Background:
Dena Floyd has been the Athletic Director at Woods Charter School, since the 2014-2015 school year. She oversees and directs the entire athletic program at Woods Charter and teaches two 9th grade Health and PE classes. Dena is an active member of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association , and is licensed as a Certified Athletic Administrator (CAA).
A native of Midlothian, Virginia, Dena is a graduate of the University of Florida where she was a starting Varsity Collegiate Soccer Player for 4 years and tri-captain her senior year. Dena received several academic and athletic awards during her career including The Tracy-Caulkins Award at The UF Commencement ceremonies as the top graduating female student-athlete. She also was a member of the first -ever SEC Soccer Good Works team. This honor is awarded to 22 SEC student-athletes per year who have made a positive impact on others and their community.
After graduating from UF, Dena completed her year long strength and conditioning internship, and from there, she traveled across country and accepted a job at Stanford University, as an assistant strength and conditioning coach. It was there that she trained and constructed programs for seven varsity teams,as well as training several professional and Olympic athletes. During her time in Northern CA, she played semi-professional soccer for the Sacramento Storm and Walnut Creek Power.
After working at Stanford for four years, Dena moved back to the east coast and served as the assistant women's soccer coach, and she also received her masters in Liberal Studies (Non-Profit Managment) at NC State University. After coaching at NC State for 4 years , Dena started to regain her mastery in sports performance training and is currently training local athletes and individuals part-time. She serves as the Director of Sports Performance at Soccer Genome in Raleigh, NC. As of 2017, Dena also serves as a part-time color commentator for the NC State Men’s and Women’s Soccer games aired on ESPN & ACC Networks, and she's even commentated for some NC Courage professional games.
In the Spring of 2018, Dena was selected by the North Carolina Soccer Coaches Association as the "State AD/Administrator" of the year for 2017 - 2018 School Year. This is a significant award as it spans all classifications and is selected by the board of the NCSCA. She was also selected to the NCADA Leadership Academy (select athletic director's in the state) for the 2019-2020.
“I am truly passionate about sports and serving youth. Furthermore, I enjoy reading and continually learning about leadership topics, character building, and overall inspirational or motivational subjects for personal growth, which ultimately helps us serve others in a positive light”. Dena created the WCS Leadership Group during the 2017-2018 school year, which is composed of a select group of student-athletes (two females and two males from the 10th-12th grades). They meet once a month in the morning for approximately a hour and a half to discuss and learn about different leadership topics. At some sessions they have guest speakers. “My vision goes beyond managing athletics at Woods Charter. I wholeheartedly believe in developing each student beyond the classroom and playing field, hoping they continually grow as confident individuals and productive members of society, all while serving in their purpose".
“Woods Charter is a part of the Central Tar Heel Conference and NCHSAA, 1A Class . We compete in all of our sports despite being small in size, and we’ve been very successful since entering The NCHSAA back in 2013. More importantly, our staff believes in an ultimate vision of developing our coaches, who respectively coach and develop our athletes in all facets of life, not just the X’s and O’s”
*Dena's profile picture is from The Reformed Sports Parent/Project. Dena was featured on the site after an interview. Website- https://reformedsportsparent.com/