Stars on Sports Intro: It's time for Stars on Sports! A podcast-radio show dedicated to sharing stories about our athletic program at Lansing Community College. LCC athletics has a strong tradition. 24 national championship wins! Over 170 All-Americans! 19 MCCAA All Sports trophies! Stars on Sports will introduce you to individuals that have contributed to our program success and give you the backstory on what it takes to develop it. We'll also dive into and break down the topics and issues facing athletic departments across the nation and right here at LCC. This is Stars on Sports!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Stars on Sports. I am joined today by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter, and our producer, Jereny Robinson. And today, gentlemen, we're going to be talking about just the impact of star players. And, you know, Journey brought it up before our podcast about player hype. But the Caitlin Clark thing is the thing that first comes to my mind, and I've been very intrigued by her this winter and even over the last year. And it goes back to me, even Magic and Bird, I remember, you know, I wasn't a Michigan State fan growing up, but the hype that those two received and really something that changed the sports landscape in 1979, because you had two personality that people gravitated to. And it's been a. As much as sports is popular in our society, it's having that personality that people can connect to that really maybe increases that sports presence in the world. And you can say any sport, soccer, baseball, running. So, you know, and even at every level, I mean, you know, I've seen at high school level, top prospect that people go watch if, you know, their team's not playing or something. And so I think at the cross levels, but I, you know, and I. We can talk about LCC, but what do you guys think of when you think of Caitlin Clark? I know we can talk about other personalities, too, and we'll talk about some throughout history, but, um, have you guys followed her at all?

Yeah, I. I followed her. I was more on the Angel Reese side of things, um, because I follow LSU pretty hard.

Did you follow him before Angel Reese?

No.

Okay.

I heard about the story, and then the season, this last season, I watched all their games.

Okay, but it took that personality to you for you to become an LSU fan, LSU women's basketball fan.

I didn't watch women's basketball. Honestly.

Same here. I mean, I watched some, but I definitely watch more because of, you know, I like the way, you know, Caitlin played out there.

I think people are looking for greatness in. In different ways. And you know, I think of women's basketball, there was a big hype at one point on some of them that could dunk because that was different.

Right.

You know, and that's what greatness is too. So you see some of that. You brought up Magic and Bird and you know, one was an extrovert and one was an introvert. So people could relate in different ways. You know, Larry was from French Lick and you know, Magic was of course from here, but big time extrovert, big time smiley guy. And Larry was just the complete opposite of that. Really didn't have a lot to say and just kind of put in the work and so people could identify. And I think for the most part when you are looking for greatness and you find it, people can relate to it in one way, shape or form. That's where the hype starts coming from. And it just continues to grow.

And sports definitely lends to that height. But I agree with you. I the note I had where is appreciate a high level and is it just talent though or. I mean you mentioned Larry Bird, who was more an introvert that still went on and had a following as a pro career. But you know, Magic was engaging. He had that smile that lit up a room that he kind of, you know, just wanted to be around. And you know, but when you look at different, you know, it seems like the NBA is, has more of those people, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, that were just fierce and focused and competitive and actually might not have seemed very nice out on the floor because it was all about winning, which you and I talk about. The book Winning by Tim Grover, I believe that his name. Am I saying it right? Which is we both like and is intriguing. And right now for the last couple years, I would argue the MLB's trying to find that person. They keep talking about different personality to like be the face of mlb. And there's a couple of the players that don't want that, you know, so. But I think even those organizations understand the importance of it. But is it just talent or do they have to have more than that?

I think when personality meets great talent, it turns into a superstar. Because I was looking at, I had to look him up. DJ Burns that played in a tournament. He was out of nowhere, this big dude, great personality and he just, you know, passed well. He was kind of like from Denver Nuggets, Joker, he played like him and they made it almost to the end they team he was with NC State.

The success have to have some of it success. I mean like would Indiana State Michigan State weren't any good. Would anyone know about one of those two teams?

Nope.

No, it was all black and white anyway, so.

