It’s All in the Mind : Oregon Track Athletes Are Taking Lead in New Field of Sports Psychology

At the start of the season, University of Oregon discus thrower Kevin Carr taped 3-by-5 cards around his apartment, reminders that he was a world-class athlete.

“Around the time I hung those up, I was throwing 181,” Carr said during a break in his workout at Hayward Field. “Since then, I’ve improved my throw by 13 feet.

“I’ve made advances physically, but not to that extent,” he said. “That’s why I can attribute it to the mental training.”

The cards are one of the techniques Carr learned from local residents Kay Porter and Judy Foster, authors of the book, “The Mental Athlete--Inner Training for Peak Performance.”

“The basic assumptions of mental training are that the pictures we create in our minds have real power,” Porter said.

“It’s a form of training no different than taking yourself out to your coach and doing your physical training,” said Foster.

Eugene, meantime, is becoming sort of a mental training mecca, as the idea of sports psychology catches on with teams and individuals.

“When I started eight years ago, people looked at me as though I had radiation burns,” said Scott Pengelly, who calls himself the “head couch” at Nike’s Athletics West track club. “Now I can talk with folks and they’ll know many of the fundamentals.”

But Athletics West Coach Bob Sevene, personal coach of 1984 Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit, thinks mental training in sports still hasn’t been fully tapped.

At his club, he said, “there isn’t one athlete who isn’t an elite. But why is one an Olympic champion and one is just so-so? The mental aspect is the difference.

Sevene said top athletes like Benoit develop the mental side of their sport naturally.

“The real great ones, one of their gifts is to visualize totally,” he said. “Joanie--no question about the fact she probably ran the Olympics hundreds of times (in her mind).”

For athletes who have the physical tools, but lack the mental gifts, there are people like Porter and Foster, who for a fee of $30 a hour will teach an athlete to relax, think positively, and use the mind to tune the body.

They start by having athletes list goals.

“A goal is more than wanting to win,” Porter said. “What you are doing is establishing a consistent program for training.”

They also develop a series of positive self-statements--like Carr’s 3-by-5 cards--which athletes can use to build confidence and allay fears.

“As you continue to say them, they become more true,” Foster said.

“We found interviewing Mary Decker (Slaney) and (Alberto) Salazar that they have always done this naturally,” Porter said.

Then they teach athletes a type of self-hypnosis so they can visualize themselves in an event.

“Visualization is like making movies in your mind,” Porter said. “The key is to make your mind movie doing your event perfectly.

“When you visualize, it creates neural patterns in the brain just as if the body had actually done this,” she said.

The benefits can sometimes spill over into athletes’ private lives.

“One athlete came in and said, ‘Is this supposed to work in life? My grades are getting better,’ ” Foster said.

Porter and Foster wrote a visualization for the Boston Marathon that runners can record and listen to as part of their training.

“You’re on Chestnut Hill Avenue now. You see Bill Rodgers’ store,” it says. “You remember your strategy. You begin to feel the excitement growing in your body--new energy. Only three miles to go as you pass the brownstones on both sides of the road.”

Sally Harmon, the 1985 women’s NCAA javelin champion and a coach at Oregon, used mental images of a horse, cobra and a skipping rock to fine-tune her technique.

“I find as a coach a lot of my athletes can’t make the connection real well,” she said. “They see it, but they can’t feel it.”

She hopes to use mental training to bridge that gap. Some coaches and players, however, reject the idea outright.

“You still run into people calling it a lot of mumbo-jumbo,” Pengelly said. “A lot of people using it don’t want to be seen as a wimp or pansy, so they take that approach.”

Carr isn’t one of them. He’s learned how to keep from choking in competition.

“In throwing, you always go back to your old stuff if you are nervous and afraid about losing,” Carr said. “Now my attitude is just go out there and throw. You sort of brainwash yourself that you are really good. It’s more fun not being worried about it all the time.”