FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
The new athlete path combines The Game Within annual course, the Mental Performance Index, direct coaching, and approved team dashboards.
EVANSVILLE, Indiana, September 16, 2026 – Shawn Collins has expanded his BETTER-related sports coaching work to serve student-athletes and athletic programs directly through The Game Within, the Mental Performance Index, recurring athlete coaching, and program-specific team systems.
The expansion gives individual athletes and families a way to begin mental performance work without waiting for an entire team, school, club, or athletic department to adopt a wider program.
The Game Within is BETTER’s annual mental performance course for athletes. It guides participants through four stages: Fear, Purpose, Drift, and Competitive Joy. Athletes receive video instruction, printable worksheets, an individual course portal, and access to the BETTER Athlete Community.
Collins will provide separate monthly or biweekly coaching for athletes who want help applying the course to real practices, competition, recovery, role changes, and performance pressure.
“Athletes are often told to be more confident, stay focused, or forget the last play,” Collins said. “Those instructions may be well intended, but they are not always specific enough to change what happens next. The Game Within gives athletes a common language. Direct coaching helps them use it when the pressure is real.”
The Mental Performance Index will serve as a starting point for individual and team conversations. Collins has a general assessment link for athlete marketing and separate team-specific links for approved programs.
For teams and athletic programs, the model may include individual athlete accounts, a dedicated enrollment process, a team-specific Mental Performance Index, a program dashboard, recurring team coaching, and optional private athlete coaching.
Southern Indiana Vibe Softball, where Collins has coached since 2021, will serve as the first controlled team application. Participating players will receive individual Game Within portals, while Collins will use an approved team dashboard to guide the program’s recurring mental performance work.
The team pilot will use parent or legal guardian consent, clear access rules, and a strict separation between private coaching notes and team decisions such as playing time or roster standing.
The athlete and team work adds to Collins’ existing BETTER coaching paths for coaches and athletic directors. Those plans combine a role-specific BETTER Culture Playbook with monthly private leadership coaching from Collins.
“Coaches and athletic directors still matter deeply to the health of a program,” Collins said. “This expansion does not work around good leadership. It gives athletes a direct place to start, gives teams a repeatable system, and gives sports leaders another responsible way to support the people they lead.”
Collins has coached youth and high school athletes across baseball, softball, and basketball for more than a decade. He also brings nearly three decades of experience in leadership, communication, brand, technology, and organizational culture.
The new service system will be available through ShawnCollins.com after final enrollment, consent, privacy, pricing, and data controls are completed.
Athletes and families may begin by taking the Mental Performance Index at: https://app.getcalibrate.io/better/shawn-collins
Additional information will be available at: shawncollins.com/the-game-within/
About Shawn Collins
Shawn Collins is a leadership strategist, culture-first consultant, keynote speaker, coach, and founder and CEO of EXTEND GROUP. He helps leaders build cultures people run toward, not away from. His work includes leadership clarity, organizational culture, communication, trust, retention, team development, sports leadership, and mental performance coaching.
Collins has coached athletes across baseball, softball, and basketball and currently works with Southern Indiana Vibe Softball. He is a certified BETTER Partner and a certified GiANT Guide.
About the BETTER relationship
BETTER owns The Game Within, the Culture Playbooks, the Mental Performance Index infrastructure, the BETTER Athlete Community, and protected partner materials. Seth Kindig and Kevin DeShazo support the broader BETTER community. Shawn Collins directly supports and coaches the clients, families, teams, coaches, and athletic directors he brings into the work.
BETTER-related work facilitated by Shawn Collins, certified BETTER Partner.
Scope statement
The Game Within and Shawn Collins’ mental performance coaching support self-awareness, response to pressure, purpose, habits, preparation, communication, and performance review. They are not psychotherapy, medical care, crisis response, legal advice, recruiting representation, or a promise of playing time, statistics, scholarships, wins, or roster decisions.
Media contact
Shawn Collins Shawn Collins Coaching and Consulting [email protected] (812) 760-1811 shawncollins.com
