Developmental psychologist, tennis coach, author, and columnist Peter C. Scales, Ph.D., USPTA, is internationally known as one of the world’s foremost authorities on positive youth development and has conducted research in more than 30 countries globally. He has published 11 books, and more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and popular publications, including op-ed pieces in newspapers such as the Denver Post, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Anchorage Daily News. He has appeared on and been quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, Newsweek, Seventeen, and Sports Illustrated, and been featured on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.”
A U.S. Professional Tennis Association-certified tennis teaching pro, Coach Pete has coached boys and girls JV tennis at Parkway South High School in Manchester, Missouri for 14 years. He is a mental strength consultant to men’s and women’s college tennis teams and the author of the award-winning book, Mental and Emotional Training for Tennis: Compete-Learn-Honor (Coaches Choice, 2019), which the National High School Tennis Coaches Association called “one of the best books ever on the mental game.” Coach Pete has written and spoken on his Compete-Learn-Honor approach in numerous forums, including podcasts such as the United States Tennis Association’s Compete Like A Champion, EssentialTennis.com, ParentingAces.com, and TennisFiles.com for the Tennis Channel Podcast Network, in USPTA’s ADDVantage Magazine, the Positive Coaching Alliance, and the National Alliance for Youth Sports, and conferences and workshops such as the Missouri Valley USPTA Annual Conference, Portland (OR) Tennis & Education, WeArePicklball.com’s global Pickleball Summit 2021, and the Arizona Tennis Coaches Association Annual Conference. Coach Pete’s column on the mental-emotional game, “The Bench,” appears regularly in Racquet Sports Industry Magazine, the flagship publication of the industry.
