The sports psychologist who helped Missouri bounce back
The Cleveland State Vikings made it on ESPN, but not for the reason they wanted.
The team, led by head coach Dennis Gates, played its second game of the season on Dec. 6, 2020, taking on the Ohio Bobcats on the road. Cleveland State never held a lead during the contest. Senior guard Torrey Patton scored a layup for the Vikings at the 1:41 mark of the first half to cut the deficit to 46-25. They wouldn’t score again until the 8:03 mark of the second half.
Ohio, meanwhile, scored 40 points unanswered. It was the biggest run in NCAA Division I history. The Bobcats won the game, 101-46. It remains the worst loss of Gates’ head coaching career.
“Guinness Book of World Records,” Gates said.
The Vikings should’ve been humiliated. Their confidence should’ve plummeted. Their season should’ve been derailed.
Instead, Cleveland State lost just six games the rest of the year. The team won the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships, receiving a berth in the NCAA tournament for just the third time in program history.
Gates and senior guard Ben Sternberg credit sports psychologist Dr. Joe Carr for the turnaround.
“What we took from Doc is, we didn't care about what the media said. We knew that the only people who believed in us was us, and obviously the staff and the players,” Sternberg, a walk-on who followed Gates from Cleveland State to Missouri this offseason, said. “We didn't let any gaps in our circle. We all stuck together and it even made us closer because we didn't want that to happen again.”
Carr grew up in Arlington, Va., in the same neighborhood as John Thompson, the legendary Georgetown head coach. Thompson pointed out that Carr was always trying to “read people’s minds” and suggested he go to school to study psychology. Carr earned his doctorate from Washington State and promptly went to work for Thompson’s Hoyas during the 1983-84 season. Georgetown went on to win the national championship.
“I said, ‘Oh shit. This shit works. I’ve got a little something something,’” Carr said.
Carr has since helped several high-profile athletes, such as NBA All-Stars LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. He played a major part in developing the NBA’s rookie orientation program. He’s also worked with thousands of teams.
One of those teams was the California Golden Bears during the 1998-99 season at the request of head coach Ben Braun. Gates was a freshman point guard for the Golden Bears that year. Carr remembered Gates seemed to know everything about his teammates — where they were from, what classes they were taking, who their girlfriends were, their secrets. He was an influencer, which was a great quality for a leader to have. And if Carr could get Gates to buy into the program, the rest of the team would follow suit.
Gates was eager to hear what Carr had to say. It was Gates’ first time living away from home and his first time dealing with the stresses of being a college athlete — a team captain, no less. He knew he wasn’t yet equipped to handle the responsibilities put on his shoulders. But he thought that Carr could help.
“I thought that was important, to gain the information,” Gates said. “And he was able to provide that and fill in the gaps between maybe the head coach, the staff, making sure the staff was on the same page, but also making sure players were on the same page with overall goals, connectivity, and also the unselfish spirit.”
Though Carr tailors his course for each individual team by collaborating with head coaches, he always has a core set of principles he wants to install, especially when working with a group for the first time, using the acronym “R.A.R.E.” The first “R” stands for relationships, which Carr grades one through five, one being poor and five being championship-level. Carr believes that developing intimate, lifelong connections with teammates is a necessity to become a winning team. The “A” stands for accepting challenges, being able to take on the good times and the bad both on the court and in the classroom. The second “R” stands for recovering from mistakes, which Carr believes is one of the biggest differences between good teams and bad teams. The best teams are usually able to bounce back faster than others. The “E” stands for executing coach’s directions. Carr said this is often the most difficult idea for players to accept, but that it’s essential for them to establish blind trust in their coaches, doing as they’re told without question.
The experience was eye-opening for Gates. Though he was just 18 years old, Gates told Carr that, when he became a head coach, he wanted the doctor to come work with his team.
“We really have (been) simpatico ever since,” Carr said.
Gates stayed true to his word. When he was hired for his first head coaching job with Cleveland State in July 2019, Gates said his first call was not to his wife or his mother. It was to Carr, who made time in his schedule to pay the Vikings a visit.
Gates did the same when he was hired at Missouri in March this year.
“That relationship has allowed me to grow as a man, mature as a person but also evolve as a human being and provide me, through my ups and downs, a pathway to success,” Gates said. “And that same pathway, I want to be able to share with my players because I see how important (Carr) is not only to me, but former players.
“We had a team that, obviously, in their education has gone through the 9/11-post terrorism. You have the same student-athletes that have gone through a pandemic, right? Those are traumatic things that we kind of sometimes, unfortunately, sweep under the rug. But we don't understand how impactful it is from a day-to-day or even a performance standpoint.”
With 12 newcomers joining three returning players at Missouri, in addition to an all-new staff, Gates knew Carr would make a difference in building a new team. Sternberg noted how close the Tigers have gotten in such a short period of time. They call each other brothers, not teammates.
Sternberg said if somebody is going through a hard time, they want everyone to feel comfortable enough to confide in the locker room. If somebody isn’t able to bring the same energy as they normally do in practice, they should be able to share why and know that the rest of the team will understand.
“And if everybody's on the same page, then I don't know how somebody will beat us,” Sternberg said. “The most connected team wins, that's what Coach always preaches. But I take that stuff very serious and Dr. Carr has had a huge impact on that. Like I said, I appreciate Coach because it's not just about basketball he cares about. He cares about our lives outside of basketball as well.”
Mizzou’s blowout loss to Kansas earlier this season reminded Gates and Sternberg of the beating they took against Ohio while the pair were at Cleveland State two years ago. After being defeated by the Jayhawks on Dec. 10 in front of a sell-out home crowd, 95-67, the Tigers leaned on each other. They accepted the challenges that were still in front of them. They recovered from their mistakes. And they executed Gates’ instructions.
It’s resulted in the team’s three most impressive wins of the year: a buzzer-beater against UCF and double-digit victories against No. 16 Illinois and No. 19 Kentucky. The loss itself wasn’t important, but how Mizzou bounced back from it was.
Carr was in attendance for each of the Tigers’ last two games and will be back sporadically — how often he returns to a team depends on how often he’s needed. But he knows Gates will be in touch. He always has been.
“When you mention mental health, coaches want to sweep that under the rug and not talk about it. 'I don't even need that,' because that means that the guy is soft. I mean, we're still dealing with that now,” Carr said. “So (Gates is) very wise beyond his years to understand that this is just one segment that could really help our players … Sports psychology is going to be an emerging thing and it's going to be useful, particularly with coaches like Dennis, who see the big picture.”
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