As the students section roars and the band’s horns blare, a new scoreboard’s bright lights illuminate the hundreds of fans. Every touchdown, first down, and win will be under North’s new scoreboard, which for most students seemingly came out of nowhere, and was simply a pleasant surprise for their return. However, for Senior Reggie Holguin, the mastermind behind the project, the scoreboard is the fruit of a months-long process that started last year.

“Before the end of the school year, last year, Mrs. McCarver had reached out to me with an amazing new opportunity,” Holguin said. “Columbus North would be getting a new scoreboard along with a new LED screen, and there was a position open for someone to step up and run the screen during games. She thought this would be perfect for me because this is what I want to do in the future, and because I had done similar projects such as media coverage and livestreaming.”

Holguin emphasizes the amount of effort and commitment the project took, even when other students were able to relax.

“During the summer, I as well as a group of people who work for BCSC joined a meeting run by the company that installed the scoreboard,” Holguin said. “In that meeting, we learned the basics of operation and how to manage the online website. During July, Coach Haston and I set up a media day for the football players, and so on that day, we took videos/pictures of the seniors.”

One of the most trying challenges for Holguin occurred at the very genesis of the project.

“The hardest part of organizing everyone together was that the company had to be reached out to by phone,” Holguin said. “In the beginning, we had a bit of trouble with the audio, so we had to call a separate company to manually come and fix it because the audio system had been set up by a separate business.”

Despite the challenges, Holguin always aims to do the best job she can and do the project as perfectly as she can.

“I do my job to the best of my abilities, but at times it takes a second opinion for everything to be perfect,” Holguin said. “I either come in early or test everything during football practice.”

Holguin feels that the scoreboard will have a very noticeable impact on the school, its students and school spirit.

“The new scoreboard will impact school spirit for the better,” Holguin said. “Every time there is a touchdown, field goal, or bull dog first-down, there is a video shown to display our plays. These videos help get the crowd going and help them stay attentive to the game. There is even a graphic that says ‘Get loud,’ and when that is displayed the crowd goes wild.

Athletic Director Brian Lewis also shares this sentiment about school spirit.

“I think it impacts the experience for our kids because we’re able to create highlight films for our kids, like each kid can have their own personal video,” Lewis said. “I think it also gives our fans a different experience as far as keeping them involved in the game, as far as first down, touchdown, get loud, whatever it may be on the board. I definitely think it brings a different setting to our experience here at North.”

Holguin enjoys the time she spends on the project and also feels that the endeavor is very rewarding.

“I love being able to see my work being displayed for the community,” Holguin said. “I’ve had a few parents get excited to see their son on the LED board. I am also excited about the video aspect of the screen, and being able to see footage of players playing football at a football game is amazing. As of now, I have a game day playlist, previous game highlight reels made, and cheering fans who applaud my work.”

Overall, Lewis feels that the project was a resounding success.

“I think it’s a success because obviously we will continue to build on certain things we can do with the LED board and I think we can only get better as time goes on,” Lewis said.

For future senior projects, Holguin warns that you must be able to sink lots of time into the project while still having to maintain passion. Holguin feels that she has never lost her day one passion.

“It is important to know that you will end up sacrificing a lot of your time, but it is okay as long as you are very passionate about what you do, such as I am,” Holguin said. “I give back a lot of hours to make sure the screen is working and that the audio sounds good so that football fans can enjoy the game.”