George Mumford

George Mumford is a former college basketball player and mindfulness expert who specializes in teaching meditation techniques to elite athletes. An aspiring basketball player at the University of Massachusetts (where he roomed with Dr. J, Julius Erving), injuries forced Mumford out of the game he loved. The medications that relieved the pain of his injuries also numbed him to the emptiness he felt without the game and eventually led him to heroin.

After years of making meditation on and off the cushion the center of his life and getting clean, Mumford enrolled in Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program and collaborated with him to create the Inner-city Stress Reduction Clinic in the early nineties. He later founded the group Eye of the Hurricane, focusing on implementing mindfulness strategies in sports teams.

When Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls to play baseball in 1993, the team was in crisis. Coach Phil Jackson, a long-time mindfulness practitioner, contacted Dr. Kabat-Zinn to find someone who could teach mindfulness techniques to the struggling team—someone who would have credibility and could speak the language of his players. Kabat-Zinn led Jackson to Mumford and their partnership began. Mumford has since worked closely with Jackson, enhancing athletes' performance with mindfulness strategies. He has authored the best-selling book "The Mindfulness Athlete," focusing on applying mindfulness to improve athletic performance. His notable clients include high-profile athletes such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Mumford's recognized contributions have helped numerous NBA teams achieve championship success through his mindfulness coaching. In addition to his work with athletes, he has previously served as a sports psychologist at Boston College before dedicating himself fully to mindfulness coaching.