Mustang Spotlight: Sports Psychology

SMU’s ‘Dr. Deb’ Assists Student-Athletes with Performance and Personal Issues

DALLAS – SMU Athletics’ first ever psychologist, Dr. Deborah Wade, is beginning her third year on campus, with a continuing goal of helping student-athletes improve athletic performance and better deal with their personal lives.

A Licensed Psychologist, Wade received her Masters in Education and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri and was a Fellow at the UM Hospital and Clinics in the neurology and psychiatry departments. She also interned in school psychology and has served as clinical director for two psychiatric hospitals.

At SMU, “Dr. Deb,” as she’s known, sees only student-athletes, from all sports, and works closely with the campus Health Center. Wade also has her own full-service practice, LifeWorks Counseling Center, in nearby Carrollton. Her husband, Mike, was SMU’s offensive coordinator under coach Forrest Gregg.

“We’re lucky that she’s here for us,” said football coach June Jones. “I think she does a lot of positive things with the kids. Our players know she’s there and available if they have any issues they need help with. And they don’t hesitate to talk to her.”

Men’s basketball coach Matt Doherty worked with a psychologist as a player at North Carolina. “First, you’re always worried about trust,” Doherty said. “Can you trust your athletes with this psychologist? After meeting Deb, and having her deal with some of my players, I trust her wholeheartedly.”

On Tuesday, Wade sat down in her office at Gerald J. Ford Stadium to discuss her role at SMU.

Dr. Deborah Wade

What was it like starting out as SMU’s first psychologist?

“The coaches were very gracious. Each one of the coaches I met right away and sat down and learned their philosophy and [their goals] so that I could always be on the same page. I want to be supportive of the coaches and the goals of the university.”

“Once school started that first year, I asked them if I could come into each one their welcome back meetings and just have five minutes: ‘This is who I am, this is where I am and this is what I do.’ And I mean, boom, it took off.”

“When we started out, I said we could probably do this one day a week. (laughs) That lasted about a month. Now I’m here two full days a week, from about 10 in the morning, until sometimes 7 or 8 o’clock at night, seeing athletes, back-to-back-to-back. And I love every minute of it.”

“If I still need to see more, I give everyone of my athletes my cell phone number. They know they can call me at any time. … And they never abuse it.”

Have you always been interested in sports psychology or is it something relatively new for you too?

“It’s always been an interest because I come from a sports family. My husband was a college football coach and a professional football coach [also with Coach Gregg in the CFL] for twenty years. And one of my sons played Division I baseball. … So, I’ve had it in my home.”

“When I got my doctorate, part of my degree was in sports, part of it was in marriage and family.”

Talk a little bit about what you do at SMU.

“Kids come in for different reasons. The great thing about it is these athletes bring themselves in. Nobody sends them in. They come in because they want to get better. They know they’ve got a mental block. … They want to overcome that so they can get back into the joy of the game again.”

“Sometimes it’s not about athletics at all. They’re homesick, some of that. Sometimes I’ve dealt with depression. We’ve diagnosed several kids that have had problems that may have gone undetected. And once they got themselves on track, everything changed for them. They started really enjoying college life again.”

“As I tell the kids, I work with the muscle between the ears. Your coaches are going to teach you technique and they’re going to teach you how to play the game to the best of your ability. I’m going to work on the muscle that’s in your head, and the one that’s in your heart that says, ‘What can I do to be the best I can be?’”

The mental aspect to athletic performance is huge, right?

“Oh, absolutely. I may have an athlete who says, I do great in practice … but, boy, when it’s game day, whatever the sport is, I’m underperforming. What’s that about? So we begin to unlock all of that. And we start looking at their self-messages and things in their head that they are telling themselves.”

“I always tell them, ‘You’re here because you’re a Division I athlete. You’re here because you’re good. We know that.’”

Do some have trouble dealing with the pressure of living up to expectations?

“I think there is some of that. There’s a lot of pressure on a college athlete. The academics here are not easy. The amount of time that they spend in the sport, to the average person, they would be surprised at how much devotion and dedication it takes, plus just working out and staying fit. Then they’re also trying to balance a little bit of a social life as well.”

“And you add the fact that they want to be the best they can be. In high school they were probably a star. They come here, they’re surrounded by stars. It’s all about, ‘I’ve got to find my niche and I want to feel confident.’”

“Some of them have just lost the passion or they look around and see the competition and they wonder if they can measure up. So it’s just about getting them to believe in themselves again.”

What’s tougher, dealing with a lack of confidence in a student-athlete or cockiness?

“You’ve got to find the healthy middle ground. I try to share with them that everything is on a continuum: you’ve got absolutely no confidence and cockiness. We want something in the middle that’s a little bit to the right. That’s healthy confidence.”

Can you prescribe medication?

“No. A psychologist can’t prescribe, but a psychiatrist can. I can diagnose. …. That’s the other great thing. One of the very first things I did when I got hired here was I went over to the [campus] Health Center and I introduced myself to the psychiatrists. And they’ve been absolutely wonderful in working from their location with our athletes.”

