Finding It on the Field
Christie Wood ’97, ’02 MS has an eye for discovering the next stars in Major League Baseball.
We all have a favorite movie growing up, but the one that left a mark on Christie Wood ’97, ’02 MS wasn’t a feature-length film.
“I was really big into One Shining Moment at the end of the NCAA [tournament], and I wanted to make highlight films,” says Wood.
Fast forward to today, and it’s apparent that film left quite the impression on Wood, who is in her 24th year as video scouting coordinator for Major League Baseball’s Draft Operations. When Wood was hired in 2000, she was the first female scout in the MLB. She’s also the longest serving. “I mean, there’s never been another female, so far, in the history of the game, with any sport, that has worked as a scout longer than me,” says Wood, who graduated with a communication degree, got a master’s in sport management and shot video for many NC State teams.
“I mean, there’s never been another female, so far . . . that has worked as a scout longer than me.”
Wood, 49, spends her late winters, springs and summers away from her home in Raleigh on the road, compiling videos of the top prospects that are then housed in the league for teams to review. She travels up and down the East Coast, from Florida to Maine and over to Kentucky and Tennessee. She’s assigned different high school and college — mostly ACC, SEC and CAA — practices and games, capturing the swings and curveballs of talent that MLB teams will bank their hopes on in the draft every summer.
And she has indeed been in early with her camera on some future stars. There’s former New York Mets’ great David Wright and Los Angeles Angels’ perennial All-Star Mike Trout, who has three American League MVPs to his name. There’s NC State greats, too, including Carlos Rodón ’15 and Trea Turner. But just as important to her as seeing all that talent before those players bloom into stars is her place as a “pioneer,” a word the MLB uses to describe Wood.
“I do know that there’s like a certain amount of pressure, that I’ve got people watching me. And I hope I’ve always represented MLB well, females well, and things like that,” she says. “I do feel the way I have worked has opened doors for others.”
