Mike Margolies

Mike Margolies

 Special Skills and Abilities 

•  Mental Trainer and coach to 125 collegiate, World Class and Olympic athletes 
• Trained over 2000 athletes on the mental game
• Author of The Athlete Within You (release date: July, 2011)
• Significant long-term success as mentor and scholar-athlete to all my students, many of whom were seriously at-risk
• Thirty-five years successfully  coaching soccer, football, baseball and basketball at high school and university levels
• Extensive real-world business experience  including budgeting, hire and fire, conflict management and progressive discipline
• Have kept up with current technology applications, to include website management,  troubleshooting, hardware and software selection 

2013 Experience:

Certified Mental Trainer® February, 2013

• Client signs professional MLS Contract
• Business Client promoted to Vice President
• Client earns spot in College Gymnastics (Brown)
• Client earns swimming scholarship (Boise State)
• Client earns Softball scholarship (NC State)
• Client earns tryout in CFL
• Client earns scholarship to play football (WSU)
• Business client moves up to large corporation
• Client places no less than 6^th of 30 in 10 consecutive Show Events
• Client earns golf scholarship after being a 3 year walk on (UW)
• Three clients earns soccer scholarships
• Client Jr A Hockey Team finished 3^rd in league
• Hired to be seminar leader at Jr. Elite Hockey Showcase in Denver
• Invited speaker at Phenom Elite basketball Camps
• Asked to do radio show on mental training
• Asked to blog for sport psychology web site in UK
• Blogging for Jr Hockey web site on mental training
• Asked to partner for client appreciation by Merrill Lynch

REPRESENTATIVE PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

MENTAL TRAINING and SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY:

I consulted with a world class decathlete and helped prepare him for the Moscow Olympics. I taught him to master imagery rehearsals, and he used what I taught him to increase his point totals in seven of his ten events. Overall he achieved a 21% performance improvement in less than one year, a phenomenal increase for a world class athlete already at the top of his game. We lost contact over the years, but he recently found me on LinkedIn because he wanted to acknowledge me and thank me for what I did for him 30 years ago

Training the third-ranked US figure skater for eleven months to prepare her for the World Championships in Cincinnati, Ohio was a real challenge. Her coach, known to dislike sport psychology consultants, grudgingly accepted me as part of the team. For a grueling eleven months I coached her to acquire the necessary skills of mental toughness and unwavering determination to handle the stress of international competition. I taught her to cope with the pressure of her competitors and her coach. She won the Bronze Medal at that competition. Her traditional nemesis, the one who had always come in ahead of her, failed to medal.  She earned a spot on the US Olympic Team.

I was the sport psychology consultant to a 15 year old figure skater.  He was technically great, but inconsistent.  By utilizing relaxation training and cognitive behavioral intervention exercises, I taught him to stay relaxed and stress free even during tough competition.  Through a series of unique exercises I created including visualization techniques he patiently practiced daily, I also trained him on how to utilize his emotions to portray feeling on the ice without loss of focus.  I mentored him for two years on the mental skills required to be a world class athlete.  He went on to win the World Jr. Championship at 16.  He later became a two –time World Champion and went to the Olympics.  Author of The Athlete within You – A Mental Approach to Sports and Business

SCHOLAR-ATHLETES:

I believe the concept of “scholar athlete” it is of critical importance as a role model for today’s youth. For over 35 years, I have striven to be that role model. I have written or presented over 30 papers on sport psychology, soccer and the environment.  I have written a book on sports psychology (The Athlete Within You) that will be released in July 2011.  My first paper was delivered at a National Convention on Stress Management.  At 25 years old, I was the youngest presenter at the conference.

I have taught and coached at four universities (University of Denver, Metropolitan State University Denver, University of Virginia, and University of Wyoming). At each institution, I was fortunate to be able to develop my own curriculum, supervising student teachers and training new coaches. Ever a believer in grass roots community development, I created and successfully conducted a community-based course on the Psychology of Coaching that I used as a community outreach program in rural Wyoming and Colorado and taught at the University of Wyoming. At that university, my students voted me as their favorite instructor.  The success of my course and the

honor the students bestowed upon me is particularly meaningful to me because rural Wyoming and rural Colorado are not known for embracing those outside their community.

COACHING:

I have coached soccer for over thirty-five years. I have coached High school and Club soccer. During the course of my career, over 125 of my high school athletes went on to play at the collegiate level. Prior to working with them in high school, many of them had not played anything more than at the recreational level, and I was able to develop their technical skills and their mindsets to such level that they achieved varsity status. One of my teams won a national championship in soccer, and my teams have been successful at every level.

