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. 25 national championship wins! Over 190 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'm joined today by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter, and our producer, Daedalian Lowry. We were talking before we got on the air here. As I prepare for these podcasts, there's a lot of topics that I create and then start, you know, branching out with them. And today we're going to talk about competing. But it could go a bunch of different ways because we were talking about a couple other topics before we got on here. I think competing is an important part of our job. And one of the things again that intrigued me that we will also be talking about in the future on podcast is paradoxes in sports. Because I think there's a lot of things in sport that we talk about that can be taken positively or negatively. And I believe that about competing. But, you know, I was at a luncheon a couple weeks ago and the leader with an athletic administrator at a high level and you know, talked about our goal is to compete, achieve and grow. I mean, that stuck with me because I think of our mission too. And we're an educational entity in that and student first. But we do compete and I think some people outside of the world of sport think that as a negative and also the difference between competing in the world of sport and outside the world of sport. And I'll give you a quick example. Like, my family gets mad at me because I like putting my map on my car little screen there. And it gives me my time to get there.

And you try to beat it.

I do. And like, even when I know the direction at that point I leave it up there and they get mad at me like we went somewhere this weekend. I could not. It stayed at 12:28 and I was doing every and I wasn't breaking the law. I'm not a. I don't drive fast or anything. I mean, maybe five over with the rule. But I do try to beat it. And I just, I'm a competitor. I mean I want to and not necessarily Win. I always say be better, because competition isn't about winning, really. I mean, I think we confuse that, too. It's about competing. Winning is the result. Some would say it's a mindset, and I believe that. But it helps raise standards. It helps build resilience. It helps create elite environments. So, yeah, I'd like to dive in a little bit about competing. And you and I last year spent a lot of time talking about competing, and you brought me on to the North Carolina women's soccer coach, Anson. Anson, yeah. And how he used competition, and it was very impressive. I mean, he was successful at. I mean, 22 national championships, I think. I mean, women. North Carolina Women's Soccer was just. Is a dynasty. But how, you know, the competitive cauldron was his thing. And so we'll dive into that, too. But first, in things, on competing.

Well, I think what I was taught, or maybe what I learned along the way is it's pretty simple to compete. You just show up.

Interesting. Okay. All right.

I think competing gets a bad rep because of, I'd say, attitude of some people that are competing. And by that, I mean, I think the only thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner. That's just my personal perspective.

Very good.

Love that. I think ultimately, you're the most influential way to compete is compete with yourself versus competing with others. And not only is it influential, but it's also really healthy to not be competing with others, but just competing with yourself.

As you guys were talking about it, that was actually one of the things that I think about myself. I don't think I have a very competitive nature to me, per se. However, I will say I'm very competitive where myself and I want to always beat whatever it is that I've done in the past. So, yeah, I'm definitely that way.

And I think that's actually healthier. And I didn't even know where this was going to go. But that's a good perspective, and that might help. To your point of. I think you're better at handling the result if you compete with yourself instead of being a sore loser or a sore winner. And I think you become one of those when you put too much emphasis on. On the result. And I think we do. And that's where I think competing and winning get intertwined, which they are different.

It's also hard, though, because if you're competing with yourself and you fail and you care about it, you are going to be frustrated. And so then that becomes that gray line. Is that a sore loser? Because you're frustrated and how far can that frustration go and stuff like that. And that ultimately comes back to people's opinions of it. But if you are seeing people competing, whether it's with themselves or against everybody else that's in the room, you're going to see frustration when failure happens, that you should see it. If they don't care, then that's when you're not going to see the frustration. But if they're competing, they care. You're going to see frustration. It's just those weird gray lines if.

We do focus on the results. You talk about that frustration if you don't compete well. But, you know, you gave me an article a little bit ago is where we need to change the mindset of how we look at not succeeding and look at it as learning instead of judging ourselves that we failed. And, you know, they gave an example of a flower. You put a seed down, you don't get mad at the flower because it's not a flower yet. It has to grow and develop.

And I gave an example a few nights ago in leadership, and it was about a baby that's learning how to walk, but it's crawling. It doesn't get frustrated at itself because it can't walk yet. It just keeps working on pulling itself up and eventually taking that first step. And the frustration isn't there. It's more focused on really, quite simply, just the process, just trying to get a little bit better. And you don't see that frustration because, oh, I can't walk or I can't run. But that gets built into us a little bit. And that's where that comes from.

