John F. Murray, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical and sport
performance psychologist who helps individuals and organizations achieve more
success in a wide range of challenging endeavors. His clients include
professional athletes and teams, executives and corporations, and individuals
seeking greater health and well-being.
John received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from
Loyola University of New Orleans prior to traveling worldwide as a tennis
professional in the 1980s. He later authored “Smart Tennis: How to Play and Win
the Mental Game” (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons, 1999) cover-endorsed by world
number one ranked tennis player Lindsay Davenport and translated into Japanese
(Prentice Hall Japan, 2000) and Spanish (Paidotribo, 2001). American tennis
professional Vincent Spadea credited John for mental coaching to help engineer
his comeback from the longest losing streak in tennis history (21 straight
losses), his return to #18 in the world, and his first ever ATP Championship win
in 2004.
John received masters’ degrees in both sport
psychology and clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Clinical
and Health Psychology at the University of Florida. His doctoral dissertation
examined the psychology of injuries on the 1996 national champion Florida Gators
football team, and he finished concentration requirements in the area of
health/medical psychology. John completed an internship in counseling and
applied sport psychology at Washington State University, and a similarly
designed postdoctoral fellowship at the Florida International University.
John has been interviewed on hundreds of broadcast media including national
radio (e.g., NPR, CNN, NBC) and television (e.g., MSNBC, Florida Sunshine
Network), and he hosted and produced his own radio show in Miami on WAXY 790AM.
John is a regular guest on national and syndicated programs before the Super
Bowl to discuss the teams and his “Mental Performance Index,” the first mental
scoring system for sports. John has also been interviewed in hundreds of
publications in the past five years including the New York Times, LA Times,
Washington Post, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, and SI.com.
He has authored numerous columns in Tennis Magazine, Florida Tennis, and many
other publications on topics of sports, psychology, business, and health.
John is past-president of the Palm Beach County
chapter of the Florida Psychological Association (2002). He is married to
Charlotte, an accomplished professional ballet dancer and Presidential Scholar
in the Arts who studied under Mikail Baryshnikov. They have a 20-month-old daughter named Caroline. Dr. Murray enjoys playing the piano and traveling and
his biography appears
in Marquis’ Who’s
Who in America, 60th Diamond
Edition.