ADMINISTRATION:

The degree of behind-the-scenes administrative activity in support of an effective athletics program is a staggering on-going balancing act. As the District II Vice President of Competition and Development for Washington Youth Soccer, I managed the scheduling of league play for five age groups ranging in age from 13 to 19 and covering a total of 7,500 athletes throughout the eastside.  I managed multiple competition levels for both boys and girls

sports. In my spare time, I also managed the top girls’ league in Washington, supervised discipline of coaches and reviewed / resolved conflicts as they occurred.  

As Vice President of Development for Washington Youth Soccer, I managed, created and increased all manner of coach education and player development programs. My efforts impacted over 2000 coaches and 126,000 players.

ADMINISTRATION- Continued

I administered an annual average education budget in excess of $175K and designed and implemented an annual

review system of both staff and volunteers and expanded the organization’s volunteer base. My successors, retaining and building upon the foundation I laid, now service a vibrant and proactive 126,000 player organization.  

MENTORING:

Our schools are filled with talented young at-risk high school athletes that for one reason or another have been written off by the system. Probably my greatest pleasure as a coach and sports psychologist is to be able to salvage someone like that and know I have started them on a road to success. I mentored one such football player, teaching him the mental skills required to succeed not only in sports but in life. I taught him self-discipline and how to set goals and focus on their achievement. He became a success both on the field and in the classroom, graduating high school and college. Recently I received a thank you card from him letting me know he had opened his medical practice in Florida. 

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT:

Already a business reality at the college level, high school athletic directors will need to add business acumen, negotiations and marketing awareness to their existing skill sets. I already have all of that. As vice president of development, coach and player education director for the Washington Youth Soccer, I was able to shift high school girls’ competitive soccer to the winter season so it was no longer in competition with girl’s high school soccer. There were sound business and health reasons to make the change, but for reasons of their own Washington State Youth Soccer had blocked the initiative for over 20 years. The players rejoiced at the change because it gave them more time for rest and recuperation between games. At the end of the season, I took personal initiative to contact every varsity coach in King County to see what impact the change had on them and their players. Across the board, they were satisfied with the change, largely because major knee injuries were down a whopping 93% over the previous year. While mine was an unofficial survey, it was nonetheless valid and I reported my findings to the State. The one-year program was renewed for three years, and has been adopted permanently.

RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Owner, The Mental Game, Sport Psychology Consultants. Issaquah, WA. 1983 – Present.

Providing educational and consultative services to athletes, teams and business on the mental game

·         Wherever I have lived since 1983, I have always offered private sport psychology – sometimes as my full-time work and other times on weekends and evenings when I was someone else’s employee

College Teaching

University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY. August, 1984 – June, 1986 

Lecturer: Sport Psychology, Curriculum, Pedagogical Studies. Supervised student teachers
Physical Education Activities (Soccer, Handball, Racquetball, Archery)

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. September 1981- August 1984

Teaching Fellowship: Sport Psychology and Physical Education Activities (Soccer, Handball, Racquetball, Weight Training)

Metropolitan State College, Denver, CO. June, 1977 – December, 1977

Physical Education Instructor. (Swimming for conditioning, Swimming, handball, racquetball, Weight Training, water skiing,)

University of Denver, Denver, CO. August, 1976 – June, 1977.

Teaching Assistantship. (Soccer, Fencing, Fitness, Volleyball, Orienteering)

ADDITIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE:

Kinsbursky Brothers, Inc. Anaheim, CA. October, 1987 – April, 1996

Director of Environmental Affairs

            Toxco, Inc. [KBI affiliate]:    Board of Directors 1994 -1996

            Alberta Ltd. [KBI affiliate]:   Board of Directors 1991 -1993

EDUCATION:

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. August, 1981 – July, 1983

Ed.D. program in Sport Psychology. All but dissertation (ABD)

University of Denver, Denver, CO. August, 1976 – July, 1977

Master of Arts in Sport Science / Sport Psychology

Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. January, 1974 – June, 1976

Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education

AFFILIATIONS AND APPOINTMENTS:

Business Organizations:  Mental Training Inc.

Leadership:  Participant in NSCAA Diversity in the Workplace Conference,

·         Chair, PEMC, Northwest Environmental Business Council

·         Vice President, Professional Environmental Marketing Association, Seattle, WA

·         Governor’s Waste Management Task Force, Department of Toxic Substance Control

·         Editorial Advisory Board, “Canadian Hazardous Waste Management Magazine”,

·         Nominated to Board of Directors, Anaheim Chamber of Commerce

OUTSIDE INTERESTS:

·         Fly Fishing                  Cycling            Cooking      Hiking

·         Whitewater Rafting    Writing             Photography            Backpacking