Man, dating me, Cutter. But it is intriguing and even at our level, usually it is the top prospects, like we have student athletes that go to four year institutions at all the levels in AI D3, D2, D1. And some of our D1 prospects have developed a nice following. And the neat thing is when someone comes to watch them, there might be someone else that steps up that people are able to watch and, and gravitate to. But it's still, I'm still struggling with that journey. Whether you do need that personality, I mean, I would think, I guess when you set that back, Michael and Kobe still had that personality off the floor and when they did interviews and such. And Caitlin Clark definitely has that personality and so does Angel Reese and the rivalry those two kind of formed against. But, but it's also just appreciating that play. I mean that's, you know, in the end for me, that's what I like is the high level play as you alluded to. It's special and it's uncommon and you.

Know, and still comes down to winning. So you have to be, I believe you have to be successful for it to happen. You know, you think about the NCAA tournament in Oakland this year and you know, them pulling off a large upset. The hype went crazy for the. I can't remember his name but you know, he had a ton of threes.

And Townsend, they're still talking now. Look what he's going to be able to accomplish now because of that hype and now is not going to be at Oakland next year. We'll be at a higher level. Yeah, yeah. But even Caitlin Clark, people argue, was she a great player because she didn't win a championship or the national championship. I'm not sure they won the Big Ten championship. I don't.

They got to the finals.

Yeah.

I mean, so yeah, there's fine lines between those two. So. But I do believe you have to have success for sure.

Yeah, I think it helps. I mean, we go back the quarterbacks in the NFL that never won the super bowl, but they're still considered an elite quarterback. But maybe not in the same level as you mentioned, having both having that championship and that talent, you know, maybe that could be one of those separators and lend to the hype because, you know, winning does provide, you get more publicity. You get, you know, your season's longer. You're, you know, you're on TV More merchandise kind of a thing. But you know, it's still, I still think of the combination of things Journey alluded to because I think there's some people that don't want that hype. They don't, don't thrive under that hype. Maybe that, that would hurt them even of being, getting to that, that next level.

Right. I think there's countless stories of the people that don't want it and then there's countless stories of the people that have had it and it's went away and they've struggled too once it's gone. So, you know, it's kind of a double edged sword on the hype thing and pretty interesting to watch in sports for sure.

Yeah, that's another point longevity of it. You know, back to Oakland, a one year thing. Next year we might not be talking Oakland and even remember Oakland, but the other people we mentioned, even Caitlin Iowa, she, you know, the couple year thing and we'll see where it goes to the next level. But the other players we mentioned, I.

Think about like Indiana Hoosier basketball, you know, in the Bobby Knight days and how strong they were and they were recruiting an 8th grader and at that time that was unheard of. His name was Damon Bailey. And the amount of hype he turned into a phenom with the hype that was going through. You know, he was like the all time leading scorer in Indiana high school basketball and went to Indiana. I think he started for four years, had a good college career, was drafted in the NBA and was cut the next season.

Wow.

And so, you know that, that's, that's kind of what I talk about of, you know, the hype can be there, but then when it's gone, what, what's that look like too? And so it is a double edged sword because it can feel really great and then it can also be gone and somebody's on to the next thing. There will be a next Caitlin Clark. Maybe not with the ability that she has a different ability. Just like there will be another Shaq and there will be another Kobe and you know, those kind of things might not be the same person, might not be the same personality or anything else, but there'll be a next one.

And I think the talent has to meet the times too because you get another Shaq. But that might not transfer well to the NBA right now.

Absolutely.

So I agree timing is something in LeBron. I remember, you know, he came along when high school sports was kind of growing on TV and really, you know, his team got to travel all over the country. And it was one of the first high school teams that put it on tv. Yep. Tiger woods and golf, you know, started young, but I still wonder about personality or just that focus and fierceness, that competitiveness. And I think Caitlin Clark has it, I think Angel Reese has it. I think LeBron has, you know, they have that competitiveness too, which I think that very. We both think very important in being successful. But I want to go back to the hype thing in the sense of how many didn't make it. You know, you've talked about Damon Bailey and LeBron even in high school, how hard it on some of them. And we've seen it. It's hard to name some of them, but that have had. That have failed, that never reached that hype that whether with high school or getting to college or even number one draft picks. And some of it I think it do because of that hype, that they either couldn't handle it or weren't comfortable with it, that it impacted their career.

