Self-reflections on sport and exercise psychology: Presidential address at the 2001 ISSP World Congress, Skiathos, Greece (May 28 - June 2, 2001)

The science of sport psychology has developed into a major field of inquiry for many scholars in the last 30-40 years. The 10^th ISSP World Congress in Greece signified the trends that sport and exercise psychology follow at the beginning of the third millennium. It was time to return to the logic of the ancient Greeks who attempted to understand the world through the creation of logical argumentation. It looks as if more than 2000 years later, the science of sport and exercise psychology has not reached the logical maturity of the Greek wisdom, and it struggles to find its unique theoretical, practical, and methodological framework. This presidential address illustrates the struggle for scientific maturity pointing out briefly areas such as (a) arousal-anxiety-performance linkage, (b) imported and field-driven theories, (c) measurement and inferential issues, (d) cognition, dynamics, and action, (e) ecology of research designs, and (f) credibility of research findings. The address is not intended to cover the exhaustive list of topics, concerns, and future directions of the entire domain.