The Mind Behind the Method

Born in Hastings, Sussex, in 1937, Hogg earned a Bachelor of Education in Physical Education from St. Mary's University in 1965 and started where most coaches start: as a teacher. He was appointed head of PE at St. Mary's Secondary in Croydon. He never stopped framing performance as something teachable.

In 1967, at thirty, the Amateur Swimming Association named him their national technical officer, training swim coaches across Britain. He was Director of Swimming for Scotland by 1969, and Olympic swim coach for the United Kingdom from 1972 to 1974. In 1974 he was named British Coach of the Year and received the Silver Star for Outstanding Contribution to Scottish Sport.

In September 1974 the Hoggs moved to Edmonton, where he coached the Jasper Place Swim Club and served as assistant coach to Canada's team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In May 1977 the University of Alberta asked Hogg to coach the men's swim team. He agreed on three conditions: combine the Bears and Pandas into a single program, equalize the budgets, and restructure pool schedules around student-athletes' academic load. All three were met. The combined teams won back-to-back Canada West Championships in 1977–78 and 1978–79. Through it all, Hogg coached twice daily while completing his MA and PhD.

Hogg's MA (1978) and PhD (1982) were both in sport psychology, built on a single observation: physical training without mental preparation was incomplete.

He left full-time coaching in 1986, becoming Associate Professor that year and full Professor in 1992. His performance psychology program at the U of A earned American Association of Applied Sport Psychology accreditation.

From 1989 to 1999 he served as Consulting Sport Psychologist with Swimming Canada, present at Barcelona 1992 when Mark Tewksbury won 100m backstroke gold, while codifying the eight mental skills framework across three publications.

He was also performance psychology coach for five U of A women's varsity programs, which won twelve national championships between 1990 and 2003.

He retired from the University of Alberta in June 2003 and moved with his wife Sally to a hobby farm in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. They moved to Kelowna in 2017.

In 2015 the Coaching Association of Canada awarded him the Geoff Gowan Lifetime Achievement Award, forty-one years after Gowan had recruited him to Canada. In 2017 he was inducted into the University of Alberta's Sports Wall of Fame.

In 2022, at 85, Hogg authored three new workbooks: a Mental Preparation workbook for swimmers ages 11–14, a second for swimmers 15+, and a Coaching Suite. Studio Pi published the digital editions in 2026. They're the heart of his collection.