Due to financial reasons, the Research in Athletics Laboratory eventually was closed, which led to Griffith becoming a sport psychologist with the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
[3] These publications were written during Griffith's time at the University of Illinois and covered topics such as how a coach must have knowledge in athletics, physiology, and psychology to be successful.
Much of Griffith's research and publications have become the foundation for the widely growing field of sports psychology and many of his ideas are still used today.
He completed his undergraduate degree at Greenville University in Illinois in 1915, where he met his future wife, Mary Louise Coleman.
In 1922, he was then appointed to assistant professor, and made acting head of the University of Illinois psychology department during the Bentley's sabbatical.
He ended his position of provost in 1953, and in 1956 he was named head of the National Education Association's Office of Statistical Information.
[5] In 1918 Griffith began informally investigating psychological factors related to basketball and football by observing the teams at the University of Illinois.
To study these things, he developed tests to measure reaction time, muscular tension and relaxation, coordination, learning, and mental alertness.
Over the course of the 1938 season, Griffith produced dozens of short reports for Wrigley in which he made a variety of suggestions for making practice drills more similar to actual game play.
For instance, he suggested that batting practice be based upon full at-bats so that hitters could gained experience changing strategy with different ball-strike counts.
He was replaced by the (future Hall-of-Fame) catcher, Gabby Hartnett, whose late-season heroics, hitting the famed "Homer in the Gloamin'" against the rival Pittsburgh Pirates, led the Cubs to a World Series berth against the New York Yankees.
Griffith wrote about the basic problems and psychological components of athletic performance such as skills, learning, habit, attention, vision, emotion, and reaction time.
The Athletic Journal, a periodical founded by John L. Griffith (no relation), was aimed towards writing psychology for coaches.