Ian Connole

Ian received his bachelor’s degree and played basketball at Skidmore College, where he discovered his passion for sport psychology. Since then he has dedicated himself to understanding the mental side of athletic performance and teaching these skills and theories to help athletes excel in sports and in life.

He attended California State University—Fullerton for his master’s degree in Sport Psychology / Performance Enhancement and West Virginia University for degrees in Counseling (M.A.) and Sport and Exercise Psychology (Ph.D.). Ian spends much of his time away from work playing basketball, running, golfing, traveling, watching sports, cooking, and spending quality time with friends and family. He also enjoys road trips, camping, skiing, white water rafting, rock climbing, 30-day challenges, laughing, and meeting new people.

His academic research interests include mental toughness, sport psychology into youth sports, evaluation and effectiveness in psychological skills training, and integrating sport psychology into intercollegiate athletic departments. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation, using conjoint analysis to investigate athletic administrators’ preferred characteristics of sport psychology positions in intercollegiate athletics. His goal is to better understand this market in order to integrate sport psychology positions in ways that can help support student-athletes, coaches, and athletic departments in their pursuits.