Once ranked as Canada's top female tennis player, Susan Butt was a long-time UBC sports psychologist. In The Psychology of Sport she contends that aggressive training procedures don't necessary produce superior results. She completed her Ph.D in psychology at the University of Chicago. Since then she evolved a set of measurement scales to gauge how athletes feel about their performances. This system of 'measurement' considers aggression, conflict (a state which can lead to feelings of guilt, listlessness, confusion and nervousness), competence, competition and co-operation. As a self-described 'voice in the wilderness', she stresses that a cooperative training atmosphere can produce superior results. Susan Butt gave a keynote address at the 30th annual Sports Medicine Congress in Havana in 1996. Cuba has the highest per capita winning percentage for gold medals partially because, she maintains, their training methods jive with the philosophy outlined in The Psychology of Sport (Van Nostrand Reinhold).

[BCBW 2003]