Strategic by Design: How the Kansas City Chiefs Are Training Rookie Leaders with Chess

What do Super Bowl champions and chess champions have in common? Strategy, composure, and the ability to see the whole board.

That’s why Queenside Ventures was thrilled to lead a chess-powered leadership session for the Kansas City Chiefs' Rookie Success Program - a flagship initiative dedicated to equipping first-year players with the tools they need to thrive both on and off the field.

Our session focused on the art and science of strategy - not as a buzzword, but as a muscle that can be trained:

Understanding Strategy: What does strategy really mean? We broke it down move by move, helping players explore how every decision creates opportunity - or risk.
Building Strategic Techniques: Like perfecting a playbook, we worked through the fundamentals of timing, sacrifice, positioning, and tempo - key chess concepts that mirror football realities.
Thinking Ahead: From anticipating coverage shifts to adapting mid-play, rookies learned how to think three moves ahead using chess puzzles and real-game parallels.

By the end of the session, every Chiefs rookie was playing chess - and thinking strategically. They left with more than just a basic understanding of the game; they gained a new mental toolkit to approach leadership, competition, and high-pressure decisions with clarity.

This wasn’t just a fun challenge. It was a reminder: great athletes aren’t just built in the gym - they’re built in the mind.

We’re proud to support the Kansas City Chiefs as they continue to invest in the total development of their players. And we're even prouder that these future NFL stars now know what it means to control the board.

Interested in bringing chess-powered leadership to your athletes or team?