wednesday, december 10, 2003
sport psychology
tne university daily kansan
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MIND: Field of sport psychology faces skeptics, supporters in athletic world
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Mugford said when athletes analyze their mistakes on the field, they put their concentration and focus on the past and worry about whether the mistake might happen again in the future. He said the most difficult part of overcoming the problem is doing it in the heat of the moment. By putting a rubber band on their wrist, athletes can give it a short, sharp snap every time they catch themselves out of the moment.
The Field
"Ideally they would use this to refocus and can combine it with saying 'snap out of it' or 'snap into it'." Mugford said.
Sport psychology is a science in which the principles of psychology are applied in a sport and exercise setting, usually to enhance performance, according to the book Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications. Sport psychology as a field of study is young and still evolving. The practice did not begin to fully emerge as a separate and distinct study until the 1960s.
Andrew Jacobs is a clinical and sport psychologist in Kansas City. Jacobs was the first sport psychologist at the University of Kansas and worked with all Kansas varsity teams except football and volleyball from 1981 to 1985. Jacobs said the first evidence of sport psychology in the United States was in the 1920s. He said the practice died out for a while before making a resurgence in
the 1960s in East Germany and Russia. The United States fell behind until the 1970s. Jacobs was working with Bob Nideffer, a pioneer in modern sport psychology, in California.
Jacobs has his own practice in which he works with a variety of athletes. Teams such as the Kansas City Blazers swim team, the UMKC men's basketball team and Kansas' women's basketball team use Jacobs to improve the mental aspects of their game. He also works with individual high school, college, professional and Olympic athletes. Jacobs said sport psychology wasn't just about an athlete's performance on the field.
"try to work on the whole person." he said.
Jacobs tries to help athletes balance athletics with their personal life by talking to them about school, family life, personal goals, as well as self-confidence and fears.
Like Mugford, Jacobs uses focusing cues to help certain athletes deal with the mental aspects of sports. In a particular case, he worked with a basketball player who was having trouble making free throws. He used a breathing technique with the athlete that could help him visualize and focus at the free throw line.
Keith Tennant, professor and chair of the department of health, sport and exercise science, said the most important thing to remember about sport psychology was that it will not make a person a better athlete.
"It will help the them to achieve their maximum performance on a
7 Gordon Straus/Kanzan
When Jacobs returned home to Kansas City in the 1980s, he said people were skeptical about sport psychology.
more regular basis" "Tennant said. "can't just take anybody off the street and make them an elite or world class athlete. They have to have the skill and the innate ability to start with."
"People thought it was a bunch of hocus pocus," he said.
'HocusPocus?'
Tennant said that skepticism still exists, especially from clinical psychologists. Some thinksport psychology is almost too easy, he said.
"There is a push and show between clinical psychologists and sport psychologists, each coming at it from their own perspective." Tennant said.
A common view from the clinical psychologists is that they are the counselors, so they should work with athletes. Sport psychologists say clinical psychologists don't understand athletics and the interworkings of sports teams, Tennant said.
Kansas soccer player Caroline Smith worked with a sport psychologist on her own in high school so she was not as skeptical when she heard coach Francis would be using one.
"I remember when I first started I wasn't really sure about it," she said, "but I definitely think it makes a difference after you do it."
Angus Mugford, Cambridgeshire, England, is a doctoral student in sport psychology. Over the course of the season, Mugford met with the women's soccer team on a regular basis as a mental conditioning coach.
Smith said she was a little worried about the expectations surrounding her at the beginning of the season. Smith had injured her knee and was coming off knee surgery at the beginning of the season. With an outstanding freshman year, Smith knew expectations would be high for her sophomore season.
"Before the first game we did a lot of stuff about trying to focus on being patient," Smith said, "and not trying not to worry about too many things at once."
"It's kind of one of those things where you either buy in or you don't," she said. "If you don'tbuy, in the it's probably not going to help you that much."
Smith said she thought Mugford helped some of the team members, but it depended on the person.
Sophomore forward Caroline Smith held possession during match against Baylor on Sept. 26. Smith is a players who benefits from a sports psychologist.
Mugford is a doctoral student as well as a graduate teaching assistant in the University's health, sport and exercise science department. The term psychology is protected in the United States so Mugford is not certified sport psychologist in the United States. He is, however, accredited in Britain, and will be eligible for accreditation in the United States when he finishes his doctoral program, he said. He plans to continue teaching in a university setting while working with athletes. Mugford first began working with the Kansas soccer team last August. After spending last summer as an intern IMG Academies in Bradenton, Fla., Mugford showed an interest in working with the Kansas soccer program.
Angus
IMG Academies is a network of multiple-sport training facilities that works with athletes of various sports as well as those interested in mental conditioning, sports medicine and performance. IMG Academies' clients range from professional and Olympic athletes to eight-year-olds who go there for summer camp. One week of training can set parents back about $1,000, said Chad Bohling, director of IMG Academies mental conditioning program.
Mugford and three other interns worked at IMG Academies last summer. They lectured on specific sport psychology topics during group sessions and also worked with individual athletes.
"We had a lot of 14-year-olds around there who were throwing tantrums and were throwing rackets." Mugford said. "It was the classic kind of John McEnroe style difficulty on the court."
Bohling used tennis to demonstrate how mental conditioning coaches at IMG worked with athletes. He said coaches tried to help beginners develop thought processes similar to those of elite athletes. They try to develop self-awareness and behaviors so that they become habit at a young age. Mugford worked with tennis players while interning at IMG Academies.
Mugford said it was common for athletes and coaches to be skeptical
"What we do is more of mental skills coaching and performance improvement, things like concentration, confidence, keeping composure under pressure," Mugford said. "I think when people are open to it, they see the difference in performances."
of sport psychology. The term psychology puts a lot of people off because it implies clinical issues, such as depression, he said.
There is a variety of exercises that a sport psychologist or mental skills coach can use to improve performance. A popular exercise is a simulated practice, which is most often used in football programs. Coaches test the players by putting them under game-like situations during practice. This helps athletes learn to properly react to urgent situations like a two-minute-drill or bad refereeing. Mugford said it was difficult to recreate a game atmosphere because of the intensity that surrounds a championship or a big game.
"The idea is to help athletes prepare for those situations by having some kind of plan or formula to be ready," he said.
Gillfillan said the meetings with Mugford were good because they regrouped and refocused the team while bringing up certain mental aspects of the game that would probably never have come up without him there to point
Sweet Success
them out. Mugford gave the team something to focus on each week to help its attitude.
"Certain things like we can't control external factors, and that's so true," she said. "We can't control the weather, or the fans, or even the other team or the referee."
Mugford regularly video-taped practices and games to be played during individual sessions with athletes. Because athletes are not used to seeing themselves play, watching a video helps them understand what aspects of their game need work. Gillfillan said she found herself thinking about some of the things Mugford covered in game situations.
"I feel like at first it actually took some thought," she said. "I had to think about it, realize it and apply it. As the season went on it was something that became more of a habit."
The Kansas soccer team had its best season in school history. The team recorded its first Big 12 Tournament victory, as well as its second bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks won two games in the tournament, a first in school history. Mugford said he didn't know how much he factored into the team's success.
"I think the players and coaching staff have done an amazing job at keeping focus on the controllable and have worked tremendously hard to achieve what they did this year," Mugford said.
Edited by Nikki Overfelt
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