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. 23 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 with our assistant AD Steven Cutter. And Steven, today we're going to talk about who we are at LCC. And I don't think we've talked a lot about behind the scenes in the classroom here and the resources we have, but we haven't talked a lot about our success. And that's something we don't normally talk about anyway in our office because we just want the result to take care of themselves. Having said that, before we even started this podcast, we had some great topics that I hope we can hit to at the end of the day. Mascot naming, vocabulary, and what makes Cutter mad. So I hope we have time at the end or a whole nother future podcast to cover those topics. But I talked to a leadership class at a local high school recently, and when I go there, I try and share with them LCC because a lot of them, unfortunately in this area don't know who we are, which is crazy. It is crazy. I mean, we have a lot of students from that high school that come here and even our own student athletes. You know, I got a compliment at our student athlete orientation about sharing a slide of how successful we were this last year. And you know, you hear it in our introduction, you know, and that says enough for itself. But I don't think we do well in really telling our story. And I know that's an important part of us. And we're working on different ways to do that, including our marketing department here at LCC. We've had interns that have helped us with our social media media. And, you know, I'm doing a weekly newsletter I send the high schools, but I'm on a national committee for the NJCA for a sport. And every time I hear a college that's successful, I get right on the website and see what they have done or haven't done and see what kind of success they have. And I've done one more recently that had 12 national championship that this committee Thought was one of the best community colleges in the country. And I'm thinking we double that. I mean, we have 23 in different sports. And when you look at other national championship that community colleges, most likely they're more than one, are in one sport because of that culture or that program had done well over amount of time. And, you know, I'm not putting all success in on national championships. We're, you know, redoing our banners in our gym right now, reorganizing them, updating them. They haven't been updated since 2017. So even going to other gymnasiums and seeing, you know, how they've organized them or what kind of of success they have. And we are very fortunate for the success and support that we have had here at LCC. And it starts with our college, with our coaches. Again, that's something we'll talk about our traits of coaches. But you've mentioned in the past, recruiting is a big part of our business, and winning is one of the best things that helps with recruiting. Now we're in the middle of our fall season and all three of our teams are nationally ranked. Our men's cross country team is second or third. Our women's cross country team is 10th through 14th. Our volleyball team is receiving boats, which, you know, I'm not sure when the last time they've been ranked, if they have in school history. You know, last year we have nine sports and six of them won regional championships. So we do have that success at a high level. But we both know there's so much that goes into that.

Yeah, you were mentioning earlier that you were at, you know, attending a conference online and, you know, they're talking about another college that had a lot of success. And people really thought that this other junior college had a lot of success. And I think when we were going back and forth, they had about half of the national championships that Lansing has. So sometimes we do not do a good enough job of promoting ourselves. And in some ways I think that's okay because I think self promotion is runs rampant today and it doesn't always need to be there. But there are times where 23 national championships and the national rankings and the records and all those things are really, really special. But it's a byproduct of the processes and what's happening here. And it's not just we're not just focused on what the outcomes are, but the good people and the good humans that are in our programs.

Yeah. And we are fortunate with good coaching staff that recruits good student athletes that represent LCC. I mean we had a baseball player that was a national player of the year last year. We had I think 15 all Americans last year. Again, a lot of it is hard work and dedication and not, yeah, I don't want to sit here and you know, just toot our own horn and say, you know, we are what we are. But other factors that we work hard on is even in recruiting of we have, I think around 12 to 14 in district schools and we are, we have the student athletes from every one of those schools pretty close. We haven't had an international student since I've been here, but we have had students as far away as California, Florida and mostly the Midwest. Our majority, our rosters are from. But another statistic like when I share our success that people kind of go wow. Is the number of student athletes that transfer to a four year institution. Because I think that's becoming a more common goal of our student athletes, is moving on to a four year institution which we had over 30 last year, majority to NAIA level school. But we had, you know, we have a couple D1 handful of D1 student athletes in the Big Ten and Mac and such. And the other thing is how many earned associate's degree. We had over 30 that earned associate's degrees. So. And that will, some of those will go on to four year institutions just to continue their academic careers. So, you know, the whole picture, and we've kind of painted the picture in the classroom. You know, we had a 2.97 GPA last year, which is a little lower. We have to get over a 3.0. We've talked about, you know, winning the, the All Sports trophy for the mccaa which we took second last year. Congratulations to Grand Rapids. So, you know, there's a whole picture about success. But as we tell our story and we emphasize recruiting, you know, I think it's important to make sure we find a way to paint that picture too. You know, we talk about the right side of the scoreboard, but you know, as we know, as you mentioned, you know, especially nowadays with social media, how many, you know, even the sportsmanship or the taunting after a play, you know, we're going to talk about officiating at one of these future podcasts, but we laugh. You know, we have technology that officiates, but all the players that make the calls themselves, you know, singling safe or singling not a first down, you know, so yeah, there definitely is a lot of celebration and self promotion that we don't need to, to do that per se, but we do need to tell our story. And I think it would help us, even in recruiting, to share how successful we have been.

