Barnabas Medical Behavioral

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Making winners into champions
In addition to championship football teams, we have been focusing a lot of energy on working with individuals pursuing optimum performance training. These individuals include professional athletes, collegiate athletes, Olympic hopefuls, Army rangers, business CEOs and gifted high school athletes. Such specialized individual work allows the highest level of performance training.

Dr. Cooper-Lewter and Dr. Zaepfel 2009
Drs. Zaepfel and Cooper-Lewter leading the Barnabas Optimum Performance team pictured here on sidelines of the 2009 state championship game.
Baranabas Sports worked with the 2009 Football team in a "re-building" year to enjoy another state championship!!

Dr. Cooper-Lewter Featured In Edition of the Carolinian
Doctor Cooper Lewter (right) with(L-R) Jasper Brinkley (football), Jonathon Forterberry (track),Casper Brinkly (football), Linsay Therio and Dominique Lenjel (swimming) Good luck Jasper and Casper in your pro football careers (that followed USC). And OUCH Jasper - we think your Vikings should have made it to the Super Bowl!!

Nicholas Cooper-Lewter, a social work instructor at Carolina, would add that Berra's malapropism is true for athletes of every stripeand non-athletes, too. Back when sports psychology was still a new phrase, Cooper-Lewter was working with professional boxers, Olympic-hopefuls, entire football teams even, using hypnosis and other techniques to help them achieve at a higher level.

Cooper-Lewter has a master's in social work, a Ph.D. in psychology, and a simple mantra: I want to help people who have lost to win and people who win to become champions.

At Carolina, Dr. Nick is applying his considerable experience to a popular course entitled Overcoming the Odds in Sports. Oddly enough, the class attracts students who've never touched a football or baseball along with plenty of student athletes. Success leaves clues, he tells them. Look for people who are successful in whatever it is you want to do. Study their habits, learn how they do things, and then emulate their behavior.

Cooper-Lewter tries to instill in his students a deep sense of self worthnot based on athletic prowess or external performance but on their potential as human beings. I want them to see that elite sports last for a short while. You can be a winner on the inside your whole life.

Jasper Brinkley, USC's junior middle linebacker from Thomson, Ga., declares studying with Dr. Nick is a life-changing experience.

One of the big things is that it changes your perception of the world around you, said Dan Luczak, a pitcher on the Gamecock baseball team, of Cooper-Lewter's class. He helps you to change the way you look at the world and how you perceive yourself.

Jonathan Fortenberry is a 400-meter sprinter who completed his degree in retailing and is studying African-American studies in his final year of college. He overcame a torn Achilles heel injury and met Cooper-Lewter during the recovery process.

You get around him, and he seems so peaceful. It's like this man really loves his life, Fortenberry said. I'm like, Dang, I want to love my life like that."

Jason Pappas, director of academic support at the University of Southern California, was assistant director for academic support services at the University of South Carolina. He's sold on Cooper-Lewter's approach to teaching.

He really cared about students in general, not just athletes, Pappas said. He knew how to set examples for being successful in life, about going the extra mile.

Why is he successful in reaching students? He can relate to them because he was in sports, and he has succeeded in life. It makes you feel confident to be in his classroom, and people respond to that.
Barnabas Optimum Performance - an interdisciplinary performance group that exists to implement a variety of integrated, professional services that focus on increased performance including and emphasizing sport psychology services. Our primary task is to make proven performers into the best performers: making winners into champions.
Making winners into champions.

