September, 2004

Volume 6, Issue 2

The Contextual Side of Professional Boxing: One

Consultant’s Experience
Robert J. Schinke
Laurentian University
Sudbury, Canada

Introduction

The opportunity to consult with people is, I believe, a worthwhile experience for
every aspiring sport psychologist or mental training consultant. There is no better way to
start learning than from the shared experiences of those who came before you. My
colleagues within this edition of Athletic Insight (see Botterill, 2004; Ferraro, 2004;
Halliwell, 2004) have graciously and eloquently provided some insight into team sport
contexts and individual sports. They are eminent practitioners within their respective
sports, and so, their voices are best informed to share stories, tactics and philosophies that
have worked well within their respective contexts. For this edition, I have been provided
the opportunity to wear two hats; that of installment editor, and that of mental training
consultant within the sport of professional boxing. It is with the latter intention that the
immediate article is written.

Professional boxing is a dramatic sport, where two athletes, hopefully of equal

training and abilities attempt to match skills in the confines of a roped ring. The abilities I
speak of are in part a question of physical preparation. Taken into account are the
attributes of coordination, stance, balance, and stamina, to provide a few examples.
Mental strengths are also essential, and in fact, most every elite boxing coach I know has
indicated that they are telling of ring performance. In success, the mentally and
emotionally well prepared boxer dictates the pace of the bout, controls the center of the
ring, and yes, he also controls the opponent’s tactics. The control by one athlete in boxing
often comes at the expense of the other. In terms of sport psychology practice, the
exerting of control often originates from the selected mental strengths that Peterson and
Seligman (2000) refer to within their taxonomy as optimistic thought, persistence,
courage, and confidence.

1
 When setbacks are experienced in professional boxing they most often come at a cost.
On one level, the boxer’s performance record plays a large role in his ability to progress
toward a world ranking, and often times accompanying it, larger purses that aspiring
sport psychology professors / practitioners only imagine! A second consideration is the
physical experience of post-performance aches, bruises, and in a few instances, the more
serious setbacks that require longer spans of recovery. A third level of expense, one I
endorse as equally important in boxing is the psychological and emotional realm. The
emotional and psychological struggles experienced by many boxers post adversity can be
the most telling of their future performance. Within the sport of professional boxing,
there is a possible home for sport psychology consultation. When the consultant is
included as part of the performance formula, there is opportunity for considerable benefit
to both athlete and coaching staff.

It is my intention through this short article to share a few professional boxing

experiences. I have consulted with professional boxers and their entourages for several
years, and I have been part of a performance team that has tasted global World Boxing
Council and World Boxing Association success several times. I have also been part of
sad times where mistakes were made by staff and athlete, always collaboratively. Within
this article, I will restrict myself to positive experiences, and so, I will confine myself to
the motivational aspects of professional boxing performance that have worked.

Setting the Stage

The invite to consult with professional boxing did not come to me in one stage.
Instead, a full-time offer was extended, and when I could not act on it immediately due to
doctoral obligations, it was rescinded. Professional boxing is a business, and like all other
professional sport groups, boxing management groups require ongoing service, a serious
commitment, and often, full immersion by all team members.

Upon completion of my doctorate, I was able to provide the high level of

commitment required from service providers for global professional boxing success. I
contacted the head coach several times over a six week span, and my approaches were
met with slight skepticism. It had been two years since I was initially approached, and the
group already had sampled mental training consulting. Each consultant has a unique
approach, and I insisted that mine was founded on collegiality and group rapport before
all else. And so, I persisted and met with the coach several times, began chatting with the
athletes, and followed up diligently with management through phone calls.

When the offer finally came to meet with athletes, I met first with the head coach, and
reviewed with him, the performance records and observed strengths and weaknesses from
a coach’s perspective. It was, and continues to be essential in my view that coaches
provide as much information regarding their athletes, and where those athletes are meant
to progress to. My role as consultant was to serve as an extension of day to day coaching,
with mental skills geared toward overall athlete development. It was clear to me that my
skills were supplemental. Further, I felt it essential to identify and acknowledge the
expansive hours committed by coaching staff in all aspects of athlete development.

