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Most of the leadership training that team captains receive at the collegiate level consists of either receiving a list of books or articles about leadership or a list of responsibilities that they must do with little or no guidance or instruction. Still others will focus on this reading and/or responsibilities with active discussion in the off-season, yet when it matters the most, during the competitive season, time spent on leadership instruction and follow-ups becomes an afterthought at best. Due to the supposed benefits of improved leadership for sport teams, a leadership development intervention program was developed and applied to two NCAA Division I teams who were successful enough to make it to the NCAA National Championships in their sport. Program effectiveness was determined by the teams meeting not only their seasonal goals but exceeding the primary objectives of the leadership development program set by the leadership consultant and coaching staffs, in addition to the favorable feedback provided by the team to the captains during/after the season, and semistructured interviews of the captains postseason.

The purpose of this study is to provide information regarding the number of consulting positions offered by NCAA Division I universities. Questionnaires were administered to 115 NCAA Division I universities. An 84% return rate was achieved, totaling 96 universities. It was determined that 51 (53%) of the university athletic departments in the sample used some form of sport psychology consulting, whereas 45 (47%) departments reportedly did not use the services of a sport psychology consultant. Frequency reports of those questionnaires from universities who used sport psychology consulting services indicated 10 different sport psychology consultant positions; the most often used consultant positions consisted of the part-time consultants hired by individual sport programs (n = 19, 37%), followed by part-time consultants hired by the athletic departments (n = 10, 20%), then full-time consultants hired by the athletic departments (n = 7, 14%). Also reported are the reasons some athletic departments did not use the services of a sport psychology consultant.