Team Building Challenges

I always like to be positve with players especially when they don't play to THEIR standards.

To that end we had a game where on O we moved the ball almost at will but on D, our DC turned up late and clearly with other things on his mind. We tackled like girls and lost the game in the final 2 minutes. Drove me nuts because it was the intensity that wasn't there not so much the loss that bothered me. Clearly a case of Coaches nto leading the way!

At training instead of ranting and raving ...I brought along 72 eggs!

I split the young men into two, hand selected and evenly skilled teams. We then held competitions all night long.

Each team had to come up with a team name to start with and the best name got an egg.

Hitting drills. You either scored or got driven back - there was a large area of the hitting drills being declared a tie to make sure they got or took the extra yard.

The whole time we were allocating eggs we kept a talley and was aware of the score. We did things like mental toughness drills for example we stood them with their hands in the air knees double shoulder width apart and the last one who got out got 2 eggs for their team. We did a push up drill where to my count we kept going till there was 1 - same for sit ups. I was amazed at just how even the guys who obviously weren't a chance put in to show their team mates they did their best.

The intensity and noise and fun was incredible to say the least.

Finally, we finished with a simple 1-1 drill where even the lineman had to run routes and catch passes. Right at the end, one team had 5 eggs more so I rigged the final part of the competition. We let the passing team select anyone they wanted for the routes including Coaching Staff. Naturally, myself and another All-state senior Coach got the duties. What we didn't tell them was that we dropped the balls or cought them such that each team ended up with the same amount of eggs.

At the end of the tally we got the players from team A to put their helmets on and stand 20 yards and facing away from the other team. Team B would each take an egg and throw it at them. We alternated this and kept going till their were no more eggs left to be thrown. When we got to the last round, there were 3 eggs for each team and about 9 players. I gave them 1 minutes to decide who would throw the eggs...part of the team building theme on the night to solve problems. 1 team decided to give the eggs to who they judged as the three MVPS while the other gave it to the QB with instructions on who they wanted to nail.

EVERYONE Caoches included had a fun night, I didn't have to yell at the kids to get there instensity up and for the rest of the season all I had to say is play for eggs and the young men raised their effort.


Mike Sea #11