When Dr. Saul Miller was working for a series of successful professional hockey teams in Switzerland, the Swiss press began calling him “The Meistermacher.” If that sounds both cool and impressive the translation is even more so: “The Championship Maker.”
For over forty years Saul has built a sterling reputation as a world-renowned sports psychologist working with thousands of athletes and hundreds of teams in BC, across North America, and overseas in over forty different sports at the professional and amateur levels. Long before the hit TV show of the same name, many top athletes and teams learned the solution to winning the complex mental game was often three simple words: “Better Call Saul.” And yeah, a lot of those who called Saul helped make champions.
Saul was born in Montreal and grew up playing team sports—softball, baseball, basketball, a goaltender on outdoor hockey rinks, and later as a standout guard in football. He earned city all-star honours for Westmount High School’s football team and played at both McGill and Dalhousie universities while earning his degrees. He planned to study medicine initially but discovered psychology in university and that became his passion.
After getting his PhD in clinical psychology at the University of London, Saul’s first foray as a sport psychologist happened while he was working as an associate professor at Mississippi State University in 1979. A coach there named Jim Poling convinced him to work with the university’s tennis team. The meditation, visualization, and breathing techniques Saul introduced produced such strong results it led to further work with the golf and baseball teams. He never looked back after that.
Saul first came to Vancouver in 1981 and worked with the BC Lions, Vancouver Canadians, and Canucks during their 1982 run to the Stanley Cup Final. After a Los Angeles stopover where he worked with players from the Rams, Kings, Clippers, and Dodgers as well as the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners, he returned to BC in 1989 and has based his practice out of North Vancouver ever since.
Over that time Saul consulted with multiple Canadian national teams and athletes in various sports competing at the Olympics, Pan American Games, and Commonwealth Games, as well as national teams from the USA, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, and Russia. He worked with athletes and professional teams from the NHL, MLB, NFL, NBA, USFL, as well as pro hockey teams in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Norway. Closer to home, Saul improved the performances of athletes from the Vancouver Giants, Kamloops Blazers, Prince George Cougars, UBC men’s and women’s hockey, various BCHL and KIJHL teams, and many North Vancouver community and high school teams.
The author of ten best-selling books on athletic performance and well-being, he has delivered countless coaching seminars worldwide and is widely credited with raising the profile of sport psychology around the world.
Written and researched by Jason Beck, Curator of the BC Sports Hall of Fame.