Self-awareness is the first step to improvement. The TAP reporting provides you insights not only on your strengths, but also on the traits you need to work on to take your game to the next level.
The TAP scores an athlete’s 12 essential performance traits – intangibles like mental toughness and coachability – using a 1-100 scoring system.
Today’s generation of athletes might be the most athletic and technically trained ever — but mentally, they are regressing.
I just read my daughter’s TAP report and found it spot on. The traits mentioned in each category are on point and described her to a T. Thanks for this test, it has opened our eyes to strengths and weaknesses
Phil Ruhl
Chino Hills, CA
The TAP provides an array of results in the form of scoring metrics, graphics, and narrative text.
The TAP is an athletic mindset assessment that measures the mental intangibles important for success in sports. The TAP has a 30+ year track record of success in professional sports contributing to dozens of championships with such teams as the New England Patriots, San Antonio Spurs, and Kansas City Royals and is now available for use in amateur sports to help athletes and teams reach their full potential.
The TAP consists of just under 100 questions and one timed exercise. It takes approximately 25 minutes to complete. Upon completion of the online TAP, a rich array of output in the form of reporting results and development plans are available. This information leads to building champions.
The TAP is proprietary and available exclusively through Ryzer.
Dr. Robert Troutwine (Bob) is the developer of his namesake assessment, the Troutwine Athletic Profile “TAP”. He has 30+ years experience working primarily as a research and development psychological scientist with professional sports organizations, military, corporations, and law firms. His client base includes such well known names as the New England Patriots, Ford Motor Company, Sprint, and the US Navy SEALs.
Dr. Troutwine is probably best known for his work in sports. He coached college football in the early 1980s before being hired by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1984. Since then, he has independently consulted with dozens of professional sports teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, as well as at the college level and internationally on assessment, coaching, and development of athletes.
In 2019, Dr. Troutwine co-founded Ryzer Mindset to bring his proprietary TAP assessment to the global athletic market. He also currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus after being a professor and chair of the Psychology Department at William Jewell College. Bob resides in Liberty, MO with his wife Nancy and has 3 grown children plus 4 (and counting) grandchildren.
The TAP has a 30+ year record of success in player personnel assessment and coaching with leading teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA and also the US Department of Defense. Many professional championships have been won by teams using the TAP, including the New England Patriots, Kansas City Royals and San Antonio Spurs. As you can imagine, the TAP has many success stories that helped shape the history of the NFL, MLB, and more including:
Dr. Troutwine’s 30+ years of scientific research and data resulting from working with elite athletes, coaches, and teams has proven, over and over again, that mental intangibles are tied to performance and overall success.
Coaches and athletes at all levels are waking up to this fact and are actively looking for tools and services to help with the mental game and provide them a competitive advantage. In parallel, there is growing awareness and demand for services relating to athlete mental health and wellness. Recent studies have shown that today’s competitive athletes, both youth and collegiate, suffer from anxiety and other related mental health issues more than ever before. A recent NCAA survey showed more than 50% of college athletes suffer from overwhelming anxiety.
Yet, most of us have no idea on how to evaluate or approach the mental game. Today, it seems only the elite college teams or pros have access to a mental skills coach or sports psychologist. This is why Ryzer Mindset was formed – to provide sports psychology-based assessment, coaching and training services to the amateur sports market. There has been no product or service capable of efficiently servicing the mass athletic market — until now.
It all starts with the TAP assessment. The TAP is like your personal mental “GPS” to success in athletics — it tells you where you are currently and where you need to go to reach your full potential for success and well being.
Absolutely YES. Here’s why:
Dr Troutwine has been involved in sports for five decades and has seen tremendous advancements in sports medicine, nutrition, athletic training, specialized coaching, technology, and equipment. For the most part, amateur athletes have been able to take advantage of these advancements resulting in this generation of athletes being the most physically gifted and technically trained ever. However, Dr. Troutwine noticed that there was one area where athletes were not making similar gains, in fact, they were actually getting worse. This was in their mental game. A historical look at the TAP database shows a clear trend that the athletes coming up through the ranks are weaker mentally than previous generations. See the chart below tracking Mental Toughness scoring from our recent NFL Combine participants:
This begs the question: Why are we producing athletes with lower mental toughness? Consider the environment for teen athletes today:
Today’s Teen Athletes…
Resulting In…
Although Dr. Troutwine loves working with pro teams, and loves even more helping them win championships, this realization inspired Dr. Troutwine to dedicate a large part of the remainder of his career to building out tools and systems to help younger, developing athletes with their mental game. The new TAP-based system from Ryzer is specifically designed for the emerging athletes starting at age 13, into high school and when applicable, into college and beyond.
Dr Troutwine firmly believes that athletics is a golden opportunity to mold young people with positive characteristics and life skills that will serve them not only in athletics and school, but for their entire life. The TAP ensures all the stakeholders in an athlete’s development – the athlete, parent, and coach – are armed with the insights, tools, and techniques to be most effective with interactions, foster development, and optimize performance. This information helps all the stakeholders get the most from their experience in athletics while guiding the athlete towards reaching full potential in sports and in life.
The TAP database is the largest collection of athlete mindset assessments on the planet and Ryzer’s TAP Athletic Mindset is the preferred athletic mindset system for leading teams in the pros, college, high school and club. Hundreds of thousands of athletes have taken the TAP to date representing 10+ pro sports leagues and nearly every college and high school in the U.S.A.
In the first study of the original version of the TAP, NFL coaches independently validated that 85% of the player’s profile statements were highly accurate.
During the “early” phase of the TAP, profiles were tracked in several ways. “Profile” here is defined as the interpretative report and the draft prospect’s global evaluation generated from the test results. Profiles were compared to outcomes such as a player making a team, performance, etc. One clear finding was that later round picks who had positive profiles had a greater chance of making a team and playing in the NFL (p < .025).
TAP accuracy was further demonstrated by a study of basketball coaches and players where coaches were asked to identify their players based solely on the TAP reports (the names were redacted). This study of 3 coaches and 36 total players found the coaches were able to accurately identify 35 out of 36 (97%) of the players correctly based solely on their TAP report.
More recent studies have focused on specific sport performance statistics tied to TAP results. A combination of TAP traits was found to correlate with net yards/attempt for NFL quarterbacks. Another study showed certain TAP traits related to batting averages of MLB players. A third showed tennis serve accuracy among tennis players correlated to higher scores on a TAP scale.
The TAP is highly reliable, meaning a person’s scores are very consistent, do not vary much from day to day. Reliability checks have yielded high figures, r = .92, (where a value of 1.00 would be perfect). This study derived from 92 players that took the TAP while a college player, then in a short amount of time, retook the TAP at the NFL Combine.
Yes. The TAP has been scientifically validated in a multitude of manners including:
Like other proprietary instruments in the field such as the Gallup StrengthsFinder, Dr. Troutwine has chosen not to publish the TAP assessment for peer review. This does not negate the TAP’s validation. This decision instead protects the proprietary and confidential nature of the TAP and its scoring methodology. This is especially important for our clients in professional sports.
Dr Troutwine has developed assessments like the TAP for companies like Ford and Sprint that predict job performance. None of these assessments are published for public consumption; all have remained proprietary and confidential.
