Chasing Greatness Blog

South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley Puts The Finishing Touch On Greatness

Don Yaeger April 8, 2024

This was supposed to be Caitlin Clark’s weekend, the moment when women’s college basketball’s greatest scorer was rewarded for making believers of new fans and confirming to current fans that…

Four Leadership Lessons From The NCAA Men’s Final Four

Don Yaeger April 1, 2024

The student bodies at four universities—Purdue, NC State, Alabama and UCONN—won’t have gotten much sleep these past couple of weeks, what with all the NCAA basketball their teams have been…

Oakland University Believed In Themselves And Shook Up March Madness

Don Yaeger March 25, 2024

Barely a handful of games have been played in this version of March Madness before it was guaranteed that your bracket was busted. And the biggest balloon popper of them…

Always Know The Score. Kent State Loses The Mind Game

Don Yaeger March 20, 2024

The NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament’s March Madness is upon us, and participants in office pools everywhere in this great land of ours have submitted their brackets and are preparing…

Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter Shows There’s Always Time To Listen

Don Yaeger March 13, 2024

The scene was a familiar one. A time-out was called and Purdue University’s men’s basketball Head Coach Matt Painter gathered his troops to outline a play late in a game…

Deion Sanders Turns Time On Set Into A Mentoring Moment With Nick Saban

Don Yaeger March 6, 2024

What do you do when you’re one of the greatest football players of all time and you find yourself sitting next to one of the greatest football coaches of all…

Ex-NFL Journeyman Dan Orlovsky Knows Exactly What The Combine Doesn’t Get

Don Yaeger March 4, 2024

This last week we watched the NFL Combine, the annual job fair that draws college football players to interviews wearing shorts and t-shirts and carrying gym bags rather than briefcases.…

The 49ers Showed The Power Of Championship Seasoning

Don Yaeger January 31, 2024

I watched the great NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions, which San Francisco won 34-31, with complete fascination. By the end of the game, two…

Patrick Mahomes And Josh Allen Have A Rivalry To Savor

Don Yaeger January 26, 2024

Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills are the new Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. They are two quarterbacks who are the unquestioned…

Just As College Sports Change, So Must We All Or Risk Irrelevance

Don Yaeger January 3, 2024

The beginning of a new year offers the opportunity to reflect on the topic of change and how it relates to leadership. Big-time college sports have never been more driven…

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Great Leader For Our Time And All Times

Don Yaeger December 20, 2023

More than a decade ago, I had a speaking engagement at Chevron that was part of a whole day devoted to leadership development, one in which I happily participated. One…

Even Simon Cowell Says College Football Playoffs Sends The Wrong Signal

Don Yaeger December 5, 2023

On January 1, we can all look forward to tuning in to the College Football Playoffs to watch Alabama, Michigan, Texas and Washington duke it out on the field. And…

The Vikings’ Josh Dobbs Proved To Be A Victor Of Circumstances

Don Yaeger November 6, 2023

In professional football, cadence refers to all of the verbal signals delivered by the quarterback before the start of the play. They include numbers, colors and other coded words quarterbacks…

Quarterbacks Matthew Stafford & Jared Goff Are Enjoying Greener Grass

Don Yaeger October 17, 2023

We’re taught at an early age to appreciate what we have and not waste our lives wishing for greener pastures. However, sometimes the grass – or Astroturf – really is…

The Cowboys And 49ers Show Why You Hire For Attitude And Train For Skills

Don Yaeger October 11, 2023

Sunday night’s NFL contest was billed (sorry Buffalo) as the biggest game of the weekend and one of, if not the, biggest games of the NFL season when the unbeaten…

Novak Djokovic Has Found A New Rival, Not Usurper Of His Crown

Don Yaeger August 23, 2023

The king is dead. Long live the king, right? Not so fast, tennis fans. After the brilliant and charismatic Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz defeated one of the three kings of tennis,…