Do you discuss spiritual aspects with student-athletes?

“Absolutely. I personally am a believer and I let them go there first. If they do, then absolutely, because I find that there’s great solace in their belief system and in their spirituality.”

“Many, many of the kids use that as a source of strength.”

Has this been a rewarding endeavor for you?
“It’s the best job in the world.” … “The leadership of [SMU Director of Athletics] Steve Orsini is amazing. He sees no barricades and no roadblocks. If there was ever a positive thinker, he’s the model of it. So I think he sets the tone. There are no excuses and there are no boulders in the way.”

What success stories have meant a lot to you?

“I have a great story of a particular runner I worked with for a couple of years, who’s now graduated. Every time she would go to her event she would call me and say, ‘OK, the clock is ticking. I’m getting ready to take off. Give me some nuggets.’ So we would get her all shored up and off she’d go. She’d call me as soon as the race was over with, ‘This is how I did.’”

“[Then] I had a freshman my first year here, who came in and he was homesick, he was ready to go home. ‘I miss my family. I miss my girlfriend. I miss my pets. I miss everything about home. I don’t fit in here.’ So I kind of normalized it: the freshman experience is all about finding your place and what can we do to get you to feel like you’re connected to other people?”

“So he started getting connected, started having some success at practice. Coaches started noticing him. … Last year he came to me, popped his head in, and said, ‘I’m back. I can’t believe I almost gave all this up. And I just really want to thank you for helping me hang in there.’ So that was a full circle.”

“Another great story is an athlete who had heard words, whether they were spoken or imagined, I’m not sure, but the words sunk into this athlete and stayed there and began to grow a cancer. And they were, ‘You are a marginal athlete.’ And that athlete said, ‘I can’t get past that.’”

“We worked to unlock that. We used that whole mindset: you are already a winner because you’re here. Now what can we do to get you to believe in what your talents and your gifts are?”

“The great end result was that person - it was not a football player, it was an Olympic sport - went to the very top.”

“It was amazing, because that athlete began to believe. And that was all it was. The talent, the gifts, all of that, were all there. The belief system wasn’t.”

“You’ve got to believe it before you can achieve it.”

Student-athletes sometimes face strong criticism on fan message boards and elsewhere – and some of it is personal and demeaning. What are your thoughts on that type of fan reaction and its impact?

“Obviously they hear it, and they will share that with me - that they hear it in the classroom, they hear it walking across the campus. We talk about the reality that on a given Monday morning you could either be a hero or a zero. But that should not be allowed to penetrate what you believe in yourself.”

“So I always encourage them to almost put blinders on. The good news is we’re always in charge of our own filters: I filter in the good and filter out the bad. And I tell them, every one of the people that are complaining are not wearing shoulder pads on Saturday.”

“And you know what? That’s a life lesson.”

Are there some athletes who should never look at fan message boards?

“Absolutely. I think most coaches encourage them not to, because if that’s going to prick your heart and you’re going to carry that message around then stay away from it.”

“I encourage that too. Some articles are going to be negative and some people are going to be negative. And if you cannot put that in its proper place, then don’t read it.”

What about fans who become totally despondent or overly angry about their team losing?

“I would say, first of all, it’s a game. Let’s keep it in perspective. And secondly, if you can’t find the joy in this, then you need to put that away and get a life, to be honest with you. Because that’s way, way, way out of perspective.”

“I think these athletes here have it in perspective. I mean, they are committed and devoted and work their little tails off. … I have great admiration for them. But they also know it’s a game.”

“I think our internal controls should dictate how we feel versus finding what in the environment makes me feel good: today I feel good because it’s a pretty day out; yesterday I felt horrible because it rained. Rather, I think what is much more healthy is to say, ‘By golly, today I’m choosing to get up and have a great day!’”

Does any one sport have a higher percentage of kids seeking your counsel?

“Actually, percentage-wise, no. At the end of the first year and the end of the second year, Mr. Orsini allowed me to come into the head coaches’ meeting and I gave them feedback. I’m bound by confidentiality, of course, to keep everything that goes on in here private, but I did say, ‘I’ve got some numbers and I’d like to share these with you because they might surprise you.’ … Every single sport had been represented proportionately. It was almost even, all across the board.”

June Jones and others talk about changing the mindset at SMU to winning. Is that something you address?

“Yes. In fact, that is probably a common thread. One of the things I try to emphasize is when you come here you’re already a winner. So now how can that manifest into winning on the scoreboard?”

How can that translate to a team?

“If you’ve got each one of them beginning to turn that thinking around, before too long, the whole team concept changes, and we go out there expecting to win, not go out there hoping to win. That’s a whole different mindset. I talk a lot about expectations versus hope.”

Are you able to attend many SMU sports events?

“I’m at as many of them as I can get to. And [the athletes] know it. I think a good sign of knowing you’re connecting is when they say, ‘My mom’s going to be here this weekend. Are you going to be at the game?’ And I say, ‘I am!’ ‘Well, will you go down and meet my mom?’”

“I know then that I’ve connected. I’ve met lots of moms and dads and that’s really special.”