That way to some degree. But the failure is also what people tend to pull behind too, because that's the underdog mentality. So you might see somebody like Josh Hamilton, who was, you know, a highly regarded baseball player and then struggled with some outside issues and really, you know, failed in a lot of different ways, was able to come back, but came back later in his career and, you know, a lot of people got get behind that kind of stuff too, because it is the underdog mentality.

Yeah. And that's something we've talked a lot about lately in our office is the story that at times you might not understand why you had a setback or an injury or like you said, external issues and even dealing with that hype. But it could make that story greater by what you overcome. And sometimes we forget that, that it is. We always think. I don't think we always think, but people think that the path to success is pretty rosy, pretty easy.

And I think that's because some people do have those paths to success. It's a paved road already. There's not any curves or sharp hills in it or anything else like that. It's a fairly straight path to success. And we've named a few names that have had a fairly. It's not that they haven't worked for it, but it's been pretty a paved road. And then there's plenty of others that, you know, I think they say that people often give up and they don't realize how close they actually are.

Yeah.

But they stop because it's challenging and they're looking around and they can see that maybe this person, this outlier didn't have these issues.

Yeah. I think about like, Grant Hill.

Yeah.

Who was extremely good and he got injured and couldn't get healed up. And he finally ended up, like, pushing through and having a couple good seasons, but.

Good seasons, but not great seasons.

Great. And by that time, like you said, the hype was already gone. But to have that mentality to keep going. I give him a lot of kudos.

For that first year at Duke. I think they won a national championship or played in national. I think they won one. And he was a freshman that was starting on a really good basketball team. And he's having these incredible alley oops and different things. And then, yeah, it just kind of went away and he. He found a way to sort of come back, but I don't know that he was ever completely the same. And. And so that happens. And. And like I said, you know, that's a different road. And. But a lot of people forget about those kind of stories and. And they see the outlier stories and think, well, they didn't have to do this. They were able to go from here to here to here. And they had success all along the way and they had people behind them, helping them.

I mean, again, so many things. But true fans know about those stories that maybe weren't as successful as they should be, but were still pretty success. You know, like a Grant Hill that still was successful, but just not to the original hype, to the path thing, you know, don't you call those people that have a paid path. Born on third base. Just kidding.

I love that.

You know, so I gotta start at home.

I never like that.

Still got to get them in, though.

True that.

90Ft.

But then the other neat topic that I think, and we've talked a little bit before on our podcast about player hype and greatness is making your teammates better and those ones that do it. And you see you can't do it by yourself. And back to Caitlin Clark.

I was just about to say that, you know, she.

I mean, she still made Iowa better. She might not have had the same surrounding cast at LSU or South Carolina. Clark. And she doesn't have control over that. At some levels you do. I mean, look at. LeBron had control and. And Michael did, too. Not so much.

But Michael kind of figured it out later on in his career about that. Like he needed some help around him.

Yeah.

His first couple years, how important the team was and how important, you know, not Only blowing guys up when they're not doing well, but also saying, like, hey, this is how we're going to do stuff, and. And I need you. And that was really the difference with Michael in the teams that he had. Because if you look like. If you look at when they were struggling to beat the Pistons, it was Michael against, you know, the strong Pistons.

Yeah. And then he got Gotti Pippen, and then it even added some role players there. And Magic had good role players. I'm not as familiar with the Indiana State team, but there was some good talent on Greg Kelser and, you know, a couple shooters and even Caitlin Clark. She had some good players on her team. And I still think the greatness is making your teammates better. But if she scored 42 points a game, that's not going to be another team, probably. I mean, you definitely need more than that. So I think that's back to, you know, the definition of if they have to win a championship or not. Sometimes, you know, I think of some of the quarterbacks back. You know, Dan Marino never won a Super bowl and he was on good dolphin team, but that was a long time ago.

