The Scoreboard
by Brian Diaz
In the lead up to the 2016 College Football National Championship, Nick Saban made a great comment. Coach Saban told a reporter, “The scoreboard is just the history of what has already happened. It has no bearing on the next play.”
What a great point! The scoreboard is merely a record of what has happened. But you can’t change the past. You can only learn from it and make adjustments to be better. Each play is its own entity. The only thing you can affect is the current play. You can’t redo previous plays. And you can’t play future plays yet. You can only play the current play.
Mental game coaches call this ‘present moment focus’. Whether you have failed numerous times or experienced a ton of success, it is about the moment you are in. That is the only thing in your control.
Conversely, at halftime of the 2016 Alamo Bowl, Oregon coach Mark Helfrich told the ESPN reporter that he was pleased with the scoreboard. Leading 31-0, it is hard to blame him for those sentiments. To Saban’s point though, the scoreboard showed the history of the first half. It had no bearing on the second half. Coach Helfrich’s focus on the scoreboard might have lulled him into a false sense of security. Did Oregon lose their present-moment focus? Perhaps they felt the game was in hand. After all, a 31-point comeback would be the largest in bowl game history.
But at the end of regulation, the scoreboard read 31-31. Oregon ultimately lost to TCU in triple OT. The first half had no bearing on the second half. And neither half had a bearing on the overtimes.
Focusing on the scoreboard is useless. Instead, focus on your process. Stay focused on the present-moment. The past doesn’t control the present. The future will come in due time. Control the present moment!