SOME OF OUR SPEAKERS
MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED IN APRIL & MAY
Dan Sarginson
Former Rugby League International
ON WELLBEING, SELF-UNDERSTANDING AND CONNECTION AS THE BEDROCK OF SUCCESS
Dan is a former professional rugby league player who spent over a decade at the top of the sport, playing for arguably the biggest side in the English game, Wigan Warriors, for over 150 games in two separate spells. His first stint with the Cherry and Whites caught the eye of the Gold Coast Titans in the Australian NRL, the premier competition in world rugby. Returning to Wigan a season later having suffered a serious shoulder injury in Queensland, Dan won the Super League Grand Final in 2018.
His on field highlights are only part of a life punctuated by challenges and tragedy. Behind his achievements were personal battles that he fervently believes limited his performance, inhibited his personal growth and prevented him from fully enjoying his many successes. It's the underlying causes of these difficulties that form the framework of this powerful talk that strikes at the heart of of questions around athlete responsibility and the extent of the sports industry's duty of care,
Dan is a charismatic, insightful speaker, in part shaped by the professional mental health support he has engaged in over the years - it makes him an ideal contributor to our day in York.
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Dr Sofie Kent
Sports Psychologist. Leeds Beckett University
ON THE VOICE OF THE ROMANTIC PARTNER WITHIN PROFESSIONAL SPORT
Dr Sofie Kent is a Sport Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and a Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology at Leeds Beckett University. Since 2019, she has worked within high-performance sport, gaining applied experience across a range of international sporting environments. Her specialist area focuses on stress, coping, and career transitions in elite performers.
Dr Kent is the primary author of Two on a Tightrope, one of the first qualitative studies to centre the voice of the romantic partner within professional sport.
This talk will provide insight into the stressors experienced by male and female partners of high-profile elite Olympic and Paralympic athletes, the coping strategies they employ, and the implications these experiences have for relationship functioning, well-being, and performance. Drawing on both practitioner experience and qualitative findings, the session will outline practical, ethical, and cost-effective strategies that organisations and key stakeholders can implement to better support partners.
Dr Derek McKenzie
Psychotherapist and Writer
ON BLACK AND BROWN ATHLETES: RETHINKING CARE ACROSS PATHWAYS, TRANSITIONS, AND OUTCOMES
Dr Derek McKenzie is a psychotherapist, writer, and critical thinker whose work challenges how race, knowledge, and being are understood within psychotherapy and professional training. Drawing on Africana intellectual traditions, he developed the Africana Critical Race Framework (ACRF™) to expose the limits of reformist approaches to race and mental health.
Derek has worked as an associate counsellor/psychotherapist with Sporting Chance since its inception, and his clinical practice reflects a sustained interest in athlete wellbeing, identity, and performance under racialised pressure. He also established and ran an award-winning Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Award–recognised residential and community-based therapeutic recovery house in Stoke Newington in 2017,
Derek writes and speaks across academic, professional, and public spaces, with a particular focus on mental health across sporting pathways, bridging theory, practice, and lived reality. He is currently engaged in practice-informed exploratory research aimed at developing resources, knowledge, and training to better support the mental health needs of Black and Brown athletes, staff, coaches, and families across the wider sporting ecosystem.
Tony Adams MBE
Founder, Sporting Chance
ON 25 YEARS OF SPORTING CHANCE
Tony made his debut for Arsenal in November 1983 and played his last match in May 2002. He became universally recognised as the most successful captain in the history of the club as well as captaining his country on 15 occasions. In the year 2000 he had the honour of leading out England against Germany in the final match ever played at Wembley Stadium.
That very same year, Tony created Sporting Chance Clinic, initially as a day facility in London before moving to its current site at Liphook in Hampshire (back then the charity was focused specifically on supporting athletes with addictive disorders).
To say that the creation of Sporting Chance was a very personal project for Tony is something of an understatement. In 1996, Tony had sought professional help for his increasingly problematic relationship with alcohol, much of it detailed in his 1998 autobiography 'Addicted'. The proceeds from this book and his unwavering commitment to helping others were instrumental in Sporting Chance coming into existence over 25 years ago.