North Carolina State University Athletics
CARR: Tuffey Now Psychologist of Champions
1/5/2010 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
RALEIGH, N.C. – As a former NCAA cross country champion, Suzie Tuffey Riewald knows it takes more than fleet feet to win a big race.
It also requires the right cerebral approach, thinking like a champ as well as running like a champ, which she manifested as an N.C. State freshman at the 1985 national meet.
However, there was a time that year when it appeared she might not even compete. Although a prep track star, Riewald didn’t run cross country in high school, opting to play tennis instead. So Wolfpack coach Rollie Geiger considered redshirting her in ’85, allowing his rookie time to adjust from a smooth surface to rugged terrain.
“[But] I lined up her one day in a [regular-season] meet,’’ said Geiger, who realized then there was no need to hold her back. “And she won the national title three months later.”
Now a sports psychologist who earned a Ph.d at UNC Greensboro, Riewald has helped multiple teams, coaches, and athletes, including Olympians, compete with the kind of steely mindset that enhanced her performances.
Stints as USA Swimming Sports Psychology consultant and associate director of coaching at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, plus four years psyching up University of Miami teams, dot her resume.
Change of Pace
In recent years Riewald’s focus has turned more to family. She and husband Scott, a former standout swimmer at Boston University and current biomedical engineer at the Olympic Training Center, have a seven-year old son and five year old daughter.
Their agenda includes church on Sundays and hiking and biking around the scenic landscape. And Suzie still carves out time to teach a course at the University of Colorado/Colorado Springs and mentor athletes one-on-one via telephone.
Riewald can speak sportsmen’s language, relate to their anxieties and aspirations, successes and setbacks, and share stories that illustrate “how sports psychology can help performance.” She’s been there, done that, battling through fatigue, frustration and pain and well as winning titles.
Adhering to privacy procedures, she wouldn’t reveal names of clients. But Riewald recalled how mental training helped one top caliber athlete with a family and full-time job make an Olympic team against competitors who were free to work out rigorously on a daily basis.
“He spent three days a week physically training and three days on mental training,’’ she explained. “He did extensive visualization. Now he’d had 20 years of training. He was not a novice. [But] it speaks volumes about the power of mental training.”
Sports Psychology spans a broad scope, such as anxiety management, confidence building, coping with adversity, and keeping success in perspective.
On boosting confidence, Riewald recommends goal setting, imagery, and keeping a log, charting successes each day, such as the execution of a specific skill.
“Athletes are so focused on what they do wrong they [sometime] fail to recognize what they do well,’’ she said. “Coaches also need to recognize successes. Success breeds confidence.”
Pre-competition anxiety is another issue that troubles many athletes.
First, Riewald asks them two questions: “Is it [caused by] too much pressure from others, or too much on yourself?”
One helpful, relaxing remedy is doing deep-breathing exercises, she said.
While athletes are generally driven, winning can be the prelude to a demise if success is mismanaged. Riewald concurs that evaluation after victory should be as meticulously done as analysis following a defeat.
After each competition, she suggests athletes write down three reasons why they succeed, plus their areas that need improving.
In the midst of adversity, stay focused on your goal. That’s what Riewald did while suffering multiple injuries at State.
“You can grieve, get upset, get irritated -- or get over it and move forward,’’ she said. “It might mean running in water -- which I did. If you need surgery now, then do it. I was very focused on the goal to do the best I could as an athlete.”
Growing up in Peoria, Ill., then Suzie Tuffey traveled in the fast lane.
Light, lively and rabbit fast, she set a national junior record in the 3200 meters, excelled academically, and was generally the kind of student-athlete every track coach would gladly fit with a pair of shorts and shoes.
Geiger read about her while on a recruiting trip to the West Coast, got word that ACC member Virginia was interested, and said “that highly motivated” him to take a close look.
Turns out, Riewald liked State and her parents, John and Linda, also were moving to Clayton in a job transfer about that time.
“She was a great student, could have gone to any university in the country,’‘ Geiger said.
Riewald got off to a scintillating start with the Pack, winning that ’85 cross country crown. But then adversity struck in the form of stress fractures, tendon and ankle trouble.
As a result, she was forced into low impact workouts. Despite a major change in training, she came back and finished third in another NCAA cross country championship meet.
“My highlights were winning the NCAAs and the next year finishing third’’ she said. I did two-a-days in the water, did all my training in the water. That’s the one [finishing third] I appreciate the most.”
Though slowed by the injuries, Riewald continued running for four years. Part of that time she drove about 75 miles twice a week to UNC-Greensboro to do postgraduate work.
“She was really committed to the task at hand, totally committed to being successful, and cared deeply for her teammates,’‘ Geiger said. “She was willing to stay in the program, to do what [she] could to help the team.”
Though living a long jog from Raleigh, Riewald still follows the Wolfpack, still stays in touch and plans to visit State this spring.
“I wouldn’t change my [college] decision,’’ she said during a reflective moment. “I had a wonderful coach, a wonderful experience.”
