Looking for Good Team Building Exercises

do you have a local army national guard training facility near you? being prior service myself, i have been trying to get my team to go to ft. indiantown gap in PA to go through one of their team building lanes. this is a simple thing, just group your guys and set up situations...example: the group is given 3 2x4x10's, a 15 ft piece of rope, and a life size 120 lb dummy, and using the materials provided, they have to get the dummy from point a to point b. most military training sites have this kind of course, and i've already gotten the ok from ft. indiantown gap to do it, but not sure if other posts would be willing. this is a great team building exercise, but it would also help you point out some of your leaders. also great to help your kids with problem solving skills, and help them realize that too many "chiefs" can cause problems. you could also just go to your local national guard unit, and they could set a similar course up for you, most would be willing to do this since they could use it as a recruiting event. i highly recommend this, as a young soldier, these courses helped me out tremendously

Fun football related: break the team up and play ultimate football: basically play on the football field width-wise make your sidelines 25 yds or more apart depending on the # of games you want to play at one time. What I would do is gather the players from the program as a whole together (Varsity, JV, and Frosh teams) and split the players onto various teams "captained" by Seniors. To make the game fairer the the teams should be half skill, half big skill if you can do so. Also, make sure that the choosing is done across grade level/ program level so you don't have teams composed entirely of one grade level or program level so you encourage players throughout the program to interact.

As far as rules go basically its like ultimate frisbee move the ball down field by pitching the ball or passing it down field if the ball lands incomplete or is intercepted the ball turns over to the other team. You score by crossing the goalline
( the sideline ), you can play for time say 20 minutes or to a certain point total. Everyone must be continuously moving even if it's slowly, otherwise the team is forced to turn the ball over thus adding a conditioning element.
You can give an incentive for playing well like the losing squad has to condition, pizza bought for winning team, etc. If dome right it can lead to some intense competition and great team bonding, it can also give linemen their 15 minutes as they seem to do a lot of scoring in this game. Sorry for the bad grammar, long day.

Could you please explain your mat drills? Thanks!

For an explanation of our offseason mat drills:

If you don't have access to the Armed Forces, many YMCA's offer outdoor team building opportunities.

In the past we have done a special showing at the movie theater. Sometimes they will let you bring a DVD in and play it. The best part is having the seniors standing up and talking in the dark theater before the movie about what the team means to them...

I've heard of setting up Madden football tournaments.