One of the absolute best parts of my job is the opportunity to learn from world-class coaches as I travel the country facilitating our Leadership Academies.

Each place I go I try to soak up as many new, cutting edge ideas that I can to share with you to help your programs win on and off the playing fields.

I have been fortunate to collect hundreds of innovative ideas in my travels and report them back to you through my newsletter and websites. Here is a collection of some of the more recent best ideas from North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Notre Dame, and Pitt to help you and your program succeed.

1. Which is tougher to develop: Confidence, Commitment, or Competitiveness?

While discussing the topic of How to Create Relentless Competitors in a workshop with the Michigan coaches, a question came up about which intangible is hardest to develop: confidence, commitment, or competitiveness?

All three are obviously critical to your team's success but do take time and a conscious effort to build and enhance. In your experience, which do you think is the toughest to develop?

I found it interesting that the Michigan coaches reported the following based on their experience:

49% said CONFIDENCE was the toughest to develop
47% said COMPETITIVENESS was the toughest to develop
4% said COMMITMENT was the toughest to develop

My vote is definitely for Competitiveness.

While confidence is very fleeting and fragile, I think it can be built in relatively short period of time in comparison to competitiveness.

You can and do play a huge role in building and maintaining your athletes' confidence based on the kind and quality of feedback you provide your athletes - and how your structure your drills and practices.

I dedicate a whole chapter in the Team Captain's Leadership Manual for ideas on building confidence and offer ideas on this site for members at:

How to Build Confidence Section on the ChampionshipCoachesNetwork.com

I have seen great strides made in Commitment by simply discussing the Commitment Continuum with athletes and reminding them that their commitment is a choice.

Joe Paterno, Penn State Football

As Penn State football coach Joe Paterno believes, it is possible to develop a competitor but it typically takes a lot more effort and patience. He says, "A lot of things have to fall in place for a kid who has not been a competitor to become a competitor, but it can happen." Sometimes there is a fierce competitor laying dormant inside the athlete, it takes a patient and persistent coach to coax it out and unleash it. In my experience, competitiveness tends to be a more stable and ingrained trait that takes considerably more effort and time to improve.

For 15 strategies for developing your athletes into relentless competitors, you can get our 7-part How to Develop Relentless Competitors Special Report by joining the ChampionshipCoachesNetwork.com

I am also making the 32-page How to Develop Relentless Competitors Special Report available for the first time in pdf format for $19.95. Call us at 1-888-721-TEAM to order a copy and we'll email it to you.

2. Motivate Your Team By Benchmarking Them Against Past Teams

Deanna Gumpf, Notre Dame Softball

Notre Dame softball coach Deanna Gumpf shared another great idea on my visit to South Bend. She sometimes has her team compare their current team stats with successful Irish teams of the past. They monitor and compare stats like batting averages, home runs, ERA, and fielding percentage with past Notre Dame teams. They look at the some of the most successful seasons put up by teams of the past and she challenges them that if you want to get to or surpass their level, you need to produce at the level that they did.

Benchmarking against past teams focuses your current team on the kinds of goals and productivity they will need to achieve - plus gives them incentive to shoot for bragging rights over teams from the past. The idea works well if your program has a solid history of success and your current team is capable of achieving and surpassing past marks.

The benchmarking idea is not recommended if your program doesn't have much of a history of success - or you are in a rebuilding year with little chance of challenging the stats of past teams.

3. Illinois Football's Character Draft

Illinois football coach Ron Zook has a "Character Draft" with his team. He allows a small number of team leaders to openly draft teammates based on how often they do the right thing: doing community service, attending classes, making meetings, and representing the team with class. The leaders obviously select the teammates that they think are most likely to demonstrate character.

The "Character Teams" then compete during the spring to see who can best represent their program. Not only do the Character Teams encourage players to do the right thing throughout the year, it also sends a message to those who are late round picks that their teammates do not respect their character. The peer pressure and Character Teams are designed to reward positive behavior, punish negative behavior, and encourage players to do the right thing.

Northern Illinois football coach Jerry Kill detailed a similar program he called the Warrior Elite program when he was at Southern Illinois. Championship Coaches Network members can check it out at:

Jerry Kill's Warrior Elite Program

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Our Championship Coaches Network members can click on the link below to read Part 2 to learn more great cutting edge ideas from the nation's top colleges...8 Great Cutting Edge Ideas from the Nation's Top Colleges - Part 2