Counseling for Athletes and Sport Performance
Mental performance and sport counseling for athletes across Virginia performance anxiety, confidence, identity, and life after sport, with a counselor who played Division I baseball.
Who this page is for
Athletes at any level
Their parents
Their coaches
If you're a college student who isn't competing, college student counseling fits better. If the pressure you're under is a career rather than a sport, see counseling for high performers.
Your counselor
Your counselor threw up before games too
Zac Clinton pitched Division I baseball at Liberty. He was also this kid:
“I was the guy that struggled with performance-related anxiety, to the point where there were somatic symptoms before nearly every game. Nauseous. Sometimes would quite literally throw up before games.”
Which is the same kid parents bring us every season.
“I see a lot of kids that their parents will bring me, because it’s like, hey, they’re sick before nearly every game. They’re always overthinking. They’re always in their head.”
Underneath it is almost always one belief.
“The damaged belief system is the belief that, in a sense, you are what you do.”
Most athletes will tell you they don’t believe that. Their nervous system disagrees.
The question
Do you love to win, or do you hate to lose?
Ask an athlete and nearly every one of them picks a side.
“You either play because you love to win, or you play because you don’t want to fail. You hate to lose. And I think both aren’t really healthy. Because if you just play to win, what happens when you don’t? Inevitably you’re gonna get knocked down. There are gonna be setbacks. Nobody has a great day every day. But also, if you play just because you hate to lose, the question is what happens when you do. Because every athlete I’ve ever watched compete fails. Over and over and over again.”
There’s a third answer. Kobe Bryant, asked this same question in an interview, reportedly refused both options and said he just played because he loved the game.
When an athlete gets there, something changes.
“Failure again becomes your friend and no longer your foe.”
What’s happening in your body
Your body can’t tell fear and excitement apart
Heart racing. Breath quickening. Sweating. Tight stomach.
“Anxiety has the same physiological symptoms as excitement. Or preparation. Your heart starts to race, your breath begins to fasten, you start to sweat a little bit. All of the same things are the exact same. It’s just the way in which we interpret it.”
And the interpretation is trainable.
“The difference between those who win and those who don’t is the stories they tell themselves. I was just telling myself a losing story.”
There’s a related problem, and this is where well-meaning coaching backfires:
“The brain cannot comprehend the negative. So every time you say, stop being anxious, don’t miss this shot, I can’t strike out the brain doesn’t hear stop, don’t, can’t. It just hears what comes after it.”
You’ve watched this happen.
“That’s why you’ve got guys that go up there on an 0-2 count and they’re just thinking, don’t strike out, don’t strike out. And all of a sudden they start to swing at things that are in the dirt, way over their head. Because they’re playing defensively rather than playing in that freedom space.”
Most of the work is moving attention off what you’re trying to avoid and onto what’s actually in your control on this pitch.
The work
What we actually do
“Visualization-based work. Verbal persuasion. Cognitive defusion, separating them from the thought, so they can enact cognitive restructuring and cognitive rehearsal.”
This runs one-on-one and with whole teams. The team version is deliberately preventive, tools handed to athletes before anybody is struggling.
“I want to give you these things and I want you to start practicing them. And guess what? If there’s still something underlying that you’re struggling with, that’s where I want to work with you one on one.”
Everything shared in an individual session stays there. Coaches don’t get a report.
What actually moves performance
Relationships decide more of your performance than mechanics do
Ask athletes what’s affecting their season and they’ll say mechanics or conditioning. It’s usually not.
“I would say probably the number one thing is relationships. Relationship with yourself, relationship with your coach, relationship with your teammates, relationship with your significant other, with your family, with the Lord. Because all of those things begin to influence the way that you view yourself.”
What’s happening in your body
There will be a day you hang up the cleats
This is the conversation almost nobody has in time.
“It’s hard, because we always say, right, baseball isn’t your identity. Well, it’s easier said than done when it’s all you’ve done since the time you were four years old until you’re twenty-four. Two decades of life. Rep after rep, early mornings, late nights, sacrificing summer vacations, birthday parties.”
Zac walked off the field for the last time next to his best friend, a guy he’d played with since they were four. He’d had his best season. He had a fifth year available. He chose to stop. His dad was waiting at the car and could have made the case for staying.
“All he did, with tears in his eyes, was say, I’m so proud of the man you’ve become. And I think that’s what the process is all about. That’s what sports really are all about. It’s about who they help you become along the way, as adversity strikes, injuries come out of nowhere, failure threatens to cripple your identity. Who will you choose to become when life inevitably ambushes you and you never saw it coming?”
What you built in those years goes with you.
“The work ethic, the camaraderie, the resilience, all of these things can be taken and shifted into different assignments. But the mission never changes.”
We do this work with athletes before the last game, not after it.
Got questions? We've got answers
Same work, different license. "Psychologist" is a protected title in Virginia and means a doctorate in psychology plus a psychology license. Sport and performance counseling is delivered by a licensed counselor trained in performance psychology. For most athletes the practical difference is small. For formal psychological testing, we have a separate testing team.
A mental performance coach works on performance skills: focus, routines, confidence, handling pressure. A licensed counselor does all of that and can also treat what's underneath when the issue is anxiety, depression, or trauma rather than technique. Not sure which you need? Start with a conversation.
No. Most of this is preventive. Zac's framing: "Everybody needs some coaching there, because we're all under pressure at some point in life, and we all have to perform."
Yes, in team settings as well as one-on-one.
No. Individual sessions are confidential.
Take the first step
Before the last game, not after it.
Sport and performance counseling for athletes, parents, and teams across Virginia one-on-one and in team settings. You don’t have to have everything figured out before you reach out.