Career
He was hired on May 19, 2008 to resurrect the Lamar Cardinals football program that was discontinued in 1989. Woodard played college football at Kilgore College and Texas, was selected 199th overall in the 1984 NFL Draft. He spent the next five seasons with the San Diego Chargers, Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs.
Woodard received his bachelor"s degree in kinesiology and history from Sam Houston State University in 1988.
He received his masters in education from the University of Texas at Tyler in 1991. On October 23, 2014, Ray Woodard earned his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Lamar University.
He joined a select group of Division I coaches with doctorates. Including Woodard, there were six Division I coaches with a doctorate at the time he received his doctorate.
One of those six was an honorary doctorate.
Woodard was also one of three Division I (FCS) coaches with a doctorate. NFL Europe
He spent three years as the defensive coordinator for the Scottish Claymores from 2000–2003. Navarro College
From 2005–2007 Woodard spent his time coaching at Navarro College, a two-year college whose main campus is in Corsicana, Texas. His first two seasons at Navarro were spent as a defensive coordinator and as head coach in his last season.
His 2007 squad went 9–3 and advanced to the conference playoffs for the first time in six seasons.
Navarro ranked third nationally in total offense (4446 yards per game), fourth in rushing offense (2505 ypg) and 16th in passing offense (1942 ypg), while scoring a school-record 428 points for an average of 35.7 per game in 2007. Lamar University
In 2008 Lamar University hired Ray Woodard to help bring football back to Lamar after an almost 20-year absence.
The Lamar Cardinals football team played their first season in 2010 under coach Woodard. That season, the Cardinals went 5–6 as Division I independents.
The Cardinals began football competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I FCS Southland Conference the following year.