ST. PAUL — Thirty-two students sat at long tables in a University of St. Thomas classroom one recent morning, reviewing notes or checking their smartphones, when John Tauer walked in. Tauer wore a purple dress shirt and gray pleated slacks under his black topcoat, but not the tie and blazer he would wear that night for his other job, coaching the St. Thomas men’s basketball team.
“All right, how are we doing today?” Tauer said. “Highly motivated? Let’s jump right in then.”
And off they went. The psychology class, Motivation and Emotion, explores the motives behind human behavior. Over the next 65 minutes, Tauer, a tenured professor with a doctorate in social psychology from Wisconsin, spoke to his students about what drives them to do the important activities in their lives.
“I’m biased about why motivation is the most fascinating topic,” he said.
Most successful coaches are amateur psychologists in one way or another, but trained ones are rare in the N.C.A.A. Equally rare these days are men’s basketball coaches who teach classes, even in Division III. Recruiting and other obligations leave little time for academic pursuits.
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“Some of the questions, and even some of the methods, were a lot different than I was used to in high school,” Alipate said. “He hit different parts of your brain. You could tell he knew something different than the other coaches — getting us to be motivated and doing things in the way that pleases us and also pleases the team, I think he does a phenomenal job doing that.”
For Tauer, a divorced father of two boys, juggling time is a constant struggle. Besides coaching and teaching, he runs a summer basketball camp and is completing his first book, on youth sports, parenting and motivation.
Tauer delegates some responsibility to his assistants, all part time, but other things he must do himself. Two weeks ago, Tauer graded papers on the team bus heading for a road game.
“I feel fortunate that my work epitomizes the intrinsic motivation that I study,” he said. “I love the various jobs I have, ranging from coaching to teaching to research to running camps to raising my sons. As a result, it doesn’t feel busy. It feels like I am doing exactly what I am called to do.”