We're talking about babies here on this board. But I want to dive into that because also that's where it all starts, brother. It is, it is. And ends. That's a good example of what I try to say is babies don't know differently. They don't know they shouldn't be walking or that they should be mad about them for not succeeding. So they're not judging themselves on how they do. They're just getting back up, but they don't care either. So I still believe that's where maybe in athletic, that becomes a little more of a part of competing because I hope you care to be either better yourself or again, compete against the other team to do well. But the other things I think that are important are competing every day in practice. I think it has to be consistent. I think it has to be at a high standard. I don't think you do better if you or reach your goals if you don't push yourself and you beat teams that aren't as good as you, that you got to play somebody better or compete against somebody that is similar to you. And I think that's where Coach Dorrance was good at. He had competitive drills every day. And I thought you experimented with that a little bit last year. And I think that is important that you don't become better shooters, but by just scrimmaging, you know, but do drills that reward making shots or reward rebounding, if you want to work on rebounding. So it's getting creative on trying to award and praise and develop those skills. But there still needs to be competition of those skills, I believe, to get better. I think you start with teaching them fundamentals in that, but then they gotta compete to get better. Did you do try some of that competition? Do you still use competition in your practice? I mean. Cause you studied Coach Dorrance a lot last year, I believe, and you're the one that got him on to me. And again, a lot of coaches use competition, but he had like a manual.

That you study him because success leaves clues.

It does. And his clues were pretty successful for as much as he won. But John Gordon talks about, you know, you gotta have a mission, a team, and a scoreboard to be successful. And I think the scoreboard part is the competing part. You know, you gotta measure something. I mean, how do you know if you're doing good at something if you're not measuring, and to Dalian's point, measuring since yourself, the best way. If I ran a 1020 yesterday, two mile and run a 1019 today, I'm better. But the course might have been harder, the conditions might have been harder.

And that's why he really focused on the details of how to put your socks on so that you didn't get blisters and how to tie your shoes so they weren't coming untied and you would have sprained your ankle and things like that. And so it's not all about the results in competing. It's about taking care of the details and trying to get a little bit better or become extremely proficient with whatever it is that you're doing.

And it is. It's habits. It developed habits, it developed consistency, which I know you talk a lot about. But it also helps you thrive under pressure, I believe, because under competition, there is pressure. I mean, there is not people watching, even if you're watching yourself on trying to be better, there's pressure there. And we've talked about how you handle that. But I think competition helps us deal with that and helps us learn to work under it, which does apply to an exam in class or in life, or even driving the pressure you have of getting in front of the construction people. So do think it applies. But it's about practicing it and working on it and keeping it in perspective, which I think is something. I don't think we do a good job now because when you think of competition, do you think of a positive or negative?

It's a huge slice of life. So it's positive.

To me it is positive. The Daedalian what do you think? I mean, you alluded to it to be a little bit. Do you think it's a positive term or a negative term?

I mean, overall, I'd say positive Again, if it's helping you to excel, achieve higher goals, then yeah, it's a positive.

I believe it is too. But I still want to hit on some of the points you mentioned about what it leads to because it can lead to jealousy, it can lead to division between teammates, it can lead to egos and dealing with those. And I think.

But a lot of times that's for the people that aren't competing is where that's coming from. And sometimes you have to really think about the opinions of those others that aren't competing. And if you're not willing to trade spots with them, then you don't necessarily worry so much about that opinion and the makeups of teams or business environments. Not everybody is going to be competing with themselves. It's somewhat seasonal. Sometimes they might be going through a lot of things or whatever it is, there's always stuff going on. But not everybody is competing at the level that some others are competing at. And then there's the ebbs and flows of that team and it just constantly is changing. But a lot of times the frustration, the jealousy and that other stuff actually comes from those that aren't doing that right.

Yeah. And I think again, that's something we deal with regularly because even on your own team you have different levels of kids that want to compete. I believe when your best players are your most competitive players, that's when your team's going to be the best. Again, the captain's class, the book we referred to before on this thing, it talks about leader led teams. But if I generalize it, it wasn't your best player being a leader. It was your most kind of your competitive player, your grittiest player, your player that goes through a brick wal that plays hurt, you know, and I'm not encouraging those that. I'm just saying that they're, you know, strong will of competition. If more of your team has that, I think it's, it's going to help your team be more successful. Having said that, it's still a balance for a coach to manage all those.

