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. And gentlemen, as I head into this podcast each week, I've told you before, there's usually a theme that crosses my desk or I hear throughout the week that makes me want to bring it here and to discuss and as we end the season or end our year, our academic year, our sports year. You know, we've talked a lot about defining success on this program, but looking back and seeing like did you get the most out of your team? And read a lot of articles lately on evaluating coaches and such and what to look for. And there's so many like generic topics, but one I saw break it down in like three questions and which led me to our topic today of transferring the power of belief, which again, we talked a lot about belief before but we'll dive into it more. And even that fictional character according to Daedalian and Chatgpt, Ted Lasso. But did the team improve? Did individuals improve and was it a positive experience? And I thought, you know, those are three good questions we should ask each of our teams, each of our departments. So then it made me dive deeper into how. And so listening to a couple podcasts that I like to listen to and then talking to someone that referenced the book the Magic of Believing, which was written a long time ago, but one of the first books on how belief can change your mindset, how belief can lead to success. So we'll dive into that a little bit. But it really talked about leaders job is to transfer the power of belief. So you know, looking up something that talked about inspiring. But we both, all of us here know what we think belief is and how important it is. And it just made me think about how leaders do that and how successful leaders do that. And we'll go through a couple examples and maybe you have some examples of coaches in your past. It's not just belief, that's the individual's role on the team, but a coach's role is to get the team together, to believe in itself to be successful. So that was a lot. Don't know where this will go. It could be our shortest podcast ever. But it just. I've. Over the last week, three times this thing has hit me that I have started reading the book the Magic of Believing. And again, we've talked about stacking winds and bricks and things here, too, which lead to belief. And, you know, we'll dive into a little bit about belief versus confidence, which I think we have hit in before. But what's your first take, gentlemen, on that?

This is a tough one for me, just at the point of the year and everything else. That being said, I believe that the belief system, you know, you've done a great job of building it, whether it's with a team or just yourself. If it takes. The difference between hoping, hoping is that you're hoping that you do well. If you have a high belief system, it's expecting you expect to do well. And so if you can have a team or people that have high expectations, their belief systems are going to be really high. If you've got a lot of people that are just hoping to do well, that means their belief systems aren't necessarily as high.

And I agree, because one of the things is those with the highest belief, belief is important to success. When you look at teams that have been successful, they had the highest belief system. Just like, you know, the neat thing about working in the world of sports is there's different ways to do things. You know, each coach has their own personality, their own leadership style, their own way. You know, whether it's yelling or calmness or strategic or fun, but each one had. So there's a lot of different ways to instill belief, but it's not easy.

No, I think talent without belief is the P word that we don't like to say a lot, but talent without belief is just potential.

We don't like that word because the frustrating thing to me is reaching one's potential. And if someone didn't, that's disappointing to me. And there could be a lot of variables in that. It could be their own work ethic, it could be not a good team combination, thousands of variables. But that is one of the measuring back to success. And the power of belief is reaching that potential. Again, it goes back to the little thing, the process, building that belief system over time. And how do you do that? And I believe we've talked about how important captains are on the podcast before, but in this case, from what I've researched and what I wanted to focus is on is the coach's role in that. Because again, just looking back on a season and how do we get better? And one of the things from the book and learning to make belief stronger is reframing mistakes, reframing failures. And how do good coaches do that? Is it too optimistic? Is it non realistic enough? But I do believe that successful coaches find ways to, to change that failure or change that lack of success quickly and strategically, that it moves the team back in the right direction or it minimizes how much that failure impacts that team. But it starts with trust in a belief system. And in the end, and I wanted to say this to the end, but trust is a big part of building that belief. Belief system that they got to buy into. What the, I mean if the coach is dancing in front of them, trying to like lighten things up and they don't have that trust or buy in, they're just going to think what an idiot. But you can do crazy things and change different way of getting things across by having that buy in. One of the examples they talked about who was, you know, when researching this was Phil Jackson was a name that came up regularly, a basketball coach at the NBA level with the Chicago Bulls coach Michael Jordan and was real successful. But you know, he was a real calm person, didn't yell, but got that team to do things that you wouldn't think would be, you know, because Michael Jordan did pretty intense and pretty competitive. But you know, he would have them journal, read books, run their offense with calm. And you think that that work. And the example is he had some interesting personality down there that you thought would never like read a book. But he got them to do it and it became part of their identity and also led to a lot of success because some of the members on that team needed to be reeled in a little bit. So it's important for the coach, starts before the season even starts, of having that plan, having that vision of how they want to see it. Because when looking for someone, when looking for a coach, you know, podcast said that you want them to see more before anyone else, you know, see something before it happens. And that is, you know, part of the belief system, believing that it can happen. And I think the good coaches do that is seeing more before, but it starts with preparation up front. So the belief is the result and it's such an important result in success. But it's all the other things of daily and how you do it daily that helps Build it and stack it.