The Elite Athlete and the Mental Game

Before his totally unacceptable behavior off course, if you asked any professional golfer what differentiated Tiger Woods from the rest of the field, without hesitation, you would hear this answer: Its his mental game; his mental toughness. What separates good athletes from elite athletes is their mental game. What separates high performers from elite performers is, likewise, their mental approach. It's no coincidence that more and more of the world's best golfers have sport psychologists. It's a mental game and especially so at the elite level of play.
In light of Tiger's off course behavior I must be clear that I am in no way advocating that Tiger should any longer be a role model. However we can still learn from aspects of his game alone. Despite the off course events, it is still helpful to consider this athlete more for what his parents did for him at an early age to help him become a world class performer. And that involved mental training. (We do wish Tiger well in his recovery and stated desire to seek to live a life "of dignity." He'll now be continuing to grow as a person through more traditional ways of receiving mental therapy and addictive rehabilitation.)
So let's be clear again: learning about Tiger's game is not at all the same as being like Tiger. I can teach young men many good points from Annika Sorenstam's game too - that doesn't mean they will have to wear a skirt off course. So please bear with me and focus on the issue of performance - the importance of understanding and incorporating the mental approach for top performance, and the role of parents early in the development of an athlete - and not make any assumptions that poor off course (or on course for that matter) behavior is ever being considered.
We must also note that since Tiger's return to the pro tour his mental game has taken a beating and just isn't what it formerly was. It sure didn't help him at Quail Hollow. Due to these off tour events his mental abilities have taken a major hit. It will be interesting to see how he attempts to recoup these. But as far as our conversation goes, that Tiger - before the fall - possessed by far the best mental game.
Tiger learned his mental game from his father who was trained as an elite, Special Forces soldier. At an early age, Tiger asked his dad to make him mentally tough so that he could compete with the best athletes knowing that, without this psychological dimension, he could not compete successfully. Earl Woods became Tigers first unofficial sport psychologist. It should also be noted that Earl's best friend was a psychologist who was involved in Tiger's early athletic development as a family friend. So, in essence, at a very early age Tiger was benefiting from sport psychology. He may have been the first - or at least among the first- to do so. That is why he is important to consider.
Even though there are over a hundred graduate programs worldwide, the popular idea of sport psychology is relatively new and not well understood. Additionally, the concepts and applications pioneered by Barnabas Optimum Performance go beyond what most sport psychologists currently implement and further applies optimal performance training to many areas including sports. As implied, sport psychology attempts to achieve optimal performance in all realms of sports. The emphasis is on potential - not pathology. Simply stated the idea is this: sport psychology is the science and art of applying psychological knowledge, principles, skills and experience to achieve optimal performance. Psychological knowledge, as used in this discussion, is a broad, generic term including science, research, wisdom and experience from a variety of fields that enhance personal functioning applied to a specific and defined operation. It's teaching and developing athletes mental abilities to take them to the next level of play. What separates champions form good players is their mental game.
It is helpful to understand that sport psychology is not the same as clinical psychology, psychiatry or psychotherapy although these resources can be a part of a sport psychology approach as needed. Many people wrongly assume sport psychology is merely applying the same techniques and approaches that may be utilized in a psychologists office to a sports (or business or educational) setting. It could contain such components but goes much further and emphasizes maximal successful performance - not dysfunction..
Sport psychology and optimum performance fall under the broader banner of health psychology that focuses on healthy, functional, adaptive choices, cognition and behavior rather than on unhealthy, maladaptive, dysfunctional choices and behavior. This distinction is of major importance. Whereas traditional clinical psychology or psychiatry more generally addresses overcoming dysfunction, disease and/or disorder, health psychology more generally addresses improved or enhanced performance by a relatively psychologically healthy person. But even health psychology initially focused more on preventive measures rather than upon the pursuit and accomplishment of excellence. Traditionally the overall goal of clinical psychology and psychiatry was to attempt to remove negative psychological and/or disease processes while health psychology focuses more on obtaining positive, enhanced performance. A major distinction of performance oriented and sport psychology is the emphasis is on potential - not pathology.
Sport psychology then may be best defined as the positive implementation of the higher abilities of the individual mind and/or collaborative mindset to achieve a defined level of superior functioning applied to an athlete, coach, team and/or an athletes significant other relationships, stresses, or circumstances by a highly trained and knowledgeable expert(s). Similarly, a sport psychology program is the application of sport psychology to a larger, defined body to obtain optimal individual and/or team performance(s). It's the mental game that makes winners into champions.

The Barnabas Optimum Performance Group is an interdisciplinary team with advanced, innovative and specialized expertise in optimum performance training as applied to sports, personal, professional, educational and business achievement. Our primary task is to make proven performers into top performers and to make winners into champions.
Barnabas For Sports (BarnabasSPORTS) - a division of The Barnabas Performance Group that concentrates on sport performance.

Dr. Cooper-Lewter Dr. Zaepfel
Our primary vehicle for making winners into champions revolves around Neuroptimum Performance Training (NPT TM). Neuroptimum Performance Training is a highly specialized and integrated approach to attaining elite levels of performance developed and pioneered by Drs. Cooper-Lewter and Zaepfel, applied by an interdisciplinary team, incorporating data, experience and knowledge gained through years of work with elite athletes and business leaders, advanced training in psychology, health psychology (including sport psychology), behavioral medicine and clinical social work and related fields. NPT is further defined as an applied approach that is based upon an integrated, bio-psycho-social-spiritual implementation of enhanced performance strategies at each of these levels (the TREAT THE ELITE Model).
Please feel free to ask us about the athletes with whom we work and have worked. We are glad to discuss many of these elite performers (subject, of course, to matters of professional confidentiality).