It's not only a balance, but it's a, you know, the bigger question is how do you build it?

Again, I believe it through drill, through constant practice of it. I believe it's consistency because I think it leads to other, you know, when I talk about the negative side of the different kids don't want to compete and it can create division or egos. But I also can believe it can help neutralize that because you have metric to show that we're not just playing this person, we're not showing favoritism, that there's, there's metrics there to show that this person is out competing you in certain ways. And again, doing those drills where you keep data that helps you show and help. Again, we talked about Zach Zorn in our last one about how if you take it the right way, it's going to make you better. I mean, again, back to how you handle it. The result is that, you know, you can get frustrated or mad or you can work harder and get better. And that's, you know, my approach. I like knowing where I'm at and what I have to do and give me that, you know, battle to go, go to. And I think those are the competitive people and those are, again, I hate losing more than I like to win people. What about your bowling league? You're in bowling last night. Any competition there? How's that?

Well, you know, it's kind of funny you actually say this stuff today only because, okay, so one of the things I've been trying to do is I've been trying to get my game up a little bit. And again, competing with yourself can only go so far sometimes. So I have been trying to, and we don't do player versus player in our bowling league, but I've been trying to do this thing where whoever's across from me, I've been trying to out best them. I don't talk about that. I don't, you know, it's just a personal thing where I go, okay, I'm trying to beat this player and I pretty much got my butt handed to me last night. So, you know, from that perspective, however, however it did help me to at least attain my average two out of three games.

I think that's a great story to Dallian. Because it does. It gives you something to work towards. It gives you a goal, and it gives you something to measure with. Because I think it's. Yeah, again, compete, achieve, grow. You compete. Do you achieve or not achieve? And you can even. You met your standard, but you didn't beat the other person because they were better. And I thought, and I think I.

Did actually win one game, but I think it was actually my worst game that I won that game. So I don't know what to think of that.

Well, I think that's sport. That's why you shouldn't always go on the scoreboard, because they might have had their worst game, too. That's what's fun. But so I think that's a great analogy of what competition does it help to rise your standard? It helps you measure if you did. How do you know if you achieved or not if you don't have that. That measure. But.

And he also hit on something that, you know, sometimes it's a little bit harder for that to come internally, so you got to turn externally. And that's why, that's why it's been said for 100 years like, it's super important who you hang around or who's around you. And that makes such a enormous difference on growth. And if you're the best player on a team, that's probably not going to be the best team for you to be on, just because there's not going to be a ton of competition, per se. And that same thing applies in the business world.

I think John Maxwell said, if you're the smartest person in the room, find another room, because you won't. I mean, it won't push you or get better. And you're right. I'm glad you brought that part up because that wasn't part of any of my notes about accountability, about, you know, and that's what a team does, and that's what opponents do, is they. They give you accountability. And we've been big believers on this podcast about having accountability partners, so. But another real quick thing too is, you know, when I think of competitors, the first people I think of are Kobe and Michael Jordan. And as I study more of them, you know, they're all in. You know, that's a characteristic of some of our, like, most competitive people in the past. And again, it could be a strength that becomes a weakness, that they sacrifice a lot of things.

They're hyper competitive and not everybody needs to be to those levels. There's extremities with the competitiveness and you really have to know how to handle it, otherwise it's going to spin out of control. And as just you said, the strength to a weakness, it's going to turn into a weakness. And so yeah, I think you have to be really cautionary when you're speaking about whether it's in sports, the, the Kobe's or the Jordans or in the business world, the Steve Jobs or, you know, people like that, you have to be somewhat cautionary because those are extremities and they were talking for the most part they were able to handle that piece of it. But not everybody is able to handle that much extreme locked in competitiveness. Right.

Well, that's where Bill Jackson gets, you know, their coaches get a lot of credit in managing that competitiveness because they weren't great teammates at the beginning of their careers because of that. So it is someone managing that competitiveness and dealing with it because I think that's why it gets a bad rap because people see the extreme part of it and turns people off, I would say a little bit or one they're afraid to succeed so they don't want to put effort into it because there's expectations that go with succeeding or it's too hard of work.