Belief without talent will still typically outwork and outperform others. Have you seen in your roles, have you seen teams that have maybe not had as much talent but have performed at high levels because of belief systems that have been either put in from maybe a young age at the youth programs or at the high school level?

Yeah, you know, every, when you go into every season, your goal is to win a championship. And how realistic is that? Only one team in that four or class win the championship. And sometimes the best teams don't win the championship. And sometimes it's teams that just play the best at the end. But part of playing the best at the end is that belief in that you can do it. And I would argue some of the teams that have won state championships or national championships here at LCC or when I'm at Mason were teams that just develop that belief system that this really can happen. I mean, because that's the other thing. Everyone wants to win a championship, but do they want to work towards it? Do they do the off season stuff? Do they do that? But throughout the season, as you build momentum and build that belief system, that's what really you need to win a championship. Because if you don't believe you can do it, then you're not going to. Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. So I have seen teams, I mean, my first year here, our women's cross country team just got better as the season went on and just gelled and believed in each other as runners and there was no really star runner and they ran as a group and, you know, peaked on the right day. You know, I had a, you know, a bowling team and a high school level that just, you know, started to believe.

I feel like you're throwing this at me now. So, yeah, I mean, you guys are actually describing my bowling team. We are not the most talented group, but yeah, we managed to made it to the final roll off at LCC's bowling league three years now. We ended up being second place the very first time we got in. And then these last two years we won the championship. Definitely not the most talented. I'm not going to say that we don't have good players because we do. I got two guys that are awesome, myself and the other two individuals on our team. Not as brilliant when it comes to the talent side of things. And it's kind of funny that you're talking about, you know, captain versus coach, because I am the team captain, but I don't consider myself A very good coach. But we do have a guy who's almost an unofficial coach on the team and he tends to be more positive about winning than. Than anybody else. Now myself, when we got to this last year, we actually just were at the complete bottom in the first half of the season. And then I came in, I was like, we can still do this. We've got another half of the season and whoever wins this half, we can do this. I will say that's where the belief came in. And I think we started to like just really kind of pile it on from there. My question though is when you don't truly believe as the team captain or coach, how do you convince yourself?

You typically, at least in my research, it typically doesn't happen. And so we're talking about the positive sides of the belief system, but there's the other side of the belief system that is not positive. And if you don't have a strong belief system in whatever it might be, that's why you see teams, programs struggle year after year after year because it is contagious. Just like the positivity thing can be contagious too, leading to positive outcomes and experiences. The negative piece is very contagious too and will lead most often to negative outcomes, negative experiences. And you see that in sports a lot with programs that struggle. And it doesn't matter who the coach is or who the team is, it's a belief system that this program is bad, broken.

Yeah.

And it just keeps repeating the process. And so you need to have a strong, strong leadership role in the belief system.

And I agree there's a lot of things that take to be successful and win a championship. Luck, talent, leadership, positivity. And so that to your question is if you don't believe in the team, you're not winning a championship. But can it change? It takes a lot. It's again, it's back to getting back to the basic and restacking those bricks and build and finding wins, finding ways to change that belief system. So depending on when that happens, but frankly, most teams by two thirds of the season probably know where they're at. And it going to have to be little changes that make that belief system change so that you can successfully make a run in the postseason.

And when you said that though, when you said believe in the team, see, that's kind of, of I think where my belief system as the team captain was different because I did believe in the team, I thought the team could do it, but I wasn't exactly believing in my own abilities and this is where it's going to be a little bit different because most time your coaches and your team captain, well, I guess the team captain would play, but your coach isn't going to be playing on the team. So I believed in the team. It's just my own ability.

