Melinda Rule serves as the Athletic Mental Health Clinician for the Georgia Southern Athletics Department and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Georgia. She joined the Georgia Southern University Counseling Center in 2021 and began working exclusively with student-athletes in 2023.
In her role, Rule provides individual, relational, and group counseling services tailored to the unique needs of student-athletes. She also supports athletic programming by helping implement NCAA best practices related to athlete mental wellness. As an embedded clinician within Athletics, she acts as a liaison for student-athlete mental health and serves on campus committees, including the Georgia Southern Athletic Mental Wellness Team, the Sexual Assault Response Team, and the JED Campus Committee.
A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Rule earned her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Florida. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology, where she played third base and helped lead the softball team to its first conference championship title in 2019.