2
 With the coach’s endorsement of me as consultant, initial meetings were scheduled
with every athlete. Before doing so, however, I began attending daily athlete training, and
I was provided access to the pre-bout dressing room leading up to one important
professional boxing gala. I did not intervene initially. Instead, I observed each athlete’s
preparation from an inconspicuous corner of the room, and I began to consider the
possible aspects within each athlete’s performance that seemed to influence confidence
and outcomes just prior to performance. A few factors that drew my attention were
arrival time at the venue, the quantity of staff within the dressing room prior to each
boxer’s bout, quantities of noise, physical space allotment, and warm-up strategies. I
should say that the aforementioned factors were mostly logistical, and their consideration
was employed as a starting point for my understanding, only.

Initial Meeting – Initial Barriers

There was a wide variety of athlete responses when the head coach scheduled regular
mental training consultation as part of each athlete’s training program, just as earlier
consultants including Ravizza (1988) warned. Several of the athletes within the
management group were already successful amateur boxers, each with Olympic medals,
World Championship medals, or both. Others already had considerable professional sport
experience and ratings among the top ten boxers worldwide within their respective
weight divisions. All of the athletes had a reasonable understanding of what worked best
for them, and most questioned, if not wondered, whether refinements were truly
necessary.

In the domain of professional sport athletes usually have a very strong understanding
of what works best for them. My approach was to meet each athlete informally, and to
gain an understanding of their past experiences. During the initial discussion with each
one, amateur and previous professional sport experiences were discussed. The athletes
willingly shared their experiences, and my job was to listen and to clarify for the sake of
my own understanding. With more clarity of each athlete’s successes and setbacks came
a better sense of what worked, and within some conversations, what did not. Both aspects
eventually became essential parts of planning, and both parts sometimes added to the
coaching staff’s understanding of each respective athlete.

During the latter part of each athlete’s discussion, I waited for an opportunity, and
asked what sorts of support an ideal mental training consultant might provide.
Surprisingly, every athlete had some suggestions in this regard. Some suggested that they
wanted a more formalized competition plan. Others wanted to work on re-attribution
training and resilience. Still others wanted to discuss topics relating to personal life
balance. I realized that the head coach was right; there would be a multifaceted place for
mental training support. I did not, however, realize the mutual learning possibilities that
would unfold with time.

3
 Achieving Solid Relational Footing

There is no substitute for time. Relationships cannot be rushed in the world of mental
training provision, especially not in boxing. The professional athletes I have worked with
are experts in their domain in the way that Salmela (1994) spoke of in terms of elite
coaches. They have allocated considerable time and effort over more than a ten year span
to elite boxing, and they often know instinctively how to apply their skills in perfect and
less than perfect settings. The suggestions I provided were to become refinements, and
nothing more. With an approach that was typically non-directive, I employed the
suggestions provided to me by the athletes and their coaching staff as a starting point.
Boxing is a sport riddled with adversity, and adversity tends to build rapport in elite sport
settings (see Schinke, Draper & Salmela, 1997). Boxers are often faced with adversity,
even when they are performing well. There are questions of weight management, travel,
media demands, unfamiliar training venues and the like. With the typical demands placed
on professional boxers, there is a strong need for friendship and collegiality. Every
athlete needs forum within his support system to voice concerns, and to share fears,
successes, and future plans. Though I always believed in being approachable, the extent
that I was approachable after being introduced to professional sport increased
dramatically.