But even in your case, you had prior success, which really helps the belief system.

That is true.

You had been there before, so it's pretty much the same team. So you knew it had the potential to get there. But to your point though, you gotta separate it because you know, another thing I like our coaches to do is work individually with kids because as a group you gotta break down the individuals. And if your best player is having a slump or something, you gotta help them figure it out. And not even your best player, any player. So that can maybe change. One person can spark a team to change, to be successful. But the belief system in your bowling team had to change for you to turn that season around. Fortunate for you, you had the past experience. I believe that you knew this team could be successful to cutter's point. Those teams that haven't, it's even harder to. But it still starts with the coach because the other, the, the team itself is. It doesn't know any better. So unfortunately, sometimes it's a changing coach. To my original premise here in the world of teams that have coaches, it starts with them on helping to instill that belief system, continue to work on it and build it. And there are different ways to do that. And I know in Coach Cut's program he does a lot of the things, you know, a couple of things that a coach can do to help change it is first they have to have faith in their ability. They brought this team together. They got to, you know, believe in them, have to have faith in their ability. Visualization, which I do know you use a lot of, can help help them see what they need to do goes a long way nowadays. And getting even broken down even further. Focus. That's another word that, you know, when I listen to people talk about how to be successful, you got to be desperate and focus. If you don't have that desperation or hunger, it's going to hard to be successful once you have that desperation, hunger. You got to focus on your goal, focus on what you need to do and, and get rid of that external noise to be successful. And then what I mentioned earlier, another tactic is reframing lessons. I have a plaque in my office. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn instead of lose. But again, there is a negative side of this that I like to focus with Ted Lasso on the positive side, Coach Cutter, but there is a negative side to. To this. And I think that the part back now to the Book of the Magic of Believing was one of the first books on what the power of belief can do. He talks about talking to yourself. Tell yourself your subconscious mind is what's going to help you believe that you can do something. And we've talked before about that, about talking to yourself. Don't listen to yourself, I think is what we talked about. But your thoughts take shape. One of my favorite quotes, and I didn't look it up before I came here, but in every speech I gave at the high school level, your thoughts become your words, your words become your habits, and your habits become what you do. Technical difficulties in the background.

I wouldn't call it technical difficulties.

We know what the problem is.

We just can't fix it. So the listeners, basically, we. We have two different screens, and they're just kind of mixed up right now. So I keep having to turn the chair around just to figure out we.

Had a solution for.

All right, so what was the quote again?

Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, and your habits kind of become who you are. And.

Yeah, absolutely. If you're looking to destiny.

Yep, yep. Yeah.

Which one?

I think the top one there. Okay, so your thoughts become your words, your words become your behavior, your behavior comes your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.

And it starts with your thoughts attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi. Yep, yep. So but if you're looking to turn around a team, a program, a business, or anything else and you haven't had success, yes, the visualizations are super important, but one of the, like, the gold caveat is you have to immerse yourself into whatever it is that you're chasing and be able to kind of touch it and smell it. And that might mean you have to go to a program that is having success, but you have to be able to see what it looks like. You. You're not going to just be able to build this big mansion without understanding how to stack those bricks and understanding what the outcome is going to look like if you do stack those bricks. And so it's very important to be able to kind of see and touch and taste the things that you are trying to get to. And if that's a struggling team, then you have to look at what the strong teams look like.

I think that's a great clarification, actually, because you're Right. And we talked about. You don't know what you don't know, but usually when you hire a new coach, they have that goal. But I would encourage coaches to go see who won the championship last year, what did they do? And I know you've done before, like researching three championships and seeing what stats they have and such. So great point of going out there and finding out who did it and learning from them and digging into how they did it. Now in sports, you think rivalries or competitive. Not anger, but anyway, just that. But I want to learn from the best and I would encourage our coaches and we want to be the best. So hopefully programs are coming to us. And I have learned, you know, even though like you see in coaches compete on the field, that they do share information, especially if you run a similar offense or something. Yeah. If you don't have that experience, you gotta in some, you know, like teams go and visit, you know, like that go to go to the national championship one year to watch it and see it and feel it, to understand it. We've talked about experience before, so. Yeah, I mean, normally coaches think they know what it takes, but one of the best ways to learn is from those that have done it because, yeah, you can't just visualize something if you don't know what the reality is of being there. And I think the good coaches, they have the motivation to do that. They're always learning that their goal heading into the season. So hope they've done that. Preparation and having a plan in place and having a specific plan is important because that's what builds again, connection, then trust and the focus to be better every day. Because the other neat thing that I learned about, or I knew about belief but reiterated with this is it's contagious, good or bad. Back to your point. You know, we've always talked about one bad apple can ruin a barrel. And we know that in sports and teams. But it's also even back to one person getting hot, that celebration. We've talked about how contagious the high five is in sports, but so is one person's success because again, the team, if they're connected and close and trust each other, that can help build that belief system to spark maybe a turnaround that it could be one person.

