Carter Wood was standing near the batting cages at the SEC Baseball Tournament a couple of years ago when he met Texas A&M head baseball coach Michael Early and then-A&M athletes Trevor Werner and Jordan Thompson. Little did Wood know that chance meeting would result in friendships that would push him to become one of Shelby County High School’s most promising athletes.
Wood, 16, a sophomore at SCHS, started running cross country and track his eighth grade year and is already pursuing dreams of running at the college level.
“He’s really inspired me to just keep pushing myself every day to be better and just never give up no matter how tough the times are,” Wood says of Early, while sitting in a near-empty hallway at SCHS and wearing a Texas A&M T-shirt. He says he still talks to both Werner and Thompson on an everyday basis.
“I was at a low point in my life, and I met those guys and their encouragement and everything really just changed my life. We made connections, and those connections and bonds have just stuck for the last couple of years and they’re like family now,” Wood says.
In his seventh-grade year, Wood had not quite found his identity as an athlete. He played football and baseball, but in eighth grade a friend asked him to run cross-country. At the time, he was training to run a 5K just for fun, but SCHS track and field coach Jason Mayfield encouraged him to keep running and to not stop training.
“So, I ended up training afterward and had a really good season my eighth-grade year,” Wood says. “That year, I realized that there was a lot of potential for me if I really committed to running.”
Self-motivation became a touchstone for Wood, as he began building on his already competitive nature to realize that hard work ultimately pays off.
“You don’t have to be anything special to start running and to be good at it, because it’s all about dedication and how willing you are to push yourself,” he says.
That self-motivation turned into determination, the results of which surprised even Mayfield. When Wood returned from watching Texas A&M in the College World Series, he told Mayfield how he was going to run the next day.
“He came back and ran the course the day before the race,” Mayfield recalls. “Carter told me how he was going to run the race the next day, and I can remember thinking, ‘Yeah, you’re not in shape. That’s not what’s going to happen.’ I didn’t tell him that, but I was just kind of thinking that. And then the next day, sure enough, what Carter said he was going to do, he did. That was the first glimpse I got of him as an athlete.”
Wood made All-County his first year and went on to take the 800-meter county meet for his first big win. That led to winning several local 5Ks. Then, he bounced back from an injury in his freshman year to qualify in the 1600- and 3200-meter by the end of spring.
Now, he holds several SCHS indoor track records including:
- Cross country—16:41 for 5K, previously held by Aaron Bush in 2006 at just under 17 minutes
- Indoor track, 800 meters—2:05, previously held by David Vick in 2016 at 2:16
- Indoor track, 1600 meters—4:37; the previous best time was 5:20
- Indoor track, 3200 meters—10:26; the previous best time was 11:16 in 2023.
Wood shares that his parents, Jason and Jennifer Wood, as well as his grandparents and sister have supported him. Going into a recent meet in January 2025, Wood was talking to his dad the night before when he told him not to allow temporary struggles and adversity to get into his head.
“If you set yourself up for success, you know the training that you’ve put in, and all the hard work that you’ve put in all the time,” Wood says. “It’s going to pay off at some point.”
While Woods’ grandparents have bought him numerous pairs of shoes, the friendly sibling rivalry with his sister, Madison, is another thing that keeps him going.
“One of the biggest things that drives me is outworking my sister,” Wood says. “She is a college volleyball athlete at the Mississippi University for Women. We keep each other motivated.”
Woods’ support system also includes community members, coaches, teammates and his friends at The Trak Shak in Hoover. He draws encouragement from his faith in God, and his church family at Church of the Highlands in Alabaster. On his spikes he writes his go-to verse, Luke 1:37, which states that with God nothing is impossible.
That motivation spreads to others as well. Mayfield shares how Wood demonstrates leadership during speed workouts on Wednesdays, recalling an instance that occurred the week following Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2025:
“As soon as he finished the workout and he was ahead of everyone else, he started yelling at all the other guys encouraging them to finish their last workouts,” Mayfield says. “We have an eighth-grade boy who’s going to be part of their relay team, and Carter’s like, ‘I’m timing you on this last lap,’ and it was the kick that that kid needed to push himself to another level.”
As Wood was preparing to compete in the 800-, 1600- and 3200-meter races and on the 4×800 relay team at the AHSAA 4A/5A Indoor Track Championship, he was eyeing his goal of winning a state championship.
“Any day can be your day. You just have to go out there and tell yourself that you’re going to push yourself,” Wood shares. “The end goal is I want to get a scholarship and run in college.” TG
A special thanks to our sponsor, Erle Fairly – ARC Realty! Serving the Greater Birmingham Area.
Photos by Al Blanton
