Dr. Susan Butt
Major Accomplishments
Ranked No. 1 in Canada in 1959, 1960 and 1966.
Played Fed Cup in 1967 and was Fed Cup Team non-playing Captain for three years 1970-1972.
Best wins were against Deidre Catt (when ranked No. 3 in Great Britain) and Carol Hanks (when ranked No. 10 in U.S.A).
Competed in Wimbledon twice in 1961 and 1967. Played on Centre Court in women’s singles third round match against No. 1 seed Sandra Reynolds.
Ranked in the top five for nine years between 1957 and 1971. Three years ranked No.1.
Vice President of the Canadian Lawn Tennis Association in the early 1970’s.
Biography
Susan Butt played in several international events winning tournaments in Holland and Germany. She competed in the Australian, French and US Opens. Butt was also the Canadian Open women’s doubles champion in 1963 with Vicki Berner.
At the 1961 Wimbledon Championships, Dr. Susan Butt won three rounds of qualifying and advanced to the third round of the main draw (including a win over No. 1 Italian Lea Pericoli) before losing to the No. 1 seed Sandra Reynolds. She became a noted sports psychologist and her theories were adopted by Cuban coaches who are now developing top Olympic athletes.
Butt wrote a seminar book, Psychology of Sport: The Behaviour, Motivation, Personality and Performance of Athletes. She has over 30 years of experience as an associate professor in psychology and is an advocate of athletic achievement at any level in any sport.
Gavin Wilson a writer for the UBC Reports wrote an article about Butt and her contributions to sports psychology and how Cuban coaches and athletes have adopted her strategies and teachings.
“If an athlete is to have the greatest chance of fulfilling their potential, they are best served by higher scores on cooperation and competence. In North America, many coaches would like to see their athletes score higher on the aggressive and competitive ends of the scale, and I’ve long argued against that,” said Butt (Gavin Wilson, UBC Reports).
“I am not against having a contest, but there are better ways of approaching competition. I recently saw (tennis stars) Boris Becker and Pete Sampras throw their arms around each other at the end of a match. They’re extremely competitive, but they like each other and realize that without excellence to compete against, they can’t show their own excellence,” added Butt (Gavin Wilson, UBC Reports).