Just over a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. The world of sports was not immune to the virus once normal life started to shut down. As we begin to reclaim our normal lives, many athletes of all ages have struggled to cope with the ripple effects of the pandemic. This podcast delves into the issues of COVID-19 and its impact on the motivation of athletes to continue training and performing, its effect on the athletic identity of the individuals, and the role a Mental Performance Coach can play in helping both athletes and coaches navigate and manage the challenges resulting from the pandemic.
Just over a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. The world of sports was not immune to the virus once normal life started to shut down. As we begin to reclaim our normal lives, many athletes of all ages have struggled to cope with the ripple effects of the pandemic. This podcast delves into the issues of COVID-19 and its impact on the motivation of athletes to continue training and performing, its effect on the athletic identity of the individuals, and the role a Mental Performance Coach can play in helping both athletes and coaches navigate and manage the challenges resulting from the pandemic.
Hello everyone and welcome to emerging trends in higher ed. My name is Samantha Wilcox and I am your host for this podcast series. In today's podcast, Dr. Grayson Kimball, program coordinator of the school and social behavioral sciences department of psychology, and discusses the current landscape in the field of sport psychology. Welcome, Dr. Kimble.
00:22
Hey, thanks again for having me.
00:24
For those of you who have not met, or heard Dr. Kimble before, can you please give us a little intro? Tell us about yourself?
Sure. So I'm the program coordinator for the Master's in sports psychology specialization programs here at North Central our program is almost a year old. And we are growing quickly, which is fantastic. Outside of my work at MCU, I've had a private practice in sports psychology for about 20 years, I've had the opportunity to work with a number of Olympic and professional athletes, and a whole host of Collegiate High School and recreational athletes. On top of that, I've been involved in the world of marathon running for about 20 years, and I've coached a number of the charity teams for the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately, we're on hiatus right now due to the pandemic. But hopefully, we will be back on the roads soon. And I've also over the last year and a half, have been able to take my work in sports psychology and adapt that to the world of executive coaching. And I do a lot of work with other high performers who work in medicine, sales, business, and again, other high performing areas.
01:44
Awesome. Well, we will jump in just a few questions for you today, I'm just surrounding kind of the current view in the field that you specialize in. So we'll kick it off with what role has COVID-19 had on athletes in terms of their motivation to perform?
02:01
So that's a great question. You know, when the COVID pandemic hit, and everything shut down, especially back in March, a lot of athletes essentially went through the thought process of is my season going to happen, you know, am I ever going to play again, you know, what's, what's actually happening here, obviously, this was new for everyone. And, you know, a lot of the work that I do is with high school athletes and college athletes, and for many of them, who were seniors, they see, you know, slowly started to realize that their athletic careers were not only coming to an end, but it was now out of their control.
And there was nothing that they could do about it. And even for those athletes that still had another year, two years, three years to play, just not knowing when they would ever be able to play again, has had an impact on things like their motivation, like why continue to train, when I don't know when I'm going to be playing. And at least over the summer, you know, in some states in some areas, when the restrictions started to get lifted, it started to give hope to some of these athletes, but unfortunately, you know, we've seen a rise in cases, uh, you know, all over the country. And that is certainly put, you know, a damper again, on on the athletes motivation to perform. Thankfully, you know, the vaccine is finally here. But obviously, the rollout has been a little slow. So again, there's still some athletes at all levels, you know, that are just a little unsure of what their future is going to look like.
03:42
Absolutely. I remember early on, when COVID-19 was kind of just coming to everyone's attention. Those seniors in high school were a big topic of conversation. And I can't imagine being an athlete in the scenario, trying to figure out how to how to pivot your, your dreams and these goals that you had. So definitely a good topic to be talking about as we kind of transition into this next year. Can you speak a little bit about the topic of athletic identity and why that's an important topic to address with athletes? Sure. And again, that's another great question. So one thing that we try to do in sports and not just with high school athletes or college athletes, but almost more specifically with with professional athletes, is for them to be able to define themselves as more than just an athlete.