We offer programs for high school, college and professional athletes. All programs begin with a comprehensive assessment that leads to a tailor made program for each unique individual. We also provide services to coaches, teams and parents/significant others (of athletes).
Note to Coaches
Our goal is to help you to help your athletes to perform at higher levels. We are particularly focused on making your top performers become elite performers for your team; for teams to become champions; and for every athlete to move to the next level of play (e.g., high school athletes becoming college athletes; college athletes becoming professional athletes; and professional athletes becoming champions.) We also offer services on working with teams and working with special players.
Note to Parents/Significant Others (of Athletes)
We realize that your input and participation is vital and of great importance. We want to help you do the things that best help your athlete but that also help you. You could be the parent (or significant other) of the next Tiger Woods. Let us help you get there.

What was that flash and whooshing sound? I felt a breeze but saw nothing. Recent technological filming techniques allow the viewer to see how Superman or the Bionic Woman can move at super-speeds such that everyone and everything else around them appears to be in slow motion or frozen in time as our hero/heroine cruises on by performing a rescue mission or dazzling feat. It is as if time slowed or stood still in comparison to the speed implemented by our hero/heroine as they raced by. If left to real time observation, such incredible performance would go un-noticed by the human eye which simply couldnt keep up.

Wouldnt it be amazing to watch Superman play football? Of course wed have to set some super limits on him for it to be even close to fair. If not hed just cake walk though the toughest, strongest lines, run at super speed, fly around end sweeps, or pass to himself. There would be no defense. So in our game lets say he can only play quarterback and must stand in the pocket every play. Lets also say he can only throw at human speeds (or else the ball might not only go through the receivers hand but through the receiver).

Can you imagine a quarterback that sees the entire play in slow motion? He sees every defensive back slowly implementing their coverage, and every lineman showing how he plans to attack the play. This super QB can also put the real-time activity on pause while he steps back to consider counter-strategies that would best fit his offense and every players unique situation. For example, he may see that his right end is not going to be able to beat his man, so he double checks his other receivers for better passing options. Or he sees a huge hole opening over his left guard. Once he sees the defenses hand and behavior then he is able to consider a variety of other options that best take advantage of the situation. He calmly, easily and proficiently gets the ball to the player best suited to make the big play every time. What an incredible advantage!

In the mid 70's, race car driver, Jackie Stewart, (as reported in his book, Faster) learned this mind ability such that, though he was driving at speeds over 200 mph, he felt like he was going 60 mph. In fact, at a speed of over 200 mph he could pick out family members in the crowd watching the event. What an incredible feat of mind!

Although these feats are certainly super, an athlete doesnt have to be superman to perform them!! Peak performances and being in the zone are psycho-physiological performance states of top athletes that can be learned and repeated. Loehr interviewed hundreds of elite athletes who gave a surprisingly similar account of zone performances: I felt like I could do almost anything, as if I were in complete control. I really felt confident and positive. I felt physically very relaxed, but really energized and pumped up. I experienced virtually no anxiety or fear, and the whole experience was enjoyable. I experienced a very real sense of calmness and quiet inside, and everything just seemed to flow automaticallyEven though I was really hustling, it was all very effortless (cited in Garfield & Bennett, 1984).

Elite athletes are very desirous of accomplishing such goals and performing at such levels. They understand what it takes to be the best and are willing to pay that price. Expert athletes are extremely confident and dedicated individuals who are willing to do anything to become the best. In becoming an elite performer, highly motivated athletes develop confidence, commitment, and the mental skills necessary for peak performances. (Durand-Bush and Salmela, 2001)

Not every athlete wants to perform at such an elite level. Unfortunately, some gifted athletes choose to coast along on their athletic laurels without pushing themselves to excel further. Others just dont know that such potential or opportunity exists. But the elite performer is looking for every edge and every advantage. He is motivated to excel and push himself to the next level.

Barnabas For Sports (BarnabasSPORTS) - a division of The Barnabas Optimum Performance Group exists to help all athletes achieve their very best performances, to help high performers to become elite athletes, and to help make winners into champions. We accomplish this largely via our Neuroptimum Performance Training which is a highly specialized, comprehensive and integrated approach to attaining elite levels of performance based upon an integrated, bio-psycho-social-spiritual implementation of enhanced performance strategies at each assessed level of intervention.

Thanks to Hammond athletic director Andy Edgren for acknowledging and endorsing our work. Thanks also for allowing us to be participate with your volleyball team. And to Coach Kimrey for his progressive thinking as a leader in incorporating sports psychology into his overall approach to football championship approach.

Though we cannot divulge most names due to reason of confidentiality and due to athletic performance trade secrets there are plenty of recognizable names that have used our sports psychology services and expertise - and some who have given permission to acknowledge our work such as Dennis Green and the Vikings; Jerry Quarry, Hammond School, University of S.C., etc.