You might wonder how a consultant can tell when she or he is getting onto solid
relational footing with athletes. In boxing, that question was addressed through the term
“coffee time”. I love good coffee, and interestingly, so do all of the boxers I work with.
Every morning’s consulting began early for all of us. I, for instance, had to wake up
before 05:00 AM to travel and attend early morning training. Mental training meetings
followed in a scheduled pattern, allowing each athlete up to two hours to discuss training
developments, and in some instances, momentary challenges. Meetings earlier on in the
consulting process began with me offering to buy each athlete a coffee. Before long,
however, the athletes arrived at their scheduled meetings with two cups of coffee in hand.
One athlete even chose to prepare coffees for both of us at home before departing for the
training venue. It was not the coffee per se that was important. It was the unstated
message that the athletes were both generous and thoughtful. So began friendships that
continue to withstand the test of time. Rapport was built over a simple yet meaningful
cup of coffee.

Preparing Athletes for Crucial Bouts

Each athlete I work with has a unique way of preparing for performance. Performance
preparation is a day in and day out process in boxing, much like it is in most every other
professional sport. What distinguishes boxing from most other sporting domains is the
frequency of athlete performance. In boxing, professional athletes tend to have their
fights staggered according to an overall plan, especially when they are well managed.
Professional bouts cannot be fought on a weekly basis. Thus, technical and open sparring
are used to ensure that each athlete remains ring sharp in between bouts, where spans of
time typically vary from six weeks to upwards of one year for experienced successful
professionals. Sparring partners are selected tactically by the coaching staff to duplicate

4
the skills and style of upcoming opponents. Thus, part of the athlete’s self-confidence in
terms of preparedness is built in the training ring.

Concurrent mental preparation must also reconcile the bigger picture of readiness and
progression outside of the ring. To do so, I confirm with each athlete personal planning
needs and personal preferences for the week leading up to each bout, for the weigh-in the
day before the bout, for the morning and day of the bout, and in terms of dressing room
equipment and human resource needs. The logistical preferences of each athlete refines
with time, though throughout, athlete perceived control is essential whenever possible. It
seems that success within professional boxing is often found within small details, and I
am of the belief that by attending to small details, the management team tends to reduce
athletes’ concerns.

The athlete’s sense of preparedness is also in part a visual affair. The athlete must be
presented and portrayed as strong, well trained, and confident. Athlete conferences,
sometimes with the opponent, sometimes without, are electrically charged - staged
events, with strength presented through numbers. The term entourage is often depicted in
movies such as Rocky with hangers on. My experience is that a convincing number of
highly creditable support-staff, which in our case has includes a nutritionist, a strength
and conditioning coach, a mental training coach, an assistant technical coach, the head
coach, and more general management, provides a synergistic feeling of competence from
the inside of our group looking out and from the perspective of strangers looking in. Both
perspectives tend to build, maintain and restore confidence for the professional boxer
before a crucial bout.

During the final few days leading up to the bout, I am also easily accessible for
individual consultation. Much like my colleagues within this edition, I am on call and at
the ready, always. Visits with each athlete have become a formal part of final preparation.
For some athletes, the visits are a formality, most of the time. However, with each athlete
there have been instances where motivational or perspective discussions were sought.
Some athletes did so in the privacy of their hotel rooms. I dialogued with others during
moments they deemed as crucial, such as immediately after weigh-ins where the process
was regarded as distracting or undermining. I have also left meals untouched on
restaurant tables to support athlete needs and discuss momentary concerns. My
availability during those moments solidified earlier relationships, and in many instances
served a restorative purpose for the athlete. The intention with moment by moment
availability is not to be needed. Instead, momentary availability is provided to assist with
the unforeseeable, when such moments happen. Throughout, my role as mental training
consultant has included the necessary skill set of reframing, where negative concerns are
re-evaluated as potential strengths.

