The Detroit Tigers have extended their ‘Mental Skills Coach’ relationship with Icebox founder Dr. Spencer Wood to provide mental skills and toughness training services throughout the Detroit Tigers organization, with primary responsibility for the Major League Players. The training responsibilities will include between 80-100 home and away games with the team, reporting to Al Avila.
University of Florida turn to Icebox Athlete to help improve free-throw shooting!
The following excerpt was written by Kevin Brockway, staff writer, Gatorsports.com and ESPN.com
GAINESVILLE, Fla. —
Renowned sports psychologist Spencer Wood isn’t ready to take credit for Florida’s early improvement at the free-throw line.
“It’s a small sample size,” Wood said. “It will be interesting to see if by the middle of the season those percentages can continue to hold.”
Icebox Athlete is honored to announce an on-going partnership with USA Basketball to provide cutting-edge mental skills and toughness training tips and insights for the broad population of coaches and athletes that USA Basketball serves across the country and around the World.
Icebox Athlete works with University of Florida Softball to win back-to-back National Championships!
The following excerpt was written by Chris Harry, senior writer with Gatorzone.com
OKLAHOMA CITY — Winning the first national championship a year ago didn’t just prepare Tim Walton and his Florida Gators for the journey and grind of chasing another.
With as much traveling and speaking as Icebox Athlete founder Spencer Wood gets to complete in a given year, it is understandably rare that he is ever at a loss for words. Such was the occasion on Saturday May 9th, 2015. A few months earlier, Spencer had been invited to deliver the commencement address to the Bluefield College graduating class of undergraduate and graduate students at the 91st annual graduation for Bluefield College to be held on May 9, 2015. Just prior to delivering the commencement speech, Spencer was presented with an Honorary Doctorate Degree of Humane Letters for “Outstanding contributions to his field of sports performance and sport psychology and services to society” by Bluefield College President Dr. David Olive.
This year’s NCAA Division I Final Four for Men’s Basketball was of special significance of Icebox Athlete President Spencer Wood. In addition to receiving an invitation to address this year’s coaches on “Post-season Mental Toughness,” his focus was also on one other very important component of the Final Four – the VCU Men’s Basketball team. The VCU Rams were on of the teams that Wood had worked with that year and their journey through the NCAA tourney had been one of the great Cinderella stories of recent years. “I was so happy for Shaka (VCU’s coach), his staff and his guys” Wood commented. “Of course” Wood continued with a smile “Selfishly, it always helps to speaking on mental toughness at the Final Four and then have one of your team’s trail blaze a path through the tournament with a bracket busting level of mental toughness and make it to the Final Four. I think the fact that this team was a “Mid-Major” that few picked to even make the NCAA tournament made it all the more special.”
While a quick view on a map or globe gives the appearance that Trinidad and Tobago is a relatively small nation by land mass, the heart and soul of the nation is certainly ‘larger than life.’ That has been the recent experience of Icebox Athlete President Spencer Wood after he was contacted by Olympic Secretary General Brian Lewis to deliver a series of mental skills workshops for the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee and Program.
Icebox is proud to announce that the University of Florida, one of the nation’s most successful athletic programs, has engaged Dr. Spencer Wood, President of Icebox Athlete and one of the country’s foremost experts on mental toughness, performance consistency and clutch performance, to travel to the University of Florida for a number of days each month to work with teams from a variety of sports.
Virginia Commonwealth head coach Shaka Smart says some of the credit for his team’s success in the NCAA tournament should go to a mental toughness coach.
As one of the nation’s preeminent mental toughness coaches, the 39-year-old from England has played a significant role in building the Big Dance’s biggest bracket buster
Icebox Athlete President Spencer Wood was recently asked to deliver the Icebox Mental Skills and Toughness Training Workshop for the USA Shooting conference at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Following the workshop, Bill Roy, Director of Operations for Team USA Shooting wrote: “Thanks for your extraordinary visit to Colorado Springs and for a terrific presentation…several of the participants commented that your presentation was the best of the conference, and I agree. I plan to send out letters to several other High Performance Directors in various Olympic National Governing Bodies. In addition to praising your presentation, I’ll assure them that the US Shooting Team hopes to call upon your services even more in the future.”
