Thatcher Coleman

Thatcher brings a dual background in clinical mental health counseling and applied sport psychology to his work with athletes, teams, and individuals. His focus areas include attentional control, confidence, emotional regulation, and performance consistency, alongside clinical work in resilience, coping, and psychological flexibility.

EXPERTISE AND EDUCATION

Thatcher is a Doctoral Candidate (Ph.D.) in Sport and Performance Psychology at the University of South Carolina, expected 2026. He earned his M.S. in Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020, and his B.S. in Psychology, Magna Cum Laude, from Presbyterian College in 2018. He also has training in:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), including training completed with ACT founder Steven C. Hayes

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

• Mindfulness-based performance strategies

• Attention control training

Thatcher is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a professional member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, the American Counseling Association, and the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity.

EXPERIENCE

Thatcher has served as a Mental Performance Coach for Cardinal Newman High School Baseball, working with varsity athletes on confidence, focus, and emotional regulation, and has provided mental performance coaching to collegiate athletes and teams, including Columbia College Track & Cross Country and the South Carolina Bantams FC collegiate soccer team. He partners closely with coaching staff to support team culture, communication, and performance decision-making.

Alongside his performance work, Thatcher has provided clinical mental health counseling across both community school-based and private-practice settings, working with individuals ranging from children to adults on crisis intervention, safety planning, and the treatment of anxiety, depression, and trauma. This includes his work as a school-based Mental Health Counselor for the Lexington Department of Mental Health, where he managed crisis intervention and safety planning for students. He has also served as a Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of South Carolina, where he helped develop and teach curriculum for some of the university's first undergraduate courses in its Sport Psychology major, alongside contributing to research on athlete performance and well-being.

A former collegiate baseball player and doctoral researcher in sport and performance psychology, Thatcher draws on both playing experience and applied research to inform his work with athletes and teams.

PERSONAL

In his free time, Thatcher enjoys spending time with his family, playing golf, and attending South Carolina sporting events.