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News
From Washington,
DC
Colleen
M.
Hacker
Pacific
Lutheran
University
Women's World Cup:
Performance Enhancement Through
Mental
Skills
Training
When
Brand!
Chastain
scored
on the fifth
penalty
kick taken
by the
U.S. women's
soccer
team
in the
Rose Bowl
stadium
on
July
10,
1999,
it was the
largest
crowd
in
history
to
watch
a
women's
sporting event.
In
fact,
beyond
the
sellout
crowd
in the
sta-
dium (more than
91,000
fans),
it is
estimated
that
40
million Americans
and 1
billion
people worldwide watched this historic
event.
All five
successful, pressure-filled
penalty
kicks
by the
American players
may
well have been
the
athletic equivalent
of the
historic
"shots
heard
'round
the
world."
Women's
World
Cup is one of the
most
significant
events
for
girls
and
women
in
sports this century. Although
the
profes-
sional sports leagues most familiar
to
Ameri-
cans,
such
as the
National Football League
and
Major
League
Baseball, claim
to
crown
"world
champions,"
the
competition
is be-
tween
teams
for
only
one or two
countries.
The
Federation
Internationale
de
Football
Association
(FIFA)
World
Cup
truly
is a
world
championship.
In
1999,
16
different
nations
qualified
a
women's team, including
Norway,
China, Nigeria, North Korea, Ger-
many,
Brazil,
Russia,
and
Australia. Virtu-
ally
every continent
was
represented
in a
championship
held
in
seven
different
Ameri-
can
cities
and
drawing
a
tournament crowd
of
some
650,000
fans.
The
U.S. women's
team
qualified
for all
three World Champi-
onship tournaments, winning
the
inaugural
event
in
1991
and finishing
third
in
1995,
before
reclaiming
the
World
Championship
title
in
1999.
I
have been
a fan of the
"beautiful
game
of
soccer"
(as
Brazilian star
Pele
called
it) for
more
than
two
decades
and
coached
colle-
giate
soccer teams
for
15
years.
I was one of
those
enthusiastic
fans
at
every game
in
which
the
U.S. team played.
My
personal
and
professional interest
in
last year's World
Championship, however, transcended
both
roles. Since
1995,1
have served
as the
men-
tal
skills
coach
for the
U.S. Women's
Na-
tional
Soccer Team. During those years,
the
team
won a
gold medal
in the
1996 Summer
Olympic
Games,
a
gold medal
in the
1998
Goodwill
Games,
and
then
the
1999
World
Championship.
Mental
Skills
for
Athletic
Success
The
importance
of
mental skills
for
ath-
letic
success
is
certainly
not
new. Coaches
and
participants
in
every sport extol
the im-
portance
of the
four
pillars
of
sport essen-
tial
to
competitive
excellence—technical
(req-
uisite
skills
of a
sport),
tactical (strategies
used),
physiological (physical requirements),
and
psychological (mental skills). Most,
however,
focus
almost exclusively
on the
first
three dimensions. This runs counter
to
both
anecdotal
and
survey data indicating
the
importance
of
psychological skills
to
ath-
letic excellence. When 1996 Olympians were
asked
to
list
the top 10
reasons
for
athletic
success
at
their level, athletes placed psy-
chological
components
in the top 5
places.
Listed
as
Number
1 was
mental toughness.
Baseball's
Yogi
Berra
captured these senti-
ments years earlier when
he
noted,
"Sport
is 50%
physical
and 90%
mental."
One
could question
his
quantitative
reasoning
skill
but not his
wisdom.
At
its
core,
sport
psychology
addresses
the
psychological factors
that
influence per-
formance
in
sport
and the
effects
of
that
participation
on the
individual.
Psychologi-
cal
skills
mirror
physical
training parameters,
As
psychological
skills
are
developed
and
refined
with consistent,
qualified,
and
sys-
tematic
training,
the
benefits accruing from
such
training
increase over
the
years.
Al-
though
a
majority
of the
members
of the
1999
women's
soccer
team have been
in
psychological
skills
training
for 4 or
more
years, several
are
early
in
their
skills
train-
ing
development.
Sport psychology organizations include
the
North American Society
for the
Psy-
chology
of
Sport
and
Physical
Activity,
the
International Society
for
Sport Psychology,
the
Association
for the
Advancement
of
Applied
Sport Psychology (AAASP),
and
the
American
Psychological
Association's
Division
47. The
U.S. Olympic Committee
and
AAASP
provide
a
certification registry.
Psychological Skills
Training
for
Performance
Enhancement
Because
my
primary academic training
is
in
physical education,
the
sport psychol-
ogy
services
I
provide
to the
U.S. national
team
are
fundamentally educational
in na-
ture.
My
role centers
on the
teaching
of
psy-
chological
skills
for
performance enhance-
ment.
Psychological
skills
training
includes
relaxation
techniques, imagery, concentration
and
distraction control strategies, preprac-
tice
and
precompetition
preparation, posi-
tive
self-talk
and
performance cues,
goal
setting,
and
team
building.
No
counseling
occurs from
a
clinical standpoint. When
an
athlete
requires clinical services,
I
refer
the
individual
to a
licensed clinical
(or
sport)
psychologist.
Clinical
issues
requiring
refer-
ral
might include severe
anxiety,
depression,
eating
disorders, substance
abuse,
or
rela-
tionship
concerns.
Team-building
activities
serve
a
critical
role,
assimilating
strong personalities
and
unique
individuals
into
a
unified
and
collective
whole
(i.e.,
"the team before me").
With
that
in
mind
and
given
the
diversity between
and
among team members, team
chemistry
must
be
"worked for" rather than
"hoped
for."
Team chemistry
is a
priority.
I
assist ath-
letes
in
dealing
with
competitive pressures,
team
selections, playing status, sleep pat-
terns,
travel demands, family
and
personal
issues,
and
team dynamics.
I
provide this
assistance
in
concert with
the
coaching
staff,
enhancing
and
supporting
their
efforts.
Thus,
I
do not
work
in a
vacuum,
but
rather
1
complement
the
philosophical
and
program-
matic
goals
of the
coaches. Their support
and
guidance
are
invaluable.
Professional
Psychology:
Research
and
Practice.
21X10,
Vol.
31.
No. 4.
363-364
Copyright
2000
by the
American
Psychological
Association,
Iric.
0735-7IX2MX¥$S.<IO
363
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