It's so contagious that in any sporting event you can find moments that totally shift the flow and momentum of any event. It's extremely contagious. And you can't necessarily know when it's coming, but you can definitely see it. You can definitely Definitely feel it. And once it's there, you're like, either this is awesome or this is terrible.

Yeah, back to. It could lead to a great team that has an unsuccessful season. And, you know, you asked me earlier if I've experienced team that their blue C system led to a championship. And I think all of us can look back through sports and find teams that have done that, you know, underdog that went on to win. There have been movies made about them, and it just, again, you just see it and it's just fun to be a part of. It's fun to watch that belief system become one and just take them to a whole nother level and you see positivity, you see joy, and you see success. Yeah. There's so much more. We could dive into this. I didn't even get through half of my notes. But again, just a good conversation as where I'm at in our school year. As I reflect on our year and our, you know, trying to help our coaches be better on what we need to look for specifically in our programs and even on, you know, you know, we continue down the path of being better leaders. How to. How does that take place? And I think for all of us, especially, you know, even our love for Ted Lasso, which we didn't even dive into today, is believing. All right, so let's go to the food portion of this podcast.

And I starters on food.

I tried to look up different questions than food, but the food ones are fun for me. So. And we kind of might have dived into this because again, in the end of our last podcast, we were talking about Pen Station fries and ranch dressed. Did you try them yet? I have not tried them yet.

Penn Station, I need to go.

That's a great point.

I have to admit that I actually the next day went to Penn Station because I was in the mood after that.

Okay, I will have to go. So, again, talking about fries and pinsation, we might have talked about this, but what's your ultimate comfort food? The one you never give up, no matter what? I think I. I don't know. I thought I knew yours. Cutter, I can go first if you want, so you can think about it, which I normally do. Mine's ice cream. I mean, I'm a sugar aholic. Unfortunately, I've told you before, that's probably not good for me, but I like candy, I like sugar, but ice cream's my one. I would never. I. Our family just loves ice cream. I mean, I like potato. I mean, there's so many things I could Go. But if I had to pick one, it'd be ice cream. Cutter. Daedalian. You got any to throw out there?

I think pretty consistent with probably going.

To be right along with him.

Just letting you know, it have to be pizza.

Yeah, I'm on board with.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, it's pizza.

Couldn't. Couldn't even fathom the thought of not being able to have pizza.

And the beauty is you can change it up so much and it's still so good.

Yes.

You too, did that.

Oh, yeah. Pizza. Easily. I mean, it's the one food that I always enjoy. I mean, even when it's bad, it's good.

It feels like a celebration when you're having pizza.

Yeah, I like pizza, too, and I eat pizza a lot. I mean, at least once or twice a week. I think it should be a family tradition. Like on Fridays, you have pizza after a long week. And there's many different directions. You go, like, I'll call my wife. I'm picking pizza up on the way home. Which one you want?

I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I give you the bonus thing. And if we're talking sugary stuff, Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

Oh, solid answer.

That's it right there. Gotta pound that one. I thought for you, Cutter. Doritos.

Those. I could go without them.

Really? Okay.

I mean, they're great, but I could go without them.

Okay. I thought pizza or Doritos with you. I thought it'd be a little more extravagant for you to die in something I didn't like her for.

But it's pizza, man.

Okay.

I mean, the only other thing I could think of that I might say would be subs, but okay, you know, it's still pizza.

He's the bowling champion. It's gonna be pizza.

Okay. All right. Well, that's again, all I have. 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!