Yeah, you know, through. Through the short time that I've been here, through the three years or so, one of the things that I've noticed, and especially noticed when I. With fresh eyes, was that typically when you see programs that have a lot of success, you know, like LCC athletics has had, you will see people that are carrying, you know, those heavy backpacks, the weight of pressure. And I know I experienced that over the last couple of years, too, where there's, There's. The expectations are really high, the standards are high, people expect you to do really well. Just the other day, I had somebody telling me that they were Preparing for the 2024 College World Series, and it just kind of made me crumble inside because, you know, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And, and so when you start focusing on the. The right side of the scoreboard or the national championships or any of that other stuff, that's where that kind of really not great pressure comes from. And I've. I've at least found in my coaching time that if you can cover a basic need of showing people that they matter, that they're important, that's where the good stuff is. And, and that's where you can kind of alleviate some of these pressures from really successful programs.

Well, that's why I keep you on this podcast, because that's a good perspective, Coach Cutter. And, and you're right, there is a lot of pressure with winning and unhealthy pressure at times, and, and that pressure to succeed and that expectation, and we've talked about it before on this podcast, that sometimes you don't get to celebrate that success because you're relieved because you have been successful.

I remember last season as we were going through some stuff, it was Mother's Day weekend, and we were at a family event for that. And I. I try to keep a journal. It's a digital journal, but I'm. I'm typing and I'm. I'm just keeping up to date with daily or weekly or whatever it might be. And I was rereading that not too long ago, and it was. I was so focused on what was coming up and to talking about how much pressure there was. And I know when that, when we won a super regional and was heading to the College World Series when we won it, instead of having a lot of joy and elation, it was legitimately relief. And so that's that opposite side that I was talking About. So I, when I speak about it, I feel like, you know, I've lived it. I know what that looks like, and that's kind of a really not a great side to be on. And so if you can focus more on, you know, what matters and making sure that people understand that they matter, you're going to have a lot more happiness, and we're all going to have a lot more happiness. So that's one of the things that in at LCC that really stands out, is it's not. You don't have a lot of people going around and, oh, we need to be really good this year because we have such great athletic programs. It's more focused on what's most important here and what's our priorities. And you do a really good job of kind of laying out what those priorities are in each of our programs.

Well, it is important. And we talk about the mental stress of being successful, but there's other aspects, too. Time and resources. You know, we spend our share of money on travel because our national championships are across the country, so. And our college is very supportive of that. But the time involved and, you know, it's a very competitive environment and coaches trying out do each other, that they. They work constantly to be better. You're working on Mother's Day. That's. That's a shame. Coach better. I take back, keeping you on this podcast if you're not celebrating your wife. I thought he was actually going to dive into the fact that he was writing in the journal and not celebrating the event that was going on in the occasion. He didn't even go into that.

Yeah, there's. There's a cost.

We got work to do. There is a cost in many ways. So you have to be careful of that. And one of the things, you know, right now we're talking about the big things we've done, the national championship, the regional championship. But it's the little things, you know, celebrating those little things. You know, we. On our way here, we stopped in and checked on the baseball team in study hall. That makes me smile. I told you that last time. Just seeing them be together, seeing them do little things, seeing them study, seeing them look up at us and smile, or seeing some working hard and others on their phone, I mean, that's the human spirit. That's life, you know, and celebrating that, you know, we have to find little things to celebrate because of the pressure of achieving those big things.

Yes.

And keeping a journal. I think that's another important aspect of success. And you and I have talked about that. More and more of our teams are keeping journals, which I think is exciting and something that I try and recommend to coaches of successful teams of writing down certain things that happen during the day or being able to reflect and go back to those. You say you keep a digital journal, not a handwritten one.

Yeah, I'm just more efficient with typing than I am with writing. And I can. I can read it, you know, a year from now or anything. It's good for reflection. I know. Just last night I was giving my daughter a ride home from practice and she was saying how energetic she felt today. And that was somewhat abnormal because usually in the afternoon she gets pretty tired. And I started, I said, so. So why is that? What. What did you do differently this morning? What did you do do differently last night? And we teach that in our program, too, for people that have a lot of success. You know, why are you having that success? What are you eating? How are you sleeping? What. What's your pre game look like? You know, what's your mental. What are you doing? And then when they don't have success, and this can apply to anything, it's not just baseball or sports. It's life. When you're not having success or you're not feeling too great that day, you start kind of rewinding it and saying, okay, well, I did this and I didn't do this and I didn't do that. And if you start doing that, you can get yourself in a little better spot to have success in your work environment or, you know, on the sports floor, anywhere else.