You say Dan Marino. I think of the Isotoner gloves.

Wow, that's funny what you think of when you think of certain things. Yeah, the commercial crazy now. I do, too. Well, I don't mean to date myself on here, but. And there's many other examples and you know, Tom Brady didn't have the hype coming into the NFL, but found a good system and, you know, really developed and, you know, but some of it that mental piece too, which I think, you know, he had. And we talk about separators before and that's a whole nother podcast, which I always say on our podcast we have topic that will lead to other podcasts, but having those variables to be at a high level. And you mentioned a little earlier, some develop it later and. And even though Michael had the hype, he won championships at North Carolina. But, you know, to be at the highest level, it takes more than just one star player. And depending on the sport, the number of a roster spot, I'd argue there's a percentage there of how many you need. So many other players we missed or other, like, stories or.

I was going to ask, because you talk about winning and I watched, like, how Russell Rusbrook averaged a triple double for a whole season, but he didn't win. And now his career is kind of, you know, very shaky. And how do you feel about, like, people who get good stats, but they don't win.

Yeah, I think the numbers always die away. It's kind of like the, you know, player of the year trophies. They just kind of gather a ton of dust on them and the proverbial dust on them, it's more about, like, you know, what. How do they engage the cities, how do they engage their. Their fan base, their teammates, everything else. And that's what really goes into the winning piece. If you're so focused on what you're doing in general, then you have less success. You know, we talked about Magic's teams, Jordan's teams, you know, all these different teams, but if you look at them, there's. There's a lot of pieces to them that make them great. And I think the best players help accentuate those pieces to make the others great. You might only be able to get, you know, a little bit out of big Will Purdue, but Jordan was able to do that where, if he was playing in New York, he probably would have struggled a little more because they had Patrick Ewing and. And Charles Oakley and. And guys know your NBA history. So it's all about, you know, kind of what you said. It. It's being able to make people better, and winning looks like you're making yourself better. And then as you make yourself better, the contagious proximity makes other people better.

But to Journey's point, I think society does place some emphasis on stats. And there are certain stats that we do remember, like Roger Bannister breaking the mile barrier, Ted Williams hitting 400. You know, how good were those home run records?

How good were those Sixers teams when. When AI before, you know, because I was thinking of that today, you know, I think AI and, you know, we hear AI today, we're. We're thinking something different. But it was Allen Iverson. The dude could score, you know, but.

He made it to one.

Yeah, well, he's. He's more famous for, I think, his practice. So even the thing he. You say can lead to that. Back to our point. It is a culmination of a lot of things. And to get that hype, just like succeeding at the highest level, the more variables you have, the more success you'll have, the more hype you'll probably have, the more talent you probably.

It's the beauty of sports.

It is the beauty of sports. And there's a following that supports that. And we'll talk. I mean, one of our podcasts will be separators on what it takes that fine line to be at the highest level. But again, the Caitlin Clark intrigued me. I watched more of a WNBA game for the first time and turned it off because she wasn't playing, but tried to check back. But I will probably follow her more because I like her. For some reason I identify with the characteristics that make her successful, whether it's her or Angel Reese. I mean, I would enjoy, don't get me wrong, Kaitlyn, if they play each other, I would enjoy watching that. Just from the rivalry in college.

On a talent level though, Caitlin, come on. Like you said, what makes people better? My favorite type of players are people who do make people. I love Steve Nash because he knew how to make average players around him really good players. So that's what Caitlin does. Her passing, how she.

Well, you're right. Passing people give her credit for scoring and even some people wonder about sportsmanship with her because she's competitive and might use body language. But she's a great passer and she has more turnovers because some of her passes are, I don't want to say so good because they're so good. They would get them but that, you know, that they're just. They don't get received.

Are you.

Are you a great passer if you have a lot of turnovers?

That's why I hesitated when I looked at you. So yes, maybe not great.

NFL quarterback leads the NFL and interceptions.

