Become a Psychologist

Without her participation in sports, Taunya Tinsley doesn’t know if she would have even attended college. But her prowess on the basketball court led her to Augsburg College in Minneapolis, where she was an all-conference performer her senior year. Even as her star was shining athletically, however, someone asked her a question that adjusted her perspective: “What are you going to do after your ‘retirement’ from sports?”

That conversation not only offered Tinsley a wake-up call but also helped her discover her life’s calling. She realized all student-athletes could benefit from counseling on issues that stretched far beyond the basketball court or baseball diamond. “Even as a high school student-athlete, I knew that sports really meant something to me, ” says Tinsley, a member of the American Counseling Association and the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. “I decided I wanted to work with athletes on how to use athletics for personal growth.”

While earning her master’s degree in higher education with an emphasis in student development from the University of Iowa, Tinsley worked in the women’s athletic department, focusing on academic support and career development. After a stint providing academic support to student-athletes at the University of Pittsburgh, she moved on to Duquesne University, where she obtained her doctorate in counselor education and supervision with an emphasis in sports counseling. Today, she is an assistant professor at California University of Pennsylvania and program coordinator for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame’s Play It Smart Program. As described on the Play It Smart website, the educational program is “designed to take a student-athlete’s passion for sports and intense dedication to their team and transform it into a force for greater good in their lives.”