What does a wildly successful college football coach like Nick Saban, who has won three national championships and has a chance for a fourth, use to motivate his football team? The inspiring words of one of the best athletes of all time — Michael Jordan, of course.
Saban has Bama playing in the BCS National Championship Game for the second year in a row. In order to keep his team focused for the title game, he shared a quote from Jordan, who was not satisfied with winning just one championship.
“We show our team a video of Michael Jordan talking about making the game-winning shot,” Saban said, via ESPN. “It doesn’t matter how many game-winning shots he’s made in the past. The only one that matters is the one he’s about to take.
“That’s the whole deal. Can you focus on the next shot? You’re so zeroed in on the next shot that you don’t have time to think about the other ones. You really don’t.”
Jordan of course finished with six NBA championships and is considered to be the best player of all time. Saban is up there among the best college coaches of all time.
Saban is often asked how he remains motivated despite having so much success. His answer is simple — he tries to forgot about what’s happened in the past and always thinks about the future, just like the MJ quote. As Saban says, it’s human nature to be satisfied, but he won’t allow that for himself. In other words, he’s a machine just like we all figured. We’ll see on Monday how well he managed to get his team focused for this title game. I’m expecting him to take home his fourth championship, and what would be his third in the last four seasons.
