Daniel Massaro - Academic Staff

For the past 25 years, Danny has become an experienced educator, author, and world-champion coach. His most famous protégé also happens to be his wife, Laura Massaro, the former world No 1 and World Champion. Danny was awarded his PhD in 2022, which focuses on living well through a sporting life. His thesis used “existential phenomenology” to illuminate the need to include ‘lived experience’ when considering how to support people who compete or coach professionally. In 2023, Danny released a book “Being Well” which is a summary of his thesis.

Danny lectures across the postgraduate coaching courses specialising in philosophy, psychology and coaching. Danny has collaborated extensively with parents who have children that compete in sports.

In 2015, Danny released his book “The Winning Parent” and it continues to be well-received by coaches and parents alike. A Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming, Danny consults in helping coach athlete-parent relationships using techniques such as role clarification, rapport building, gestalt therapy and spiral dynamics.

Danny has been a squash coach for over 25 years, collaborating with players from the National junior level up to the professional world tour including National champions and Top 10 players. Danny has supported over two hundred professional athletes with the psychological aspects of competing and the ambiguities of living life as an athlete, most notably former world number 1 squash player Nick Matthew. He currently supports five of the top twenty professional squash players on the PSA world tour.

Mind – body intelligence
Prediction machine – the role of the body’s intelligence (embodiment) in what has been labelled sports psychology
They cannot be separated! This is blended with support from Lisa Feldman Barrett’s latest theory of ‘constructed emotion’ and the view that the brain is simply a ‘prediction machine’
Being Well – How one might live well through a sporting life (PhD thesis) – conclusions and key takeaways of Danny’s PhD research, included: life phases; acknowledging absurdity; taking part in one's awareness of ‘what makes me tick’; reducing seriousness; pragmatism (talk, doesn’t cook rice); and a dynamic relationship with what I am and what I can become!

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Dr Daniel Massaro

Dr Daniel Massaro

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