LANSING, MI - Police recruits with Michigan State Police (MSP) are training like NFL players to help give them a mental edge on high-pressure situations.
The MSP academy in Lansing has always been intense, but there's a new kind of training focused solely on what's happening between a trooper's ears, WIIX reported.
"I came upon sports psychology in grad school and really resonated with the idea of using psychology not to fix something, but to make you better,” said Sgt. Ashley Kierpaul, Michigan State Police. “The military’s been doing this for years. Professional sports teams and Olympians have been doing it for years. So I questioned why law enforcement wasn’t using it, where the stakes are arguably higher because we’re making life-and-death decisions."
Kierpaul built a mental training program for trooper recruits and phoned-in the Detroit Lions to help. "I reached out to the Detroit Lions and asked if they’d share what works for them, because I imagined what’s working well for them could translate to law enforcement,” Kierpaul said.
The Lions delivered, sharing more than just mental toughness techniques. "What shocked me was how much they focused on sleep,” Kierpaul said. “They were expecting athletes to perform at a high level despite a sleep deficit and crazy travel schedules, so they used sleep training to help their players. As you can imagine, that helps police officers quite a bit, especially if you work midnights and swing shifts."
The goal, then, it to treat recruits like elite athletes. "We’re setting them up to succeed, and we’re preparing them both mentally and physically,” said Lt. Brian Kinaschuk, Michigan State Police Training Academy. “We’ve had 49 recruits come through and 41 have since graduated and gone out to the road. Traditionally, we’ll have 25 to 30 percent attrition in our schools, so being at about 17 percent is substantially better."
It's the same mindset on the field and on the job. "When you consider the mindset of a police officer and the mindset of an athlete, how they respond to failure and the importance of being able to bounce back and have a short memory so they can keep pushing forward, it’s been great for our recruits,” said F/Lt. Tedric Gibbs, Michigan State Police Training Academy.
On Sundays, Lions players take that mindset onto the field. Troopers take it on the road. It's the same concept: train the mind like a muscle.
In the academy, recruits say it starts with how they talk to themselves. "In recruit school, there are a lot of tough moments, and how you guide yourself through those problems is what can keep you going,” said Trooper Tucker Havel, Michigan State Police Negaunee Post.
"They go over a lot about basically just toughening your mind and being ready for anything, because you can go from a simple, ‘hey, my neighbor’s feeding too many squirrels in my yard,’ all the way to, god forbid, an injury accident where someone could have potentially died,” said Trooper Kyle Buchanan, Michigan State Police Marshall Post. “It’s about having you always prepared for the worst-case scenario."
This training is also changing the way troopers support each other. "It created a small network inside the school of people who had that leg up and allowed us to fan out and help others,” Havel said.
"I’m a father, I’ve got three children and my wife, and in certain situations you can’t be the one to freak out,” Buchanan said. “We’ve had a couple of incidents around my house and afterward everyone said, ‘you were really calm on that.’ If you freak out, you can’t really help anybody."
Commanders say what happens at the academy shows up on every traffic stop. "Their confidence is just through the roof,” Gibbs said. “They understand how to respond to adversity."
The Lions call it grit and MSP are building it. "The weeks become long and they kind of drag on,” Kinaschuk said. “If I had this before I came into recruit school, I think it would have helped me mentally get through those weeks and would have just furthered my learning and my training."
This isn't just about graduation. It's about the trooper who shows up when you need help. "For the public, you’re going to get a more confident trooper, one who has better insight into their emotions and emotional regulation,” Kierpaul said. “You’re going to get better decision-making and someone who can remain calm under pressure, which is exactly what the public needs in a high-stress situation, and feeling confident about those decisions under pressure."
Kierpaul built the program from the ground up, inspired by what she saw Coach Dan Campbell build with the Lions. MSP started it a few years ago, and now departments across the country are taking notice.
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