Author: Don Yaeger

During the opening week of college football, fans are always on the lookout for the perfect upset. And if this Saturday’s game between top-10 ranked Michigan State and little-known Western Michigan University doesn’t go as planned for the Spartans (or the bookies!) there will be a reason…and his name is P.J. Fleck. Fleck, the youngest head coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision, has transformed the WMU Broncos by promoting...

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison is not a guy that I would normally offer as a model for life lessons. Sure he became an NFL starter after going undrafted, proving his desire and work-ethic, but he’s also generated more than his share of controversy through his career. And some of his off-the-field habits are, at the very least, troubling. But his recent comment that he was returning his children’s “participation”...

If you look at the most successful franchises and head coaches in sports today, they have one common characteristic: stability. And in our job-hopping society, nobody embodies stability like Tommy Lasorda, legendary manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lasorda has been retired since 1996, but his aura can still be felt throughout Dodger stadium. He has the longest tenure of anyone in his organization, won the National...

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is this weekend. There have been many inspiring speeches delivered at the HOF over the years, but the greatest of all time occurred in 1993 when 12-year-old Jarrett Payton quietly stepped to the podium and, in a high-pitched voice, introduced his heroic father Walter “Sweetness” Payton. Payton (in my opinion) is the greatest football player who ever lived, and the epitome of a service-directed...

As the U.S. Women’s National Team celebrated their World Cup victory a few weeks ago, many of the athletes talked about how connected they were, how much they enjoyed and appreciated each other—and that they felt those things long before the world saw them on display. It was, they said, the secret to the team’s success. Connection is one of the most essential elements in a truly great team, no matter what the field....

Many of us have been asked to take on a new role on our professional teams in the past. Change is the nature of today’s workforce but, if we are being honest, is usually met with resistance on our part—especially if the move could be perceived as a demotion. Former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz—part of arguably one of the most dominant starting rotations in Major League Baseball history—volunteered for the ultimate...

Everyone wants success rapidly. In our culture of instant gratification, waiting simply isn’t an option for many people. Dayton Moore, general manager of the red-hot Kansas City Royals, knew that he could not transform his once failing ball club overnight…but that the key to long-term success lay in clearly communicating his vision. Recently, I sat down with Moore to discuss the release of his new book More Than a...

Tonight is the 2015 NBA Draft. A handful of young men—and maybe a few basketball teams—will see their futures change dramatically over the course of a few hours. The players who will be selected have been prodded, measured, and analyzed. Sports pundits covering the draft will likely focus on the high-flying athleticism of the best draft potentials, but may overlook a key characteristic of in-game success: tenacity....

Becoming a champion is hard. Doing it twice in a row…there are reasons it happens so infrequently. To win continuously, one of the hardest things to overcome is a sense of entitlement; a belief that what’s been accomplished should naturally happen again. In the glow of victory, some teams forget how much work it took to get there. Last week, at the What Drives Winning conference, University of Florida Coach Tim Walton...