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Talking with Tasha Bell
Tasha Bell currently serves as the assistant women’s soccer coach at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo. Prior to that, she was an assistant coach at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem. She holds a BS in psychology from UVU and an MA in marriage and family therapy from BYU. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 2015 and earned a PhD in couple and family therapy from the Department of Family Social Science in 2020. While at the U, she also served as a volunteer assistant women’s soccer coach. We sat down to talk with her about her academic and athletic careers and how they intersect.
Tasha Bell playing soccer.
As kids, my parents had us do a little bit of everything. I played many different sports—baseball, track, cross country, volleyball—and soccer is the one that stuck. It was the one I liked the most. I really enjoyed the group I played with.
I always liked working with people. There’s a common thread in coaching and in mental health of just helping, wanting to help people achieve their potential and reach their goals. I actually thought about medicine but decided maybe that wasn’t quite the right fit. So I got into psychology, and from there, started looking at different ways into mental health. I enjoyed the relational aspect of marriage and family therapy and the idea of looking at systems as a whole, and that’s what drew me in.
A great marriage and family therapy program. I interviewed at schools around the country, and ultimately it was having a professor—Steve Harris—willing to support my academic career. It felt like a good fit.
When I was interviewing at different PhD programs, I’d fly out to meet with the professors. And at each school, I reached out to the soccer coaches as well. I’d say, ‘I’m goi ng to be out there for a couple of weeks and I’m going to be interviewing with marriage and family therapy and wanted to see if I could meet with you.’” At the time the coach was Stefanie Golan. I met with her and said ‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know.’ And she was kind enough to bring me on.
I went back to BYU and was working as a sports mental health counselor for about three years with various teams in the athletic department. And as coaching was something I really enjoyed, I started with UVU part-time in a volunteer position. I was doing both for a year and then UVU offered me the job full time, so it switched my roles. After a few years at UVU, I made my way back over to BYU. Now I coach full time and then on the side do marriage and family therapy and mental health counseling for athletes in the community.
It’s very similar to counseling. I think helping people get out of their own way is maybe the best way to say it. In both coaching and counseling you have these moments where people are working hard at some type of goal—improving a marriage, dealing with depression, trying to get better at a skill—and you are helping them find possible solutions and empowering them to go after them. It’s great watching someone develop and reach their goals and to help in whatever way you can.
In couple or family therapy, you’re always thinking about the system as a whole as opposed to one person in that system. That’s maybe a little bit of a unique perspective that I’ve learned and brought into different coaching philosophies. It’s not just the one student athlete we’re looking at, but how are they impacting the team? How is the team impacting them? What are we doing as coaches to help them and impact them? What’s going on at home? What’s going on in their social life? How is school impacting this? The training I got in my PhD broadens your perspective on all the different things that are impacting these student athletes.