wrestlers get recruited for the U.S. National Team and World Class Athlete Program.
Woods shifted from folkstyle, collegiate wrestling and found that the Greco-Roman style, which limits wrestlers to using upper body strength, suited his abilities.
At NMU, located in Michigan’s rural, Upper Peninsula, Woods would realize another revelation in 2019; he could compete with the nation’s best Greco-Roman grapplers.
“I feel like I always had the pieces,” Woods said. “But it took a while for me to figure out how to put them together. It wasn’t until 2019 I kind of had a breakthrough moment.”
Woods became one of NMU’s most prolific competitors, even earning an invite during his senior year to compete at the 2019 Olympic Team Trials at 77 kg. Woods dominated his opponents at the Bill Farrell Memorial International Open in New York City to qualify.
Woods would eventually follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who both served in the Army. However, Woods would wear the uniform in a different capacity; as a member of the Army’s WCAP program. Now he trains to compete for a spot to reach the ultimate pinnacle: the Olympic Games.
Giving his all
Spencer Woods sits inside a darkened room near the entrance of the WCAP wrestling gym at Fort Carson, Colorado after a strenuous morning session. The 25-year-old Army specialist has expended so much energy grappling with teammate Spc. Timothy Young that he struggles to speak as he leans back in his chair.
“He gives 100 percent every time,” WCAP Greco-Roman coach Spenser Mango said. “He’s not holding anything back or trying to save himself. He’s working on his body. He’s working on his mind.”
Woods’ Alaskan upbringing continued to his workout regimen as a WCAP athlete. Woods recalled long days helping his family at their modest home in Shungnak. The Inuit village had no roads and used snowmobiles for transport.
Like the people of Northern Alaska, Woods didn’t take any shortcuts. Mango, a former WCAP Greco-Roman wrestler at 55 kg said Woods stands out among his peers for his ability to adapt to his opponent and his relentless work ethic, which helped him make two Senior World Teams.
“Growing up in Alaska definitely helped out my work ethic because, you don't just sleep in and sit on the couch all day and expect to have a full freezer, or get the dogs fed,” he said. “If you want something, you have to work for it.”
As a member of the WCAP program, Woods trains full time to compete internationally at the Olympics while maintaining his qualifications as a 12K plumber.
During the practice match with Young, several coaches and fellow wrestlers gathered to offer Woods advice including fellow wrestler Ildar Hafisov, and Dremiel Byers, a former WCAP World Champion.
And Woods listened to each of them.
“He’s a real fast learner,” said Mango, who scouted Woods at NMU. “You don’t really see him make the same mistakes.”
Earlier in his career, Woods struggled to beat two-time Olympian Ben Provisor, losing to the Wisconsin native six straight times. One of the nation’s strongest grapplers at 82 kg, Provisor posed a daunting challenge.
However, when he faced Proviso at the 2023 U.S. Open wrestling championships, Woods would use all the knowledge he had gathered from his WCAP coaches.
After trailing 3-1 with 1:40 remaining in the final period, Woods scored points off a foul by Provisor and a technical point to take the lead 4-3. Woods held on during the final seconds for the win.
After the victory, Woods let out a loud yell.
“Ever since then, you can see the confidence building within him,” Mango said. “It’s his discipline when it comes down to match strategy. I believe that’s why he’s been able to rise so fast.”
Woods, currently ranked second in the nation at 87 kg, went on to win Pan American Games after winning the U.S. Nationals in December and qualifying for a World Team.
Woods said the advice of the WCAP coaching staff helped him overtake Cuban wrestler Daniel Gregorich, a former Olympian and four-time Pan American champion in the semifinals of the Pan American Games in Acapulco, Mexico in February.
After trailing 3-0, Woods remained calm and rallied to win 6-3.
“I knew exactly what he was going to do before he was going to do it. And now it's because of the WCAP coaching staff. And I was able to stay a move ahead of him.”
However, despite holding the early round bye at the 2024 Olympic Team Trials at Penn State, Woods’ Olympic dream crumbled.
In the championship final, Woods fell to 22-year-old Payton Jacobson in a best-of-three match to finish as the runner up.
Jacobson, the seventh seed, took the first round, 8-2, then Woods bounced back to win round two, 5-2 before Woods lost a tight 3-1 final round.
If Woods career has proven anything, he will return stronger. Mango recalled at international wrestling camps that Woods will single out the toughest competitor in the room and challenge him.
Often, Woods will struggle in his first match going against some of the best in the world, but he will make mental notes.
“He’s not afraid to [take on] the toughest guy in the room,” Mango said. “You’ll see him get beat up and then a couple days later it’s a match.”
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