And unfortunately, you know, with today's landscape of youth sports kids are specializing in sports at such an early age, that they're they only start to really see themselves as that like, I'm only a soccer player or I'm just a basketball player. And even though they may have other interests, you know, their youth sport coaches and these you know, club team coaches. They essentially persuade The young athlete to only focus on that one particular sport. And by the time they get to, you know, the age of 15 1617, you know, getting through their high school years, they continue to only really see themselves as an athlete, because perhaps they've given up playing a musical instrument, you know, or getting into, you know, art or, or whatever other interests, they may add. And we also see this a lot at the professional level. And clearly, when you make it to that level, you know, you've put a lot of time and a lot of effort into developing this particular skill set, you know, in terms of, of your athletic abilities, and then all of a sudden, your career is over, right, could be due to injury, could this could be due to the fact that you're too old, and teams don't don't don't want you.
And then the question becomes, what do I do next, and who am I, and so, you know, it's quite common that these athletes have this, you know, you know, single dimensional identity, I'm just an athlete, and when that's taken away from them, that can be really problematic. And so now, you know, what I'm still doing work with some athletes, even during this is COVID time, and again, some of their teams, they're back to practicing, you know, and such. But I really try to stress the, the athletic identity and personal identity, it's great that you're spending your time and you're back with your team, and you're practicing, and so forth. But think about something else, what's another interest you have, in your spare time, which we all kind of, unfortunately, now have a lot of extra spare time, you know, take some time to, you know, develop those skills, because eventually one day could be after your high school season could be after your college season, your you know, competitive athletic career is going to be over and you need to move on to plan B. And if you don't know really who you are, and what that plan B is going to be, you know, you're going to have a lot of transitional issues when you're done playing sport. And then you need to become a quote unquote, real person again, for sure. Now, you touched on this a bit. But if you could go a bit more in depth, what role if any, has COVID-19 played in affecting athletic identity?
07:17
Well, so I think, you know, the positive aspect to it is again, having like this extended, you know, time off, where again, it's like, oh, in the afternoon, I can't just go to the movies, or I can't just go to a restaurant, because because everything's closed, you know, you have that time now to pursue other interests. So again, are you taking advantage of that, or you just simply feeling sorry for yourself, because you can't be doing these these other things. And so, you know, in that aspect, somebody could look at the covid 19 pandemic, and try to find something positive out of it, you know, when there's so much negative to it. And then, you know, the other piece to it is that, you know, some of these athletes now, you know, are starting to, you know, understand that, hey, maybe if I can, you know, still participate in my sport, so I can actually still cling to that athletic identity. And to give you a good example of that, outside of my teaching here.
And I think, you know, you may have have known this is that I coach, one of the charity teams for the Boston Marathon. And of course, right now, all the races are currently canceled. And the Boston Marathon is usually held in April. And as of now, that's been postponed till possibly the fall. But what I've seen over the last, I guess, what, eight to nine months is that a lot of these races have now gone virtual. And you're seeing 1000s and 1000s of people signing up for virtual races. So it's literally Oh, I could wake up today go run 13 miles, and I just ran the virtual half marathon today. And there's a benefit to that, because again, it does keep you kind of connected to your peer group, you know, in terms of the sports that you may be participating in. Now, some people do take that a little too far. I saw a story recently where there was a gentleman, you know, who is a, you know, committed marathon runner, and he lived in a pretty tiny apartment, and he had a really, really tiny patio, you know, off of his, you know, off of his little family room.
That was literally maybe a 12 by 12 area. Apparently, he ran that little box, I don't know something like, you know, 1700 times because that mapped out to 26.2 miles, right. And so for him, his identity, he sees himself as a marathon runner. Now, I don't know this person. I don't know what else this person does. But clearly, he identifies as a marathon runner and he's not going to let a pandemic take that away. So even if that means, you know, running in circles, you know, 1700 times, if that makes sense. 26.2 miles, well, that person is going to feel fulfilled, because they're still able to do you know, what they love to do? So, in that sense, you know, to me, there's a positive and a negative effect of, you know, COVID-19 on the athletic identity, you know, at some point, no, maybe I should possibly take, you know, a couple months off from training and running and let my body recover. But again, if that's what you really love to do, as long as it's not taking away from other more important things, and of course, you're being safe about it, certainly go out and do that.
