The Challace J. McMillin Center for Sport Psychology at James Madison University offers programs in Virginia designed to educate athletes, coaches and parents how mental skills can increase performance on and off the field of play. We provide mental training for all sports, skill levels, and ages. Learn More About Us
Our programs:
- Teach athletes how to gain a mental advantage in sport and life.
- Help coaches enhance their athlete’s development.
- Inform parents how to support their child’s pursuit of excellence.
Learn how to support your athletes even more
Coaching Life Skills Through Sport is a free self-paced, online course that teaches coaches the latest evidence-based strategies for developing life skills and provides a workbook to guide participants in building a manageable life skills program in their own coaching practice. Additionally, it provides examples of how high school coaches are putting these strategies into action within their sport programs. Specifically, participating coaches will learn to:
- label and define key life skills for their program,
- identify strategies for coaching life skills to student-athletes, and
- develop plans to incorporate the strategies during their sport’s season.
Over 88% of surveyed coaches who completed the course found the content very relevant to extremely relevant to their coaching context. Further, these coaches evaluated the course positively (i.e., ease of navigation, organization, and lectures/scenarios/coach videos/workbook activities noted as helpful).
Learn more on the course website, or check out the executive summary for valuable information about some more course details.
"Excellence is the gradual result of always wanting to do better. Excellence is never having learned enough."
-Pat Riley
Lauren Shoss, M.Ed. | McMillin Center Graduate Assistant
Lauren develops programmatic materials for Dukes Excel, is a workshop presenter for local teams/coaches, and meets with athletes in the community to enhance their mental health and mental performance
Research Interests: athletic identity, athletic career transitions and retirement, mental toughness, stress management, and athlete well-being
Trauma Responsive Coaching
Check out this article to learn how you can build life skills with your athletes through trauma responsive coaching!
