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Chattanooga: Woods finds fresh sports niche with Speed to Win

By: Brian Lazenby
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John Woods

John Woods comes from a family of athletes.

He played football at Tennessee Tech and his brother at Georgia Tech. A sister played softball at Cleveland State and his nephew plays football at Auburn.

It only seems natural that his latest business venture would involve sports performance training.

“I’m in about seven different businesses,” the Chattanooga native said.

He is a principal at Oppenheimer and has recently taken control of the Chattanooga-based money management firm Southport Capital, but some of his most recent business ventures include XPE Sports, Sportsarama, Top Dog Sports and Speed To Win.

All of these are sports training programs that cater to different age and skill levels.

Speed To Win is a business venture he is hoping to bring to Chattanooga.

With Speed to Win, Mr. Woods, 43, who now lives near Atlanta, is attempting to sell statewide franchise rights to place “speed stations” in area high schools to be used in sports training.

He and Jamal Lewis, a former Tennessee Vol and a Cleveland Brown running back, purchased the Tennessee speed station rights.

He now has 15 speed stations scattered throughout what he calls “Atlanta’s football powerhouse schools,” and his plans are to set them up at Chattanooga area high schools in the next few months to help athletes boost their performance.

Mr. Woods’ brother Jim, the chief investment officer at Southport, said he admires John’s ability to make things happen.

“He saw both my boys become involved in training and saw a business opportunity there,” Jim said. “He picked it up and ran with it.”

But John said the ideas come from a love of sports and helping youth.

“I really love kids, and I was in sports all my life,” he said. “I began watching how important speed is now days. The kids without speed cannot compete.”

John Woods said he has seen how participation in one of the training programs can bring a boy out of his shell. He also has seen how the wrong type of training can cause mischief for young athletes.

“The message I want to get out to moms and dads is that many of them come into our facility in Atlanta and they are overzealous,” he said. “They want to make their kid the next All-American, and I don’t condone that.”

With proper coaching and training, the programs can increase a kid’s confidence, which translates into better grades in school, he said.

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