Wolfpack Gets A Mental Edge
6/1/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
BRADENTON, Fla. - Of the 24 teams that advanced to the NCAA Women's Golf Championship, NC State was the only school that brought along a full-time sport psychologist. The Wolfpack is hoping that can bring a mental edge with them to Florida this week.
Not only is NC State the only school to bring its full-time sport psychologist to the golf finals, but it is estimated that only about 25 schools across all of NCAA Division I have a full-time sport psychologist on staff.
Dr. Michelle Joshua has been with NC State University full-time for two years (for one year in athletics) after spending eight years in private practice, consulting for NCSU. Joshua says NC State has made an impressive commitment to giving Wolfpack student-athletes the tools to succeed mentally.
"We're lucky at NC State that this has been made a priority," NC State sport psychologist Dr. Joshua said.
Joshua became involved with NC State's student-athletes after years of work as a private practice sport psychologist and counselor. She started working with the Wolfpack as a consultant via the athletic department's sports medicine staff. After several years of working as a consultant, Assistant AD/Sports Medicine Rob Murphy suggested she come on full-time.
In addition to working with NC State's teams and coaches, Dr. Joshua meets individually with student-athletes from across the Wolfpack's 23 programs who are interested in working with her, and services are confidential outside of sports medicine personnel. She works with the student-athletes on everything from dealing with stresses of college and everyday life to improving sport performance.
She became interested in her field as a college athlete at Rutgers, when an injury prematurely shortened her rowing career. She kept on in the boat as a coxswain, steering and commanding her boat in crew competitions. She recognized different things she said as motivation produced varying results, and enjoyed finding out what made her teammates row faster.
"That's sport psychology," Dr. Joshua said.
Dr. Joshua talked about the aspects of golf that everyone figures is most obvious to success - the talent, the skill, the strategy. The most successful players are the ones who are able to be the most often consistently at their best.
"The golf coaching staff and student-athletes are very in-tune with the mental aspects of their golf performance," Joshua said. "I think Page would attribute a lot of her success as a player to having the right mindset. She supports that for her student-athletes as well."
In golf, a large part of Joshua's mission is to help the student-athletes find their mindset of when they're playing well - and stay there. "A lot of it is helping the players become self-aware. What is the right mindset for them when they play well? What gets in their way when they don't play so well. They can work on changing that and work on applying that during their round.
"In golf, confidence is key. If you're not entirely confident in your ability to make a shot or play well, you're probably not going to. People can talk about feeling confident, but it probably won't play out that way until they get there emotionally and trusting in themselves and their abilities. Golf at this level is largely a mental game, especially in situations where there may be more pressure. They want to win a national championship."
That consistent success and mental edge are what NC State women's golf - and all of State's athletics programs - are trying to get in its head.