9/11/19
(CLEVELAND) – The Truett McConnell University athletic department proudly announced an additional athletic administration role, the Athletics Clinical Coordinator, on Wednesday. The Bears have placed Dr. Richard Fowler, a Professor of Psychology and Counseling at TMU, into this role.
“We are so thrilled to have Dr. Fowler take on this task for our athletic department,” Athletic Director Jenni Shepard. “He is so knowledgeable and has already made such an impact on this department.”
Fowler came to TMU in the fall of 2017 with a decorative resume to help launch a new program that trains graduate students to become professional counselors with a biblical worldview. Prior to TMU, Fowler served as a head men’s basketball coach at Toccoa Falls College (Toccoa, Ga.) and LeTourneau University (Longview, Texas), and from there moved to Dallas, Texas to direct a counseling center where he oversaw 50 therapists and 100 employees.
From there, Fowler worked as a personal psychological sports consultant working with professional athletes from the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers.
“For the longest time coaches would send me athletes, primarily professional and college, to work with them as a mental coach.” Fowler said. “Sports was my life growing up. I played college basketball and didn’t want to quit so I decided to go into coaching. I then earned my doctorate in social psychology, writing my dissertation on Athletic Motivation.”
In addition to his teaching, coaching and counseling, Fowler has authored or co-authored eleven books and numerous articles for sport magazines such as NAIA news and Coach and Athlete. Prior to his coming to Truett University, Fowler taught psychology at Dallas Baptist University.
Fowler and his students within TMU’s Professional Counseling master’s program have already begun evaluating student-athletes and developed personality profiles to help coaches better coach their athletes.
“I am not working on the x and o’s, but working strictly on the psychology,” Fowler said. “My greatest hope while being in this role is to help coaches focus their attention on what’s going on in the right-side of the athletes’ brains, which houses the emotions. Coaches mainly focus on the left-brain cognitive training when developing their athletes so I want to help them better learn how to motivate their teams, especially with the understanding of this generation and how they operate.”