10:39
Absolutely. You made some great points there. Now, last question for you, how can mental performance coach help athletes and coaches navigate all of the challenges that COVID-19 has presented to us?
10:53
So great question there, too. So one of the colleges, that I work with their athletics department, you know, locally here in the Boston area, and when the COVID pandemic hit, obviously, everything pause, but we still actually held one or two, coaches, workshops, because these coaches, again, know, obviously, this was new for everyone. And they weren't really sure, how do I deal with my players, you know, like, everyone is confused, right? Now they're frustrated, they're upset, they're, they're scared, you know, we don't know if we're ever going to play again, or when we're going to play again.
And so, you know, we started giving, when I say we, I, there's another practitioner, you know, that, that that works with, with with me, and, you know, we just just started giving them suggestions. So, okay, all of your, you know, athletes have now left the campus, they've all gone home, but what you could do is set up, you know, weekly virtual meetings, so that way, the team is still somewhat together, you can, you know, have these little challenges. So I think, like, one of the soccer teams did something where they'd have their players try to practice these trick shots, or, you know, something in their backyard, and they film it, and then they'd get together, you know, weekly, you know, and, you know, they would show each other, you know, all of their trick shots and things like that. And, again, it allowed the team to, to stay together, you know, which would still kind of keep some of that cohesion there. And then, you know, I would give them, you know, just some basic, you know, mental training techniques, you know, and strategies that they can use, you know, even though they're not, you know, competing, but they still need to be training, right?
Just because, you know, your teen isn't performing, that doesn't mean you're just going to sit on the couch and eat all day. Because for all, you know, again, this is back in March, or April, you know, remember, we were told 21 days to, you know, flatten the curve, and everything's going to be back, well, if that was actually going to happen, if we're going to be back in 21 days, one, I need to keep training, right, like I need to be doing these things. And so just kind of giving some of these suggestions and strategies on just how to stay motivated, how to continue training, how to set you know, you know, realistic goals, you know, given the moment that that we're in all of these things, you know, will pay dividends, you know, once your team is able to come back and start practicing. And, you know, to me, it also just speaks to the general nature of sports psychology, you know, and mental conditioning, just because you're not performing again and forget COVID, you know, your season's over and you have a couple of weeks off, it doesn't mean you know, you're going to stop training, it doesn't mean you're going to stop thinking mentally about your sport, and how you're going to improve and how you can get better.
And these are all the little things that, you know, mental performance coaches can do with athletes, you know, either in season, out of season, and, you know, unfortunately, that the out of season, you know, has been extended for many of these players. But again, you're still, you know, chatting, you know, with a mental performance coach, and and talking about some of the successes that they've had recently, and thinking about why have you been successful? Again, if it's in your trainings, or your practices, whatever it's been, if you've had some, some setbacks, you know, why does that happen? And so the mental performance coach shouldn't just be dismissed, you know, simply because the team is not playing anymore. You know, there's, there's still, you know, benefits for the athletes and the coaches to pick the brain, you know, of a mental performance coach.
14:28
Well, Dr. Kimble, we really appreciate you jumping on with us today. And bringing your perspective and expertise in this field. You really add a lot of value. I think I learned something new every time I talk to you. So thank you so much for joining us today.
14:43
You're welcome. You're welcome.
14:45
Well, folks, we have additional episodes that will be shared in the coming weeks from others in the NCU community. So be on the lookout for those on behalf of Dr. Grayson Kimball, this is Samantha Wilcox reminding you that at NC U. You have what it takes to change the world. We offer what it takes To make it happen until next time, goodbye.