Prof. Dr. Cliff Mallett of the University of Queensland in Australia is a guest scientist with the Chair of Sport Psychology. In the course of the August-Wilhelm Scheer program of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) Professor Mallett will be performing research and teaching for the Chair of Sport Psychology until the end of December.
"Professor Mallett is one of the top international scientists in the field of sport psychology, here once again, specializing in coaching. He has cooperated with numerous top athletes as a trainer (coach) and regularly receives invitations to give lectures at renowned congresses," explains Prof. Dr. Jürgen Beckmann, full professor at the Chair of Sport Psychology.
University of Queensland: similarly ranked in the world´s top 50
"The University of Queensland considers the partnership with the TUM to be very important. For this reason, apart from the common research projects with Prof. Beckmann, I am also here in order to build bridges between TUM and UQ, since there are several potential connections and mutual research interests in the areas of 'sport sciences' and 'medicine'," explains Prof. Mallett. The University of Queensland is one of the leading universities of the world, similarly ranked in the world's top 50.
Olympic and international medals as athletics coach
Mallett started career as a Physical Education teacher then as a fulltime athletics coach with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). In accordance with the success of his athletes, Mallett also evolved further and, in 1994, became the Australian national coach for the sprinters. He carried this out until 2007, altogether with five world championships and three Olympic Games. During this period, his athletes won 6 Olympic and 12 international medals.
Starting from the year 2000 and parallel to his activity as a trainer, Mallett has worked for the University of Queensland. He attained a doctorate there on a topic in the field of motivation (sport psychology). "Although my initial primary interest was the biomechanical aspects of movement, I became more interested in better understanding athlete behavior, which led to me completing my doctorate. Consequently, I increasingly became interested in psychology and understading people more and why they do what they do," explains Mallett. This was followed by my appointment as Professor of "Sport Psychology and Coaching" at the University of Queensland in his hometown of Brisbane.
"I think that there is something in common between the job as a coach and as a professor. In both positions, one must be able to work on different things at the same time (multitasking). To say it simply: You must come into the office and work on topics A, B and C, but must nevertheless work on D, E and F because they are more urgent. Both are very demanding jobs and are publicly and regularly evaluated, whereby the coach is naturally even more intensively exposed to the latter," says Mallett.
The contact with Beckmann has already existed for several years and was initiated by Prof. Dr. Michael Kellmann. This former member of Beckmann's staff had a position as a lecturer at the University of Queensland in 2007. Beckmann visited him there in 2012 and also became acquainted with Mallett.
Research on successful coaches personality
Mallett led an international research project for the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE) eaming the person behind the highly successful coach. Interviews were carried out with 17 of the most successful coaches in the world. During his stay at the TUM, Mallett is working on another project together with Scottish Professor Dr. Christine Nash (Head of Institute for Sport, Physical Education and Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh) and Beckmann. They are examining successful German coaches. They are investigating what underpins successful coaching, and specifically what proportion of success can be attributed to a coach and how the quality of good coaching can be evaluated.
Aside from Mallett, Beckmann welcomed further international guests in August. On Tuesday, August 8, about twenty psychology students from Texas A & M University visited the Chair of Sport Psychology. "I have provided a summarized review of my research activities from the past 10 to 15 years," explains Beckmann. In the course of their psychology studies, the Americans are travelling throughout Europe for a number of weeks and visiting various universities. Aside from the TUM, the second stop in Germany was the Sport University of Cologne.
The homepage of the Chair of Sport Psychology
Contact
Prof. Dr. Cliff Mallett
August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professor
Chair of Sport Psychology
Uptown Munich, Campus D
Georg-Brauchle Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Telephone: 089 289 24541
E-Mail: info.sportpsychologie(at)tum.de
Text & Photo: Fabian Kautz