Perusing a Degree, & Finding a Job in

Sports Psychology
Written by: Ian Nelson

Ian A. Nelson
Wendy Heimbigner
Research Paper
March 14, 2016
Sports phycologists work with the minds of athletes. Typically athletes
will resort to a sports phycologist when they are not doing well in their

playing. While this is common other athletes will go to a sports phycologist

looking just to enhance performance, help heal from an injury, maintain a
regular exercise routing, or to help their motivation.
Because these psychologists work with the minds of athletes, they
themselves must be in the right frame of mind. When perusing any degree
one must have their entire head in the game. To succeed, a student who
wishes to become a sports psychologist must put in their full effort in order
to really learn and gain skill during schooling as well as attracting business in
the future.
Apart from being ready to enter the field of psychology, one must also
love people and a sport. As a sports phycologist, one must with work with
people perusing success in a sport. Therefore it is vital to have a strong
social intelligence to be able to happily live in state of meeting and working
with new people. To motivate an athlete the phycologist has to be motivated
himself about his sports as well.
How would we find a sports phycologist? To find a psychologist one
could start with an online search. Typing Sports Phycologist into google
maps brings us to many institutions around the US. For example, google pulls
up the often premiered company on ESPN, Fox 9 and the NFL network
Premier Sports Psychology. This institution is a company that hires many
individual psychologists to help work with their clients. Because this is a big
company it may be useful to get a job with them because they already have

a growing clientele. A job for this company requires but is not limited to: A
professional degree from an accredited institution, experience hours, an
application, an interview, and a background check.
Likewise, as it would be useful to get a job here, when seeking
psychological help in the sports industry it would be great to get set up as a
client with them! However, before jumping in as a client or as an employee it
is important to do your own background check and find out as much about
the company as you can. After doing my own check on Premier Sports
psychology I believe them to be a reputable source because of their high
success rate as defined by the many first-hand reviews found on their
webpage at www.primiersportspsycology.com.
For us who wish to become a phycologist with athletes, a masters
degree will be what we need. The next step in furthering our education is to
find a school that both teaches this degree and will expect us. Many schools
have a competitive array of students and therefore require a high GPA and
test scores. Sports Medicine about.com reports an average of 1500 test score
on the GRE (general test) for example; the masters degree from Capella
University requires a bachelors degree to be earned from another accredited
university. The University of Utah provides a bachelors degree in phycology
and provides a good opportunity for transferring to a school like Capella. The
University of Utah requires transfer students to have 30 semester credits
from another post high school education center as well as a high school

diploma and a 2.6 cumulative GPA. As you can see the admissions for the U
OF U align closely with what Sprotsmedicineabout.com reports as the
average.
Before obtaining a masters degree in phycology at the University of
Utah one must first complete the five cores the college offers. According to
the colleges phycology bachelor degree checklist one must complete the:
developmental core, social core, clinical core, cognitive core and the
behavior neuroscience core. Each of these cores are a series of specified
classes designed to take the material from each chapter in a basic 1010
psychology textbook and dive through the material. Passing these cores both
prepares the student for a career in psychology and gives the student a
bachelors degree in Psychology preparing the student to transfer to a higher
institution to peruse a masters or doctorates degree in a more specified field
such as sports psychology.
To find a mentor, the student can head to the APA (American
psychological association) to find a mentor. Once set up there are four stages
of the mentoring process defined on the APA website. The first is the
initiation stage; here the student and the mentor will get acquainted with
their partner. The second is the cultivation stage, here the mentee learns
from the mentor. The third stage is the separation stage where mentor and
mentee end their mentoring relationship. The last stage is somewhat

optional, the redefinition stage where both mentor and mentee can choose
to further their relationship into a collegial one or not.
After obtaining an advanced degree in sports psychology the student
must become certified to become a professional consultant. One option to
receive certification is to become a member of the AASP (association for
applied sports psychology) and register a CC-AASP (Certified ConsultantAASP) application for review and approval. According to the AASP, before
submitting an application for approval the applicant must first complete a
doctorate degree from an accredited university as well as obtain 400 hours
of mentored experience.
To find a job one must be pretty clever. It is easy to simply do an online
search for the best sports psychologist clinics around the US but getting into
the field and landing a job is where the trick lies. The best route is to build an
impressive resume full of experience hours and successes to submit to
multiple institutions around the US.
Overall, it will take much hard work and perseverance to be able to
acquire a respected position within the industry of sports psychology. One
must have a strong drive to wish to learn about this topic as well as to
succeed. A job as a sports psychologist demands a high level of
communication but comes with its reward of a high pay and high satisfaction
to those strong enough to push through and peruse this amazing field of
psychology.

Bibliography

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sport-psychologists.aspx
http://study.com/articles/Sports_Psychology_Career_Information_and_Education_Req
uirements.html
http://www.premiersportpsychology.com/
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/sportspsychology/a/sportpsychedu.htm
https://www.psych.utah.edu/undergraduate/courses.php
http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/certified-consultants/become-a-certifiedconsultant/
http://www.apa.org/education/grad/mentoring.aspx

http://www.premiersportpsychology.com