Overachieving Tampa Bay Rays Show How Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Don Yaeger August 16, 2023

Practice makes perfect, right? Not so fast. I think the more accurate version of that truism is that perfect practice makes perfect, and the Tampa Bay Rays offer living proof…

Super Bowl Champion Michael Oher Says, “The Answers Are There For You In The Mirror”

Don Yaeger August 8, 2023

It seems some stories will always maintain their place in the public consciousness; Michael Oher’s is one of them. Even though his NFL career is over and the film version…

Even-Keeled Brian Harman Won The Open Championship By Focusing On That Hole, That Shot, That Putt

Don Yaeger July 26, 2023

The chances are pretty good that unless you’re a golf fanatic you’ve never heard of the guy who just won the world’s oldest and one of its most prestigious tournaments,…

Frazzling Then Dazzling, Carlos Alcaraz Came Back Swinging At Wimbledon

Don Yaeger July 18, 2023

The great stoic philosopher and former professional pugilist Mike Tyson once observed that “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” By the time he retired, some…

Ted Lasso Shows That Great Leadership Travels

Don Yaeger July 12, 2023

I watch more sports than the average person but I don’t tend to watch sitcoms or dramas about sports; still, when everyone began talking about Ted Lasso, I found myself…

The LSU Tigers Championship Teaches Us About The Beauty Of Baseball

Don Yaeger June 27, 2023

The LSU Tigers won a national baseball championship this weekend by beating the Florida Gators 18-4 on Monday in game three of the College World Series. And while that’s not…

Kevin Love Turned Up The Heat (Culture) With A Hug Of Gabe Vincent

Don Yaeger June 5, 2023

It was a moment most people wouldn’t have caught, but it positively screamed the two words that have come to define this year’s NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and…

Caleb Martin? Nikola Jokic? This NBA Finals Is Dedicated To The Grinders

Don Yaeger May 31, 2023

It’s NBA Finals time. The time of the year when everyone tunes in to watch their favorite stars go head-to-head in the series that matters most. The star power can…

Chasing Greatness Blog

Weekly leadership lessons learned from the world of sports.

South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley Puts The Finishing Touch On Greatness

Four Leadership Lessons From The NCAA Men’s Final Four

Oakland University Believed In Themselves And Shook Up March Madness

Always Know The Score. Kent State Loses The Mind Game

Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter Shows There’s Always Time To Listen

Deion Sanders Turns Time On Set Into A Mentoring Moment With Nick Saban

Ex-NFL Journeyman Dan Orlovsky Knows Exactly What The Combine Doesn’t Get

The 49ers Showed The Power Of Championship Seasoning

Patrick Mahomes And Josh Allen Have A Rivalry To Savor

Just As College Sports Change, So Must We All Or Risk Irrelevance

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Great Leader For Our Time And All Times

Even Simon Cowell Says College Football Playoffs Sends The Wrong Signal

The Vikings’ Josh Dobbs Proved To Be A Victor Of Circumstances

Quarterbacks Matthew Stafford & Jared Goff Are Enjoying Greener Grass

The Cowboys And 49ers Show Why You Hire For Attitude And Train For Skills

Novak Djokovic Has Found A New Rival, Not Usurper Of His Crown

Overachieving Tampa Bay Rays Show How Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Super Bowl Champion Michael Oher Says, “The Answers Are There For You In The Mirror”

Even-Keeled Brian Harman Won The Open Championship By Focusing On That Hole, That Shot, That Putt

Frazzling Then Dazzling, Carlos Alcaraz Came Back Swinging At Wimbledon

Ted Lasso Shows That Great Leadership Travels

The LSU Tigers Championship Teaches Us About The Beauty Of Baseball

Kevin Love Turned Up The Heat (Culture) With A Hug Of Gabe Vincent

Caleb Martin? Nikola Jokic? This NBA Finals Is Dedicated To The Grinders

Contact Don Yaeger