BOONE, N.C. — Returning to the High Country, Dr. Parker Leap has been hired as App State's Associate Athletics Director for Sport Psychology and Mental Wellness, Director of Athletics Doug Gillin announced Thursday.
Dr. Leap, who completed a doctoral psychology internship at App State in 2023, rejoins a Sport Psychology team that also includes another full-time counseling and sport psychologist in Dr. Courtney Shields, who is App State's Assistant Director of Sports Psychology and Mental Wellness.
"I am honored and extremely grateful to App State for this incredible opportunity," Dr. Leap said. "I am thrilled to be joining App State Athletics, which prioritizes student-athlete mental health. I look forward to continuing to build and innovate the Sport Psychology program alongside Dr. Shields and other athletics department and campus staff to best meet the clinical and performance needs of our student-athletes."
Dr. Leap, who was a collegiate student-athlete, returns to Boone after working at Texas A&M as an athletics psychology postdoctoral fellow and staff psychologist from 2023-26. In those clinical roles, he provided individual counseling and sport psychology services for student-athletes, trained staff and student-athletes in mental health first aid and collaborated across various departments within athletics to prioritize student-athlete wellness.
During his time at App State, he worked closely with the field hockey team to design workshops focused on energy regulation and mental performance.
Prior to his first stint at App State, Dr. Leap earned a doctorate of psychology in clinical and school psychology from James Madison. At JMU, he served as a mental performance consultant for the men's and women's tennis teams, provided resilience programming to first-year football student-athletes and worked with the Challace J. McMillin Center for Sports Psychology, where he led mental skills workshops for Division III universities and local high schools.
Dr. Leap graduated in 2015 from Eastern Mennonite University, where he received a bachelor's degree in psychology and played collegiate soccer. He obtained in 2019 a Master of Education in Counseling (Ed.M.) with a concentration in Sport Psychology from Boston University, where he provided mental performance consulting services to student-athletes at Tufts University as well as co-facilitated physical activity-based programming designed to cultivate life skills in partnership with traditionally marginalized youth attending a local Boston area high school.
Dr. Leap and his wife, Jade, have two sons: William and Cooper.
