GCU grows commitment to mental performance

Grand Canyon athletics announced the hiring of Dr. Dan Gerdes as its Director of Mental Performance. The newly developed position will oversee the mental performance services available to its student-athletes.

"We worked closely with our Student Athlete Advisory Committee leaders to gather feedback on the priorities of our student-athletes and growing our mental performance resources was identified as one of the highest priorities to them," GCU Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs said. "We committed to enhancing this area for our student-athletes and are thrilled to bring someone of Dr. Gerdes' caliber on board to serve in this role. He has a high level of expertise in applied sport psychology and performance excellence and a proven track record in high-level college athletics. We have no doubt that Dr. Gerdes will help our student-athletes achieve peak performance through his guidance."

For 30 years, Gerdes has provided sport psychology services to a variety of athletic programs and organizations. Since 1995, he has served as a sport psychology consultant for the University of Central Missouri. Along the way, he has worked with athletic programs at Kansas and Liberty as well as the USA Swimming national team, NBA players and served as a mental performance consultant to the 393rd Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

"I'm honored and humbled to be joining the GCU Athletics community," Gerdes said. "The dynamic energy felt across campus and the growing stature of GCU's character nationally is inspiring, and the best is yet to come. My family and I are very grateful to be part of Grand Canyon University."

Gerdes holds degrees from Wartburg College (B.A. in Secondary Education), Northern Iowa (M.A. in Physical Education with an emphasis in Teaching/Coaching) and Kansas (Ph.D. in Education/Sport Psychology.) His doctoral dissertation, titled "Morality, Leadership, and Excellence: A Naturalistic Inquiry of Collegiate Men's Basketball Coaching", featured extensive personal interviews with John Wooden, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, Denny Crum and several of their assistant coaches, players, and former players.

A 34-year teaching career has featured time as a professor at Kansas and Central Missouri, instructing courses — many at the graduate level — in sports management, sport psychology, mental training and coaching. He also coached basketball and golf at the high school level.

Gerdes has extensive experience in presenting at major conferences, conventions, clinics and workshops revolving around mental performance. He has authored two published books: "Coaching for Character" and "Through the Storm." Gerdes also has been a consistent contributor to academic journals and coaching publications in the area of sport psychology.

Since 2009, Gerdes has been a faculty representative for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He has experience in higher-education administration by serving on a number of college committees, curriculum teams and task forces.

Gerdes and his wife, Karen, have three children: Ryan, Raef and Jared.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

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