Well, yeah. Or you know, there was a quarterback at the college level a couple years ago that could throw the ball a mile, but all he could do is throw it a mile. He didn't have a lot of touch on it.

So Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, Joe Milton.

So hey, we're look at the name drop and we're having here. So you know, I think that's good topic on player hype. Let's go to our last question and you peaked me last in our last podcast and I don't know what order these will come in but you know, I forget what we were talking about, but you mentioned a Coke at McDonald's was like that drink for you. And so I wanted to branch further because I don't see it regularly in the office. I know like I have a colleague, a former colleague of mine that he'd go to McDonald's every day just to get the dollar drink or he'd even go for his wife at night and go get her because they were the cheapest value. Pardon?

I said now you're dating yourself.

What are they?

I remember that.

What are they now?

I'm not sure.

So what is that your go to drink during the day? I don't. Do you drink Coffee. Do either one of you drink coffee?

Not really.

Yeah, me neither. Me neither. I mean I like a soda in the morning and it rotates. I go on different flavors by trying.

Mountain Dew for you right now right in Baja Blast.

I used to drink a lot of Mountain Dew back in this job. Too many a day that I. I cut it off and for a couple years I didn't drink it and then I came back and. But still not. I still don't have that same taste for it. But you know, cherry pops are a drink I. I probably drink regularly. What do you. Do you have a go to drink during the day that you like to have?

I like soda, I like Cokes. You know I'll try to have one for lunch if possible but.

And you don't drink coffee though?

No.

Do you have a go to drink?

So I'm on the end of mirror fast so I'll drink a lot of water right now. But when I do like a pop or a carbonated beverage, I like ginger ales.

Interesting.

Yeah. Or like ginger beers where I pretty much like ginger ale but with more flavor.

My life like ginger beer but it's usually with something else.

Oh yeah, most definitely. But I cut that off.

Good man Journey. What about other drinks that they're like? You know, like our kids drank Gatorade growing up but the dentists frowned on them because there was so much sugar in them and now I think they've done that drink tennis team that my daughter's on, we've been drinking Sunny Delights because they had it in our office. Sunny D. I've seen you drink some vitamin water before. Any other go to drinks in that area? Not regularly, no. And I drink my share of water too. I try and drink so many bottles of water a day and we really exciting to see our student athletes drink a lot of water. At my last years of high school, you know we had kids with like gallon jugs full of water carrying those around. Now water bottles are pretty popular that we're going to provide for our student athletes.

Water in general in the sports world has become more cool. Just like you know Gatorade did you know for the Miami Hurricane chocolate milk.

Is making a push by the post game drink. Yeah, I think they're making a little athlete that Lansing in our it's just.

Harder with milk because of the food storage stuff. So it's athletes to do that. So yeah there is a push for it but water I think just wins out.

It does and it should and it the best research has shown it the best thing overall.

Well, RDK's told us that soda before competition at the right time is actually a good thing. Wow.

I like rdk and she's been good to our program, you know, but I. I've never had an energy drink, but I know that, you know, that's even more popular among my family now, of course, of my wife and drinking a.

Little bit fair amount frowned upon.

There's a lot of sugar in them, so they're actually. It's crazy how much they're evolving there though, of bringing the sugar down in some of them. But the back of chocolate milk, they've come out with new ones for too. We had some in our athletic office thanks to student affairs and Luke providing us with some these, like, protein chocolate milk that you refrigerate. That lasted for like two months. So I'm trying to think who made them but here nor there. But again, you intrigued me with your McDonald's thing.

It's the best Coke. I'm sorry.

It is. I agree with you.

I'm gonna have to get some.

And frankly, drinking. I drink a pop a day and sometimes more, and it's expensive over time where that fountain drink. That's why my principal would do that for a dollar a day. That's cheaper than buying one for $2. So it intrigued me on our last one, so I wanted to follow up with it. So, again, a little longer than usual, but I appreciate you both contributing and having fun with this conversation. And until next time, go stars.

Stars on Sports Outro: Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studios. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry. You can listen to this episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand at LCCconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit LCCstars.com thanks for listening. Go Stars!