Stay in the Present

With a few seconds left in the conference championship football game, the Shadyside High School Oaks are down 7 points to the Kingston High School Monarchs. They’re on the two yard line and there’s time for only one play.  QB Ferguson hands the ball to Freddy Foran, the Oaks’ ferocious fullback, who breaks two tackles and drives into the end zone. Immediately, he is tackled and smothered by his teammates and they go into a ritualistic celebration they have created for an occasion such as this. 

Coach Cochran is going crazy on the sidelines: “Stop it! We’re going for two! Get ready in there!” The celebration continued long enough for Referee Richards to throw his flag, signal “Delay of game,” and step off a 5 yard penalty. 

What happened? It’s Coach Cochran’s fault. Throughout their no-loss season, he has allowed all kinds of celebrations after good runs, great tackles, touchdowns, etc. Every time this happens the team loses its focus for the next play and their concerns with the overall game situation has been set aside in order to have one of these rituals. Now, the coach has to settle everyone down and make them refocus on getting some kind of score. His chance for a two-point play has been jeopardized. Will he learn from this experience? Does he even realize what happened? 

Tennis players will tell you that the best time to break your opponent’s serve is right after she has broken your serve. Successes cause us to celebrate, which may cause us to lose focus on our next task. We can minimize these distractions by keeping in touch with our higher priority goals – breaking serve is great – winning the match is better.

Instant Replay – With Focus:

As Freddy breaks into the end zone, he tosses the ball to the linesman and goes back to get into the huddle with the other players. QB Ferguson checks with Coach Cochran on the sideline, gets the signal to go for 2, and a sub is running in carrying the play call. “O.K. guys, you know what we’ve got to do to win this one. Same play - let’s have Freddy do it again.” Freddy does it again – the players mob him - and now it’s time to celebrate.

Note - This blog was written at least a year ago - can this really happen? In fact, it did happen - by an NFL team, no less. They had to settle for a one- point kick.