Associate Dean and CEP professor collaborate to create first-of-its-kind performance assessment

Thanks to the collaboration of two HEST professors, some coaches can now create a personalized mental profile of youth sports participants.

Phillip Post, HEST associate dean for academic affairs and kinesiology professor, and Michael Kalkbrenner, professor and director of the M.A. clinical mental health counseling program, were approached by IMG Academy to create the mental performance assessment. IMG Academy is a leading sports education brand that provides a holistic education model for student-athletes through innovative on-campus and online experiences.

Through data collected from thousands of student-athletes, Post and Kalkbrenner performed several rounds of analysis to identify the most important mental characteristics. Working from an initial set of 15 previously identified characteristics, they pinpointed five factors that are important for youth athletic performance, setting a new benchmark for the future of mental performance coaching.

“This instrument allows certified mental performance consultants to evaluate strengths and areas of growth for youth sports participants, thus building effective personalized mental training programs that will enable youth sports participants to achieve their full potential,” says Post.

The five primary attributes linked to psychological excellence in youth athletes are confidence, commitment, resilience, focus and handing pressure. With this groundbreaking innovation, IMG has already integrated the assessment into its on-campus programming and is planning to expand into various other platforms. Eventually, the hope is to empower educators and coaches globally to elevate the standards of sports education worldwide.