New Sports Psychology Class Offered at Highland

Highland is offering many new classes for the upcoming year, and one of the classes available is sports psychology. Sports psychology is a science involving the study of what factors will help athletes to perform as well as possible.  It takes knowledge from physiology, biomechanics, and psychology to teach athletes techniques in staying focused and not cracking under the pressure sports can put on people. The class will be taught by Ted Sierer, a language arts and AP psychology teacher at highland.  Sierer is currently finishing his master’s degree in psychology and has taught AP psychology for the one year it has been available at highland. 

                “Sports psychology is really interesting because it talks a lot about pressure and how to perform,” Sierer said, “as a coach I’ve known for a long time that athletes need to be just as strong mentally as they need to be physically.” 

                Sierer believes that this class will really help benefit the school, allowing for students to gain an understanding of what needs to be done in preparation for sports. Sierer is not the only one who is eager to get the class going, though. 

                “I’m psyched – get it, like psychology,” Zachary Koltz, a Highland student and athlete said, “I think that it will be really interesting and helpful for wrestling.”

                The class would benefit all athletes, but it is also a good pathway into jobs in the psychology field.  Sierer expects that in talking about techniques to help athletes prepare themselves, students will also learn how to work with other athletes and hopefully get kids interested in becoming a sports psychologist. 

                “There’s a lot of things that sports psychologists can do, like working with physical therapists,” Sierer said, “they could help an athlete recover psychologically after an injury, while the physical therapist could help them prepare physically.”

Sports psychologists can work on their own as well, and there are even people who travel with big college teams to help the athletes stay focused on their sport.  Koltz is one student who would take the skills learned in the class and likely apply it to his profession. 

                “I’m going into sports medicine as a career,” Koltz said “so this class will hopefully help prepare me to go into that field.”

Sierer is hoping to have two sports psychology class periods, and it seems as though that will happen.  Because of the large amount of students showing interest in the class, it appears that it will be a well-liked, successful class.