Donovan Parker joined the Mountaineer Football Student-Athlete Academic Services staff in June 2023 as an academic counselor to help provide academic guidance and support for West Virginia University’s football student-athletes.
Parker’s current role also includes organizing and implementing academic programs that contribute to the educational and personal growth of WVU’s student-athletes.Â
He came to West Virginia from South Florida, where he served as an assistant athletic academic coordinator. In this role, he provided academic advising, course selection and registration assistance to football and baseball student-athletes. Parker also collaborated with advisors, learning specialists, compliance and the university registrar to track student-athletes’ progress toward their degrees.
Prior to joining the staff at USF, he worked in the Student-Athlete Academic Services Department at Florida State, first as a tutorial assistant before being named a strategic academic mentor. In both roles, Parker served 10 student-athletes throughout the week and aimed to build strong rapport, provide social support and challenge them to think critically when discussing their coursework.
During his time at Florida State, Parker also served as a mental performance coordinator in the FSU Sport Psychology Practicum. While there, he developed and delivered research-based training workshops to collegiate and youth student-athletes. He collaborated with supervisors to develop program plans that fit the needs of student-athletes while identifying the evolving needs of those student-athletes on a weekly basis.
Parker earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Furman in May 2020 and his master’s degree in educational psychology with a concentration in sport psychology from Florida State in May 2022.