And I think that's important. I think it's important to put it out there, whether it's to the world or in your own journal of writing something down. And our volleyball team is keeping a journal, and some of the things they're keeping track of are their sleep hours and what they eat. Because I don't think our student athletes do enough of reflecting on what they do throughout the day that's helping them get optimal performance. And again, both of those things are little things that will help be successful. They're having one of the best seasons in school history, as we talk about. And it's more than just being on the floor and winning. You don't know how long their games are going to last, so you have to be prepared for every moment. So. But yeah, keeping a journal is an important, I think, trait of being successful. We've talked about being driven and passionate in the past, finding our why. But stacking wins, celebrating the little things, I think is Something you and I have also talked about that not enough teams do a good job of and that I think that increases the pressure. You know, they're the fine line. As we've talked. You already brought up backpacks, which is a common theme. We're going have to give out free backpacks for our. That would have to be our symbol for our.

As long as they're like.

But our journals or. But now I lost my train of thought.

Some of it is. Is the. The thinking that you're supposed to act like you've been there before and if something good happens to you, you're supposed to act like you've been there before and they'll end terms are thrown out like class or modesty or different things like that. But each of us has a really finite amount of time on this earth and you want to be able to enjoy those moments. Don't save your. Your best suit for. For just once a year going out for dinner.

You know, you haven't talked to my wife because she buys stuff for when we travel and I say, where are people? Then no, I'm saving it. Well, what if that trip never happens? So I love that point. Yes. Buy something, use it, wear it. The best thing. And I didn't mean to interrupt, but I agree that joy, happiness, those are important to me. I like smiling. I like seeing people smile. I think I'm funny. I mean, in another world, I would have been David Letterman. That's why I love that. This mic in front of me, you know, but that's a whole nother podcast. But. But letting kids celebrate. You know, I talked about the unsportsmanship behavior a little earlier when, you know, maybe kids excessively celebrate. But we do have to encourage them to smile and enjoy and have fun some. Again, those small victories that will. Will keep us going because back to the point. There is a lot of pressure on being successful. And that is a point we talk about in our athletic department. We do have high expectations. We put those expect all our coaches talk about, you know, achieving at the highest level on a national level. And I like having that conversation with them. And I appreciate that our staff had that. That expectation. I've inherited a lot of our staff. So, you know, that was set before we came here, but it was one of the things that attracted me to this job was the winning and the tradition of this program, which we talked about law of attractions. But there is toughness that goes with that and talking to those coaches and, you know, trying to get to that level or, you know, when we go to place, we all try and learn how other people do it, but we want to be better than that. And being better is another. Like little Ackerman, we use a lot in our office of being better every day.

Yeah. And with those standards you're attracting, you typically will start attracting better people. And there's a reason why you see so many different things that are happening in the community with the LCC athletic teams and on campus. And there's a reason because the, the winning piece is in those high standards are attracting people that have the same ideas and they want the same for themselves. So it just kind of drives its

own self and it's huge because it could be a local kid or it could be a kid from California or young adult. But you know, what brings them to campus. And as we talked about before, we like our campus, we feel we have a lot. You know, I've listened to you. You did a nice interview on an hour long show regarding recruiting, what you recruit in baseball and all the positive things we have here. Being in downtown Lansing, having, you know, for a college student to think that they can get involved with when they come here to campus, having Michigan State close by, which most people think that's a good thing. And it is a good thing. It's a great school, you know, they're doing some great things. So. And it is an advantage for us to have that association close by athletically and academically as a lot of our kids, you know, hang out with those kids or you know, end up going to school there after they are done here. So yeah, the success is something we have celebrated. We have the banners in our gym. I try and share it in a lot of presentations when I'm trying to do more out in our community. Our teams are out in the community. I know your team with at the the hot cider run this weekend, which is a pretty big run actually in this area. So I have not done that one. Maybe that's the next 5k for me.

So they have a half marathon too, if you're interested.

I've never run a half marathon. 10 mile races as far as I've done.

Put it on your calendar next year. Let's make it happen.

You running with me?

I'll go with you.

You will? The Dallian Yin. I only run if there's a chainsaw, like following me. Somebody with a chainsaw. We can put one in cutter's hand. That might work. Then I'll join you. Then it'll make for an interesting run. Nothing else. That would be a tough challenge, Cutter. We'll have to talk more about that at a future podcast and document our training for that. Well, again, we are so fortunate to have success here at LCC, and it just makes it easier to say 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!