The final pre-performance consideration is something I like to term “on-site

management”. Dressing room management is a protocol that I have helped each athlete
refine in collaboration with the head coach. Different athletes clearly have different
personalities and different levels of arousal and anxiety. Some prefer a busy dressing
room with loud music, and a large and audibly supportive staff. The extended and highly

5
charged ambiance created by a heavily frequented dressing room for some instills a
positive mood and the necessary encouragement for an appropriate elevated level of
arousal. Others prefer more physical space and a quieter and more heavily monitored pre-
bout warm-up environment. During the hours before performance, I become dressing
room motivational attendant. For coaches and athletes, I have come to learn what a facial
expression or a look my way infers. Often, slight signals by the athlete and coach suggest
a need for crucial momentary change within the locker room. My key functions within
final pre-bout moments, then, is to monitor the room, and when needed, to respond
decisively as a counter measure.

The Media and Performance

Media are a necessary tool in professional boxing. Every promotional boxing group’s
intention is to fill the stands, and to sell television rights. After all, boxing is part sport
and part entertainment. Every member of boxing staff from athletes to coaching staff to
mental training consultant is reminded ongoing that we are in the entertainment business.
With that understanding, for me came a lesson that I have rarely found in sport
psychology articles. Every member of the consulting team is meant to emphasize the
boxer’s strengths. I find that the media can bolster athlete confidence through
appropriately selected questions, and through positive bolstering stories about the athlete,
with both aspects synergistically contributing to each other. Boxers are sensitive to media
feedback, and thus, there is an inherent need for all staff members to be on the most
positive terms with media imaginable. Good relationships seem to serve as a foundation
for facilitative stories and reinforced confidence.

The media demands are an important aspect of every aspiring boxer’s life. Readers
might assume that the mental demands of media relations include pre- and post-bout
press conferences. Both of these aspects are naturally important to the athlete in terms of
marketing, and in terms of how successes and failures are explained. In addition, media
demands for the more established athletes I have worked with include day to day
demands and demands in the dressing room just before and just after the bout. Boxers are
gracious people, and they understand that their final preparation cannot be kept sacred
from the more prestigious television companies that make large bout purses possible.
Therefore, final mental preparation, centering and composure are completed within close
range of camera people, commentators, and high powered lighting. These demands are
prepared for in advance of high level accomplishments, often times with more
experienced professional boxers passing their experiences and strategies to those who are
less experienced.

The Chronology of Achievement and Maintenance

Boxers have a distinct lifecycle as athletes. I have come to learn that it is easiest to
work with the aspiring professional boxer. Developing boxers have desire, and that desire
is fueled by the promise of success, notoriety, and financial stability. Boxers often come
from financially challenged homes, and their desire to succeed includes a level of
desperation that provides fertile ground for learning. Before each bout, the ambitious

6
boxer will follow extensive training regimes, both physical and mental. There are also
strict nutritional challenges that the aspiring boxer is willing to live with. The refinements
of all tactics are charted with the end of one bout signaling the started preparation of the
next one. My job as part of the coaching staff is to ensure that each athlete understands
and regards himself as the central part of his own professional refinement. When I do my
job well, the boxer understands his constant steps toward the ultimate destination of
athletic eminence, and world championship status.

Eventually, the most ambitious of boxers reaches the pinnacle of his sport. He finally
receives his opportunity to prove that he is completely prepared in front of a large
stadium of fans, with accompanying pay per vu television coverage as he fights for a
world title. Those moments are amazing for the athlete and his support-staff. For the
athlete, the weeks leading up to the bout, at least mentally, serve as a pause for reflection.
Our discussions are in part an exploration of past challenges, and how each one has
shaped the athlete into the contender he has now become. The consideration of past
experiences provides reminders of what was learned, and it also provides satisfaction and
perspective. All three aspects are necessary when the intention is composure and clarity
during the bout.