And by the way - FORE! We frequently get asked about sport psychology for golf - after all - all the best players now use sport psychologists. How about sport psychology for golf? Of course it works in golf as has been demonstrated by the winners on the PGA Tour. It cannot replace good fundamentals and coaching but it can make those very things come alive. It can't make a duffer a decent golfer but it can make a good golfer great, and a great golfer into a champion. The mental game allows golf to be played at higher levels. But start with a good coach or PGA pro - then call us when you're really ready - and we'll help you become much better - if not great. It isn't easy and requires hard work. There are no short cuts or quick fixes. So why do we even make this statement? Because we get asked so much - and because Dr. Z loves golf - and sport psychology really works. HOWEVER - keep reading - especially if you're over 50. We do have some good mental stuff to pass along to you.

Any Old Dog worth his salt recognizes these fellas. These guys are looking for someone to complete their foursome - interested? Is your game a little too much like this? Might you fit in a little too well?
Want to play some great golf?

By Dr. Glenn Zaepfel
Do you know who Jack Fleck is? And his legacy in professional golf? He won an 18 hole playoff in 1955 over Ben Hogan to win the U.S. Open. It was supposed to be a cake walk for Hogans fifth U.S. Open and Fleck had only been on tour for six months. He also won the 1979 PGA Seniors Championship and was inducted into the Iowa Hall of Fame in 1989. After 70 years in golf he remained involved in the game and remains a top teacher and golf professional. He was born in 1921 but doesnt let his age slow him down whatsoever. Yes at that age.
The great thing about golf and perhaps what separates it from other sports is that it can be actively pursued at older ages pardon me since at my age I would be on the Champions Tour, lets make that champions ages. The Champions Tour was formerly called the Senior Tour but didnt accurately reflect upon how really good players can still be after 50 ask Tom Watson about the 2009 British Open. Incidentally, Mr. Fleck still keeps in contact and even uses some of our sport psychology material.
That begs the question Can you teach an old dog new tricks or, in this case, can you teach more seasoned golfers how to play better?" Even after the age of 50 we still like to compete; to win. What player over fifty doesnt want to still excel and compete? Maybe even more-so than at a younger age? We are hardly over the hill. So my answer is this: "Yes unequivocally you can teach an old dog new tricks it just takes a little longer. Mr. Fleck certainly does just that for himself and for others. In the same way more mature golfers who think they have tried everything to help their golf game can have very real hope for improvement by focusing on the mental game. Your golf pro can teach the game, the swing, and many other components and there are no shortcuts - but it takes a sport psychologist to help you really get your mental game to take you to the next level. The sport psychologist is not a coach but trains your brain to make all the other stuff really work. He builds on what is there and adds new capability.
In many ways a more mature golfer (over 50) has a number of advantages that younger players dont have. Unfortunately many champion aged golfers dont know how to tap into their inner resources or mental capabilities. A swing thought is great but there is so much more that can be done with our brains! And listen to this because it sounds weird but is very important: many champion aged golfers are - unnecessarily - too mentally old to understand and pursue the mental game. They simply figure they can take care of things all by themselves. They dont need any help. They know how to think just fine already. Maybe someone can help with their swing but not with their head. Besides they can tell themselves a few swing thoughts and should do just as fine. They will get a book or CD or ask a buddy. Old school. And old school approaches will work to some legitimate degree if youre content with mediocrity, staying pretty much the same, or just getting marginally better. Several years ago I even heard an old - not champion aged but old announcer state that a few drinks of scotch would be just as good as any sport psychologist. That kind of thinking explains why he was an announcer and not a competitive player.
Youve probably figured out that I have a heart for champion aged golfers who still desire to compete, excel and become much better than they know. So now a few thoughts you should know about the mental game and using a sport psychologist that apply especially for us champion aged players. Just as psychologists are THE experts on mental health so also sport psychologists are THE experts on the mental game. Getting a mental tip from another player, friend or coach is easy but getting your brain to make your body perform at a higher level is quite something else.
So for my champion aged golfing friends I want to make some of these things available. I really dont have time personally to take on new clients but I do have time to offer some general introductory help to those champion aged golfers who really do want to pursue elite levels of play. THEN if they show the resolve to help themselves I might be persuaded to help some more...and then more. There are no easy answers but there are some very smart ones. In the meantime keep it in the lush fairway between your ears! Fore!

AND...if you're of age (50 or older) then contact us for further info available for you at DrZaepfel@gmail.com (We'll be checking for identification and proof of maturity! Just let us know of your interest and we'll get you a short mental game series for the serious Champions-aged golfer. No cost - just a gift from one ol' dog to another who wants to see ol' dogs whip up on the whipper snappers. ENJOY - HAVE FUN! And watch your game get better and smarter! As we say around here: "Get your head optimally in the game!!")