Dr. David B. Coppel, Ph.D. is a respected clinical psychologist, neurophysiologist, and sports psychologist with a private practice in the Seattle Area. He is a professor at the University of Washington and over the past twenty-five years, Dr. Coppel has specialized in sports psychology (or performance psychology), through research, teaching classes, and conducting workshops for athletes and performers. He provides consultation for athletes, performers, teams, and coaches at the amateur, collegiate, Olympic, and professional competitive levels.

Recently, Dr. Coppel was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to give an interview with the Messenger.

Have you found anything about the psychological makeup of these elite athletes that they have in common?

Absolutely… Elite athletes seem to have a couple of characteristics that I’ve seen over and over again. The basic idea is that they have incredible perseverance. They [tend to be] people who, their responses to mistakes, their responses to bad outcomes is very positive…is very enhancing as opposed to detracting…They’re able to refocus exceptionally. In most cases they create goals and achieve them; that becomes a habit for them…generally, that extends to other areas of their life…[Another quality] that I’ve observed is that they don’t connect their belief or confidence in themselves with outcome. They have a sense of confidence about themselves that’s independent of how well they do. [For example], a person can miss a game winning shot in one game, but still be willing and focused to take the shot in the next game…Their confidence is high because it’s not tied only to outcome. It’s tied to their sense of effort and their belief in themselves.

Of these elite athletes, what have you found to be the ideal psychology of the ones that perform the best?

Well, they have a plan and a goal… [Athletes] who have peak performances generally have some sort of mental skills that they practice and it’s almost as valuable as physical practice. This is the part that a lot of coaches [and athletes] unfortunately don’t understand. As you move up competitively, the difference in performance is not physical as much as it is mental. At the Olympics, the difference between gold, silver, and bronze isn’t physical. It’s who is able to focus and who is able to produce the mental skills to have a peak performance. They also have great arousal control. They’re able to deal with normal increase in anxiety and keep it at a level that is optimal for their performance.

Do you feel that an athlete’s upbringing affects their psychology at all?

How could it not? We are our upbringing and environmental experiences or models we see. Often our experiences with trauma or positive experiences all help mold us into how we see the world and how we respond. A lot of times people who have dealt with loss in their lives or people or who have strong models or strong inspiration in their life have differing attitudes and that can, but not always, affect performance. There’s all kinds of things that impact or buffer the upbringing. There are people from the same upbringing who have different outcomes and there are people from different upbringings who have the same outcome, positive or negative…It is true that some of the people that have a more arduous or difficult path, in my opinion, tend to have acquired some real survival skills and may, depending on how other factors affect them, be able to deal with certain bumps in the road a little more effectively. But other people who haven’t had as hard a time can still acquire those skills as well. I don’t think there’s any sort of ideal or worst upbringing that affects performance.

The most publicized incidence of violence athletes in recent memory has been the Ron Artest incident. What is it about sports that makes competitors act out violently?

I don’t know that it’s anything inherent in the sport itself. I think there’s a lot of factors influencing why athletes acted out in that instance. There is a trend in our society…there’s a real early on professionalization of a lot of athletes [that, for] some of your high school [and] college athletes, creates a real sense of entitlement and a real sense…that the rules don’t apply to them. There’s a lot of factors in the cultures and subcultures of sports that contribute to acting out. The question of the fans role in the incident that you described: Where are the boundaries? Whose job is it to control themselves more or to regulate themselves more? The implication is that it’s the pro athlete who should…If they feel that they are somehow being disrespected or threatened, they feel that they have to defend themselves. Sometimes players act out. You have athletes who are in sports where defending your position, defending your space on the court or the field, of being tough, being strong, not backing down, being willing to confront…are all positive assets in their sport. To think that athletes — and most of them do, but not all — can know when that ends and be able to not do it. If you’ve got a boxer, he’s got to know that you can’t punch out a guy whose threatening him. It isn’t the boxing ring, it’s not training, it’s not any of that. It’s [a part of] being in society, it’s interacting with the public. You can’t do that. That’s more of an obvious example. [Ron Artest] is an enforcer, he has a lot of other skills, but he’s a tough player. So now, all of the sudden, in an instant he’s supposed to not be tough if he feels that there’s something bad going on or he feels threatened or somebody throws something at him. Some athletes are better at being able to walk away or endure it. Some are better able to say “gee, that’s a screwed up spectator. I don’t have to respond to that.” Others don’t feel a need to [react]. It’s complicated.

Do you feel that violence is at all inherent to sports?

Well contact is. You have sports that are non-contact— supposedly — and contact sports and there are collision sports. You can make a distinction. Basketball is a contact sport, but it isn’t a collision sport. Football is a collision sport— you make contact in that kind of way. Soccer, played at [the elite] level, has a little bit of contact and collision with slide tackles and so on and so forth. Is that violent? There’s aggression, there’s motor movements that often impact each other. Is that an act of violence if it’s done within a game? It’s a violent game. Pro football here is a violent game. Ultimate fighting championships are violent. Is it violence as in war? No. Is it violence as in an assault on a person? Not in the same way because it’s done within some degree of rules. Boxing is violent, [but] on the other hand it has rules. Most ideas of violence aren’t going to have rules. So it isn’t quite in the same category as the kind of crime violence or other things you might expect.

So, do you consider sports to be a safer outlet of aggression?

Well there’s a theory that they helps us outlet some of our aggression. That’s probably true for some individuals. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a human need. You know, I’m not sure. That’s kind of a good question for the ages. You can argue that there have always been wars independent of sports. Sports can be a unifier for different people on the same team. They can also provide for a comfortable venue for more collegial interactions every four years or every two years at the Olympics. [They provide us] with some sense of being in the world as partners as opposed to opponents every few years or at a world games. They can be a joiner in a positive sense, but on the other hand they may also help divert some of our aggression for individuals.