Yeah, everybody competes, especially in the sports world. Everybody doesn't matter what team you're on or what if you're a starter, reserve or whatever, everybody competes. It's just a matter of at what frequency are they competing at?

And I'm going to go a whole another direction here, which doesn't surprise you too, but Darwinism, only the strongest survive. I've always kind of kept that in the back of my mind as a truth of life, you know, that there, I mean obviously that the theory out there and a reputable theory and people utilize it and I believe that fits in, you know, life is competition. You know, I saw a dumb game show on the other day like 99 to beat. And it's not about winning, it's about beating that you're not the last, you know. And you're gonna watch it now, Cutter, I don't know if I'll watch it again.

I'm not spending a coin on that.

So. But my point, you know, people, I joke like if you're getting chased by a lion, just don't be the slowest person, you know. But there's still competition and we again, I think most people focus on winning this competition but sometimes it's just, you know, being better.

Not losing.

That's right, not losing.

Don't be last. Don't be last.

And we would do not want to live that way. And LCC Stars Athletics. We want to be our best, not just be better than someone else. So I think that's a good way.

So what's the food question for the week?

Yes. I'm glad you asked. So it's not exactly a food question, and it's one of the.

Wait. I gotta confess, I'm actually now driving around in my car at times trying to think of food questions to add on just for you, because I know you're getting at that point where you're like, I don't know what to ask about anymore. Well, I got, like, it seriously happened to me yesterday. And I was just like, okay, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. I'm thinking about food.

No, no, I've got another. Before you go. I have a bunch. I don't think they're as interesting as. So this is a common question. And I'm. So it's more of if you could eat dinner with one person, most of them have three or four, but just one today for. Who would it be? Wow.

So wait, dead or alive, doesn't matter.

Just one person. You don't have to be like, you know, just someone you'd like to have dinner with to have that conversation with. I've always had it. Like, someone's always asked me, like, the three people I would want to. So I'll start with mine. So it would be John Wooden. I mean, he was always been that coach that I look to. So I would like to talk to him and brainstorm him. It'd be Harry Truman, who's one of my favorite presidents. So I would really like to pick his brain. I've read a lot about him and would like to sit and talk to him. And the other thing interesting is that I learned this from one of my bosses. Like, when we're in a final round of an interview, we usually take the last couple candidates out to a meal because it, like, breaks down a barrier and you have a great conversation and you really get to know them better than just sitting across the formal table and asking questions. So. And then there'd be some spiritual leaders in there, too, but. And then take away from the people I do know, like my family or such, they would obviously be first. I love having dinner with my family, but. So it'd be a famous coach, John Wooden, at this time, it'd be a famous president, which, to me, Harry Truman would be that person. So.

Anything already?

Yeah, that's. I mean, you could go a lot of different directions. But I think about like Ken Revee. He was kind of the, you know, a big piece of the mental game.

Yes. Founder.

I think about Albert Einstein and I think about my grandfather.

Okay. Why Albert Einstein? What intrigues you about him?

Just curious.

Genius. Okay. Okay.

Curious and not afraid. Not afraid of failure.

No, you are right.

So the first one that came to my brain was Salvador Dali, surrealist painter. And then the second one that actually came to my brain was Nikolai Tesla. So kind of the same thing. Just it'd be interesting to pick his brain, get some notions as to where and to find out what was real and what wasn't really.

Yeah, those are good. And that's neat. And again, those again, just different compartments of life that you'd want to meet with somebody to talk and learn about. So it's always a good question. It's always an icebreaker at.

I will add on just because you mentioned the presidential one. It'd be Abraham Lincoln.

You know, I would love to talk to Abraham Lincoln too, but you know, he's a common one and I don't.

Mind that at all.

No, I wouldn't either. He's one of my. Again, I respect him. I use a lot of his material and I love presidential history. I think one of my strengths and at one time I could list all of them in order and ton of their basics. But I would love to dive deeper and educate people more about Harry Truman. I mean, the only president that ever dropped the bomb, which is good and bad in people's life. But he did it and he made that decision which some of the things is the buck stops here with him for doing it. But he had the courage to make whether it's right or wrong decisions. So he intrigues me on some of. He was a normal person person. He was very honest from what I read. But anyway, not my Harry Truman stories. But your homework is. I like it. Daedalian. The next time you two need to come up with a food question. But until then, 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!