Husky Sport Psychology

• Menu of Services

Dr. Jim Bauman

Intercollegiate athletics has evolved, over the years, into a business of sport. Today's collegiate athletes seem to have a much different set of athletic, academic, and personal sources of pressures and stress than their counterparts of 15-20 years ago. Every year, the academic and athletic standards of performance continue to increase. Collegiate athletes are expected to train year around, be stronger, more ballistic, more athletic, have more endurance, more resilient, smarter, and more committed to their sport. Their concurrent and challenging academic requirements are threaded around and through their demanding athletic schedules. They regularly have to train, compete, and study through the constant strain of physical pain, injury, rehabilitation, and travel associated with being a student-athlete. Not only is staying healthy an important component to being a successful student-athlete, so is effectively juggling their time between two very time intensive activities...athletics and academics.

Additionally, the general public often fails to realize that the athletes they are watching must contend with the very same life circumstances that the fans deal with on a regular basis. Our athletes deal with illness, injury, "bad days at the job", "good days at the job", relationship issues, financial issues, personal and family tragedies, car problems, on and on. But, even with all those issues, they are still expected to somehow set these life distracters aside and perform at the top of their game, every time they put on a uniform or open a text book.

In 2009, the athletic department recognized these demands and hired a full-time sport psychologist to create a program that provides a broad range of services. That range includes mental health, sport specific mental skill training, team dynamics, injury rehabilitation, character development, education, and assisting with life circumstances that can clearly affect athletic and academic performance.

The Sport Psychology office is located in the Conibear Shell House, but a good sport psychologist is at practices, at competitions, in athletic medicine, in the high performance facility, conferring with academic services, networking with other providers on and off-campus, talking with athletes, talking with staff, and...of course...standing in the rain with everyone else.

For more information, check out the "Menu of Services" or stop by the office:

Jim Bauman, PhD
Licensed Psychologist
Conibear Shell House Room #140
206-616-4565 or jbauman@u.washington.edu