Brett Nichols

College Teacher & Coach

Blog Author, Trainers - Cleveland

Brett was a highly decorated three-sport athlete and captain in high school (cross country, basketball & track & field) just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He pursued both a track and basketball career in college, before focusing primarily on track & field.  Brett has been coaching for more than a decade; primarily coaching basketball, with experiences at the youth, high school and college levels.  As a full-time collegiate coach, Brett spent five seasons with Oberlin College Men’s Basketball in Oberlin, Ohio as associate head coach and recruiting coordinator.  Brett has also worked with several NCAA Division I programs, including a current stint as a consultant/volunteer assistant working with the University of Northern Colorado Women's Basketball team.
Brett has a Master’s degree in Sport Studies & a coaching certificate from Kent State University and a PhD in Sport and Exercise Science, with an emphasis area in Social Psychology of Sport from the University of Northern Colorado.  As a full-time faculty member at UNC, Brett teaches undergraduate and master's level classes in coaching, sport psychology, and sociology of sport.  His research includes studying coaching efficacy and effectiveness in youth, high school, and college coaches in the U.S., youth coaches in Canada, and club sport coaches in Asia.  Brett’s areas of expertise are effective/successful coaching, social psychological aspects of coaching, intercollegiate athletics, motivation, and sport in culture/society.

In addition, to the previous experience, Brett has coached basketball internationally in Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Curacao, and Barbados.  Although the majority of his experience is in basketball, Brett has also had coaching and teaching experiences in golf, volleyball, track & field, tennis, soccer, baseball, and softball; and has worked with hundreds of other coaches and athletes in football, hockey, and lacrosse.

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