The Mental Game
Colby’s new focus on mental performance coaching is designed to help athletes both on the field and beyond
For generations, Colby student athletes have worked hard on training their bodies to be stronger, faster, and better able to compete in their chosen sport.
Today’s students are still doing that. But along with their bodies, they’re also training their minds.
They are doing this with the support of mental performance coaching. It’s a strategy rooted in applied sport psychology that is, at its core, designed to encourage athletes and coaches by using the power of the mind to improve crucial attributes such as focus, confidence, resilience, mindfulness, injury recovery, motivation, and more.
Anne Beethe is director of the College’s cutting-edge Peak Performance program, the first Division III program to integrate sports medicine, strength conditioning, nutrition, mental performance, and sports science in this way.
Colby’s holistic approach to student athletics is important to success in both sport and life, she said. Toward that end, the College recently added its first full-time certified mental performance consultant, Beaux Myers, to the roster of Peak Performance professionals.
“Our goal is to give these young adults a great experience to take into their lives in the future,” Beethe said. “Part of that is giving them an overall extraordinary athletic experience so they can take the positive skills they learn and bring them to their future jobs and families. Many of these skills are grounded in mental performance.”
Helping athletes succeed
Team sports are an important aspect of life at the College. About one-third of the 2,300-person student body competes on one of the College’s 32 varsity sports teams, and Myers, an energetic Midwesterner who started his position last March, is doing his best to meet all of them.
Over the course of a day, he bounds around the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center, cheerfully dropping in on practices, games, workouts, and training sessions to touch base with coaches and athletes alike.
“Something I really value is building strong relationships with our student athletes to allow them to feel comfortable coming to seek support if they need it, or just applying the concepts of mental performance,” he said. “My favorite thing is watching our student athletes be successful. Whether it’s one person or a team, that’s what gets me going every morning.”
Myers has a deep understanding of why mental performance can help athletes on the field as well as off of it. As an undergraduate, the psychology major played golf for St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis., a DIII school. When he tore his anterior cruciate ligament twice while golfing, he learned about sport psychology from one of his academic advisors. It helped him mentally recover from the injuries and ignited a passion for using the techniques to help other athletes.
At Colby, the only school in the New England Small College Athletic Conference with a full-time, onsite mental performance coach, he works with teams and individual athletes to find creative ways to share sports psychology tips and techniques.
“I think it’s awesome for the student athletes to get the support, and also to get that little bit of a mental edge to win conference championships,” Myers said. “Because that’s ultimately what we’re all trying to do.”
Origins of sport psychology
The origins of sport psychology date back to the 19th century, and the field really took off in the 1960s as it became more widely understood and utilized by Olympic, professional, and amateur athletes.
It’s recently gained more popularity as internationally known athletes like gymnast Simone Biles, swimmer Michael Phelps, and tennis player Naomi Osaka have publicly spoken about their struggles with mental performance and mental health.
Although mental performance coaching is not the same as mental health counseling, the two can be connected, and the College takes both seriously. Myers and other members of Peak Performance have a close relationship with Counseling Services and refer students there who are presenting signs of depression, anxiety, disordered eating, body image issues, or other mental health concerns.
“We want to make sure that our student athletes are getting the mental health support that they need,” Myers said.
Training the mind
Over the course of a day, Myers might use advanced technology such as FocusCalm EEG headbands or virtual reality to have athletes practice calming their minds in preparation for a stressful upcoming game. He also helps them have conversations about hard topics with coaches or teammates, and helps them improve issues like negative self-talk or poor communication.
It’s all beneficial, according to Karen Henning, longtime head coach of the women’s lacrosse team. Her team utilized a sport psychologist when she was an undergraduate athlete, and she’s always understood the importance of working with mental performance professionals.
Henning kept in touch with the psychologist who worked with her college team and invited him to speak to her players over the years. She also worked with Amy Baltzell, the sport psychologist who previously worked part time at the College, and described it as an important opportunity and positive experience.
“We saw such value in it,” Henning said, adding that having a full-time staff mental performance coach is good for students and the sports program alike. “This is meaningful work and powerful work, and it doesn’t just happen to impact them on the field. It also gives them skills in life. When something gets scary or hard, you’re like, I can do this. I can do hard things.”
Terren Allen, head women’s softball coach, also appreciates the chance for her players to work with and learn from Myers.
“Under Beaux’s guidance, our softball program has witnessed a transformative shift in culture and accountability,” she said in an email. “His interactive workshops on resilience and teamwork have cultivated a positive, supportive environment, empowering our student athletes to thrive.”
The coaches believe that mental performance is another piece of the puzzle for their athletes—a very important one.
“The mind has to be worked, just like your legs have to be worked if you run. Your arm has to be worked if you’re a pitcher,” Henning said. “If you work your mind, too, you’re going to be able to perform at a higher level than if you didn’t work on the mental aspect of your training.”
