Sports Psychologist Helps Student-Athletes Succeed
By Matt Winkler
The effects of the Sept. 11 attacks were widespread on the George Mason campus
and included the postponement of intercollegiate athletic events. But the impact
and trauma also added to the already-full mental and physical plate handed to
our student-athletes.
Fortunately for Mason’s student-athletes, Debbie Wilson, director of Student-Athlete
Welfare and Sports Psychology in the Intercollegiate Athletic Department, has
been on hand to help. Wilson works with athletes, coaches, and entire teams, offering
personal, social, and career-related counseling.
“I saw a much higher incidence of stress and anxiety-related problems
at the end of this fall semester than ever before,” Wilson says. “Student-athletes
were not coming in to talk about Sept. 11 specifically, but as a group they were
pushed close to their threshold of anxiety.” Late fall is traditionally the
most active time for athletics as teams prepare to finish seasons or begin new
ones, Wilson explains, and usually, most of the students just need some refocusing
and support. The attacks made them more vulnerable to other stresses, causing
accumulated stress to be a big factor at the end of last semester.
Wilson sees George Mason student-athletes as having considerable responsibility
during their intercollegiate competition and as students. Her own experience as
a former athlete at James Madison University and women’s basketball coach
at Ohio State gives her special insight into the pressures faced by these students.
Student-athletes are subject to the same academic, social, family, and economic
concerns any student faces during the semester and are also citizens of the school,
visible ambassadors, Wilson explains. “Athletes have very little time when
they aren’t under pressure,” she says. “There are continuous demands
on their time and energy and the expectations on their athletic performance are
high.”
When student-athletes have difficulty in personal areas, their performance
in the athletic arena suffers. Most student-athletes haven’t had any training
in sports psychology when they get here, says Wilson, so their performance is
immediately affected once they understand the concepts and the basic guidelines.
To enhance athletes’ performance, Wilson teaches the mental and emotional
aspects of delivering under pressure. She develops in the athletes the general
concepts of leadership, performance under pressure, self-accountability, goal
orientation, and working with a team—skills that can be applied anywhere.
“There has to be a conscious effort, however, to transfer that learning into
other areas,” Wilson says. She explains that someone who as a team captain
has good leadership ability and can motivate others needs to understand the principles
involved so that he or she can carry over those skills to other arenas such as
a business setting.
Wilson believes the key to success differs with each student-athlete. “Success
for me is when an athlete delivers what he or she is physically capable of under
pressure of competition. And I’ve seen a lot of great performances here.”
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