They have the most dominant record in the history of women’s lacrosse with ten national championships to their name and more NCAA tournament victories than any other program. And yet remarkably, since 2001, the most storied program in all of women’s lacrosse had been in a national championship drought. A Final Four appearance in 2009 was as close as they had come to bringing the national championship trophy back to College Park. Instead, a new power had emerged…Northwestern Women’s Lacrosse had won the last five consecutive national championships.
The NCAA Champs Life Skills program is an NCAA initiative to provide athletes with critical skills for success both on and off the athletic courts and fields. As a long time NCAA registered speaker, Spencer Wood, President of Icebox Athlete was this year’s choice of speakers for the NCAA Champs Life Skills program for the athletes of Boston College. Speaking on practical steps to increase poise under pressure, putting a mental skills training plan in place, critical aspects of leadership development and the key components of championship teams, Wood was well received by the student-athletes and coaches present.
After hearing Icebox Athlete President Spencer Wood speak on clutch poise, focus and confidence at the TABC clinic in Texas, Billy Donovan, Head Coach of Men’s Basketball at the University of Florida and 2X back-to-back National Champions, invited Spencer Wood to work with his team in both the pre-season, the regular season, and during the SEC tournament. In the last two years, the Gators had only received NIT post season bids after winning back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007, and so were looking forward to returning to the NCAA tournament. Most experts agree that a 2010 NCAA tournament bid for the Gators would come down to a ‘must win’ game against Auburn in the SEC tournament. Coach Donovan again brought in Spencer Wood to help prepare his team for this critical game. Displaying tremendous toughness and poise, the Gators gutted out a tough win and received the necessary votes to return to the NCAA tournament.
Following their dramatic victories in the World Cup qualifying rounds and their qualification for the World Cup Finals, the Trinidad and Tobago national U20 men’s soccer team became a team that now generates a healthy level of both respect and fear from opponents across the globe. Combining a world class level of athleticism and iron clad mental toughness, the team emerged from a very tough qualifying pool to land the ultimate prize – a place in the World Cup Finals.
The following article is an excerpt from the Central Illinois’ #1 news source, the Illinois Herald & Review and an article written by H&R’s Executive Sports Editor, Mark Tupper…
CHAMPAIGN – It was already turning into a frustrating basketball season, the kind that can make an Illini head coach grow grumpy and old.
No, not men’s coach Bruce Weber.
We’re talking about first-year Illini women’s coach Jolette Law.
Icebox at the NSCAA Conference – Baltimore, 2008. Icebox President Spencer Wood presented at this year’s NSCAA Conference – Soccer’s Premier US Event for coaches. Spencer presented to a capacity crowd on Explosive Speed, Agility & Quickness for the 21st Century Player. The
NSCAA Conference attracted over 7,100 coaches.
During this past athletic semester, Icebox Athlete has broken all previous season records contributing to over 50 different universities, colleges and sports associations/conferences across the country with team mental toughness training workshops and training sessions.
Said Icebox Athlete President Spencer Wood, “This year is a tribute to the marvelous performance of our staff, and in particular, the work of Events Director Jon Murphy. In addition, we are incredibly grateful for the trust shown to us by the Universities who have partnered with us and entrusted us with their teams and athletes. Their trust also underscores an incredible vision of excellence for their athletic programs and their desire to expose their athletes to additional training and resources that can maximize athletic potential and performance.”
ICEBOX FEATURED SUCCESS STORY
“Mental toughness, poise, focus and confidence is critical for the success of my team at the University of Florida and Spencer Wood is somebody I use to help create that mental edge for my team. Spencer has worked with my team on multiple occasions both in the pre-season and to prepare for big games and he has done an outstanding job. His Icebox mental skills teaching methods have unlocked the secret on how you can effectively be at your best when it counts the most.”