Lyssa Wopat ’13 meets with SALT students

Lyssa Wopat ’13 recently returned to Friends and met with the Student Athlete Leadership Team (SALT) to talk about the experience of student athletes. Specializing in mental performance coaching, Lyssa works with athletes to help them develop the psychological skills needed to succeed as athletes, performers and coaches.

After graduating from Friends in 2013, Lyssa went on to earn her BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and then joined The Georgia Ballet as a dance professional. Following her 3-year tenure at The Ballet, she attended Lock Haven University where she received her master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology. In addition to her current work as a mental performance coach, Lyssa is a ballet instructor and serves as Artistic Director of The Susquehanna Youth Ballet of the Collective Inc., a youth ballet company based in PA.

Lyssa was eager to find her way back to the School, noting that she “never knew when or how [she] would return to Friends, but always figured [she] would at some point.” In her recent meeting with SALT, Lyssa brought a wealth of knowledge related to important athlete-focused psychological topics such as goal setting, motivation, confidence, performance anxiety, focus & concentration, coping with adversity during practices or games and burnout & energy management. She was impressed by the talent, focus, and hard work of the student athlete leaders and plans to return to campus in November!