The maintenance of athlete success is more challenging. Though boxers always wish
to retain world titles, the sacrifices that materialize into success and earlier world title
defenses often become unrealistic with time. Boxers experience the very same life
changing events that all other people experience the world over. They find solace in
family life, they become interested by new professional possibilities, and they enjoy their
privacy. These three aspects often surface after the boxer has reached his athletic goal of
becoming the best, and over the long-term they seem to compromise sport performance
motivation. The challenge from a mental training consultant’s point of view is to support
life development while also supporting an ongoing pursuit of athletic excellence. So long
as the athlete is enticed by the process of athletic refinement, the promise of improvement
and title retention exist. When priorities gradually shift to other life interests, focus and
persistence shift along with them. The support-staff’s ambitions must then keep step with
the life evolution of each athlete.

Concluding Thoughts

I truly enjoy the consulting aspect of sport psychology. It is rewarding when things
work as they should, and it is always an education regardless of outcome. When people
ask me what good consulting in the sport of professional boxing entails, I argue for an
approach that includes the forest and the trees. What I mean is that the athlete’s
psychological and emotional well-being hinges as much on life events while training and
during day to day existence as it does on any solid mental training skill set.

The big picture part of performance is built through a consideration of the athlete’s
life experiences. When an athlete is happy with his home environment, his friends, his
professional agreements, and his training, his satisfaction reveals itself through a
consistently high level of athletic persistence. Conversely, personal unhappiness can

7
trickle into day to day training regardless of the athlete’s ability to center. It seems that
pressure is the acid test of overall satisfaction, with dissatisfaction surfacing at
inopportune moments. Therefore, I have always taken the approach that as often as
possible, small life questions must be addressed decisively. And so, part of my consulting
role is to assist athletes with the resolution of potential life barriers before they become
barriers to athletic and general life performance.

The second general aspect of my consulting experience has included assisting athletes
with their mental training and planning refinements. As a graduate student, I did not
realize the importance of good mental training in relation to bottom line performance
despite the advanced warnings of my professor, Dr. Terry Orlick. Be assured that a solid
base of mental training skills do facilitate good mastery and coping responses in
challenging environments. Orlick’s (2000) most recent edition of In Pursuit of Excellence
provides a large number of helpful suggestions in that regard. In addition, I suggest that
Seligman’s (1990) suggestions regarding how to build and restore resilience can be
helpful in the bolstering of athlete persistence. Finally, an understanding of how to build
and restore athlete efficacy (Bandura, 1997) can inform good practice throughout the
athlete’s progression to success.

In conclusion, I am certain that all of my colleagues would agree that the role of sport
psychology consultant includes roles that a casual observer would regard as grunt work. I
have carried athletes’ bags, searched for food and water, bought coffees, and monitored
dressing rooms, to provide a few examples. These tasks were not a formal part of my
role, but opportune moments often result from informal helping behaviors. The mental
training consultant / sport psychologist is part of a team, and when we immerse ourselves
in the experience of consulting strong rapport is built with all members of the
organization. After all, consulting is about helping, and who ought to be more willing to
help than the person who has chosen a helping role as a professional career.

8
 References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. NY: W. H. Freeman.

Botterill, C. (2004). The psychology of professional hockey. Athletic Insight, in

Press.

Ferraro, T. (2004). Is sport psychology failing the athlete? Athletic Insight. In Press.

Halliwell, W. (2004). Preparing professional hockey players for playoff performance.

Athletic Insight, In Press.

Orlick, T. (2000). In pursuit of excellence. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2000). Values in action classification of

strengths. http://www.psych.upenn.edu/seligman/taxonomy.htm

Ravizza, K. (1988). Gaining entry with athletic personnel for season-long consulting.
The Sport Psychologist, 2, 243-254.

Salmela, J. H. (1994). Learning from the development of expert coaches. Journal of

Coaching and Sport Science, 1, 1-11.

Schinke, R. J., Draper, S. P., & Salmela, J. H. (1997). A conceptual model of team
building in high-performance sport as a season-long process Avante, 3 (2), 47-62.

Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your
life. NY: Pocket Books.