Gonzalez’s Mission: To Better the World and People’s Lives Through Sport

Dr. Stephen Gonzalez admits he is "obsessed" with how to make human beings better.

"My mission is very simple," he said. "It's to better the world and people's lives through sport.

"I want sport to be this wonderful co-curricular activity that our student-athletes see as a formative way of learning leadership skills, learning teamwork and learning the skills that it takes to work with people through challenges and achieve goals — and have sport be this huge supplement to the contextual knowledge they're getting in the classroom."

The Corrigan Family Assistant Athletics Director for Leadership and Mental Performance at Dartmouth, Gonzalez is making human beings better in a number of ways. One of the most notable is in his role as the Scientific Program Division Head for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP).

AASP held its annual conference on October 26-29 in Fort Worth, Texas, led by Gonzalez.

"As the Scientific Program Division Head, I am in an elected position from the membership to the executive board, and my job is to oversee the annual conference," he said.

Among many responsibilities, Gonzalez oversaw the conference planning committee, along with abstracts and research submitted to be presented at the conference.

"It was the first in-person conference we've had since the pandemic started," he said. "The last two years, I was behind-the-scenes organizing virtual conferences. This year, we had almost a thousand people in person, which was great, and we have virtual content available as well."

Gonzalez isn't the only member of Dartmouth Athletics who is a part of AASP.

"The Association for Applied Sport Psychology is the preeminent sport psychology organization," he said. "It oversees the only certification available in sport psychology and mental performance, the CMPC, which is Certified Mental Performance Consultant. (Senior Associate Athletics Director for Peak Performance) Ian Connole, (Sport Psychology Director) Mark Hiatt and I are all CMPC.

"Currently, there are only around 750 people who are CMPC," Gonzalez continued. "We have three of them here at Dartmouth.

"That's a big deal [to have that many in one athletics department]."

What does the certification process entail?

As Gonzalez said, "It involves having rigorous coursework in a variety of different competency areas, such as counseling skills and understanding biological foundations of behavior. It also includes understanding abnormal psychology so you can be aware of psychological illness and how it may present. That doesn't mean you're qualified to treat it — it's just that you're aware because part of my job is to make sure that I refer to the right people."

Gonzalez's focus is performance issues, but he admittedly needs to know who to go to in certain situations.

"It's why having Mark Hiatt here as a clinical psychologist with the CMPC background is a huge asset because I know I have somebody who understands sport, understands clinical issues and can take care of the student-athletes," said Gonzalez. "On the flip side, if he comes across more of a performance issue, he can refer people to me.

"We are able to work really well together as a result."

Sport science classes are also part of the CMPC certification, then there's an exam and certified hours required.

"Just like you would in a traditional psychology program, you're sitting with clients, doing workshops and having individual sessions and you get feedback on your counseling style — things to look for in making sure you're demonstrating the highest standards of care and ethics," said Gonzalez.

Through all that coursework, certified hours and passing the exam, you become certified.

Gonzalez's interest in the Association for Applied Sport Psychology began with a mentor from his master's program, Dr. Jon Metzler.

"Jon from day one was like, 'You all need to make sure you are members of AASP and you should all seek to be certified because you owe it to those you will work with in the future,'" said Gonzalez. "It shows that you have high ethical standards, that you answer to a board and you're in it to do no harm and you're protecting clients. Out of respect for my profession, as well as respect for those I serve, being a member of AASP and becoming certified was something I wanted to do early on."

It also got Gonzalez thinking about something he learned from his parents at a young age.

"I was taught that you're allowed to identity issues and complain, but if you don't do anything active to fix them, quit harping on them," he said.

A Division I student-athlete himself at the University of Pittsburgh, Gonzalez first got involved in AASP as a first-year graduate student.

"Each year, there are two students who serve on the executive board," he said.

"Later, when I was a graduate student, I was elected to e-board and got the opportunity to serve and got some ideas of how the organization runs," Gonzalez continued. "It was probably around 2016 or 2017 when I realized that the conference had changed a lot. I wanted to bring balance back to our conference and said to myself that this would be a really good opportunity to run for Scientific Program Division Head."

Gonzalez was elected in 2019, which brings with it a four-year term.

"I've been working tirelessly to make sure we have a good balance of research and application around topics in sport and performance psychology," said Gonzalez.

AASP's goal is to serve a broad population of people working in sport and performance domains.

"Sport is encompassing of people dealing with exercise populations — people who are exercisers to competitive athletes from the youth to prep, collegiate, elite, Olympic," said Gonzalez. "We have a large portion of our membership who serves the United States Army as performance experts or special operations groups as performance experts."

The 2022 conference featured plenty of great speakers.

"I was very fortunate to have Tatyana McFadden, who is a multi-time paralympic medalist," said Gonzalez. "I also helped organize a panel of women for re-examining Title IX 50 years later, where we've come from and where we need to go. Bianca Smith, who is a Dartmouth alumna from softball, is now working for the Boston Red Sox [as the first Black female coach in a Major League Baseball organization]. She was on a panel with several other people, which was great to see a Dartmouth alumna addressing our audience."

Gonzalez hopes attendees left the conference with a greater openness to new ideas.

"I want them to have the most cutting-edge research in the field, figuring out ways to answer some of the pressing questions around performance and mental health," he said. "How to take research findings and come up with creative research-backed strategies in order to help people not just improve their performance, but also have a high level of well-being and enjoyment of their sport."

It's no coincidence that Gonzalez often talks about serving others.

"It's always an honor to serve in any capacity, whether it's in your community, for your field or profession, in your department… whatever it happens to be," said Gonzalez. "When looking at student-athlete development, if I'm going to ask student-athletes to serve, vote, be involved and be good citizens, then I also need to demonstrate that myself. I always look in the mirror."

Gonzalez's work with AASP helps the person he sees in the mirror learn and grow, which will only help the Big Green student-athletes with whom he works.

"I am a better practitioner because I'm in the thick of reviewing abstracts, providing criticism and praise for different strategies," he said. "I'm representing not just myself, but also Dartmouth as an institution on this international stage — being able to demonstrate the rigor that I hope to bring to Dartmouth."

Gonzalez's obsession with how to make human beings better drives him every day. To be better, humans need to be equipped with the tools that lead to success. That's what Gonzalez has done on a personal level, through his involvement with AASP, and it trickles down to the Dartmouth student-athletes.

"As I look at my time on the executive board and running the conference, I know that I am personally having a very critical eye to what's going to help make me my best, so I can help others become the best versions of themselves," said Gonzalez.

In the fast-paced lifestyle of today, Gonzalez knows the expectations for student-athletes must match the support provided to student-athletes for optimum growth and success.

Dartmouth Peak Performance (DP2) is a foundation of support in place for that very reason.

As Gonzalez said, "If we're going to ask a lot of people, are we giving them a lot [of support] so they can sustain that pursuit of excellence?

"I want to make sure I'm giving people everything they need in order to be successful."

Gonzalez is giving himself fully to the mission of optimizing human performance. There is no better example than his work as Scientific Program Division Head for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), of which he has one more year in the position.

"Next year's conference will be in Orlando and I'm in the process of mentoring the person who was elected to replace me over the course of this year," he said.

"If people leave the conference with a sense of, 'Wow, I got to experience some really good cutting-edge research,' and/or got some ideas from a population they don't work with regularly, and they are able to apply that to whomever they serve and work with, that's what I want people to walk away with."

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