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. Today I'm joined by the man of all trades, our our assistant athletic director, baseball coach, and today our producer, also Coach Cutter. Welcome to the podcast, Coach, and thanks for filling in on all these roles. I know I'm in good hands.

Absolutely.

So coach, as we record this podcast at the beginning of our season, I know your team's already actually played in some games and so with our volleyball team and it's exciting, you know, we have over 180 student athletes on campus and pretty much all our teams are going at it now. Now with the first day of school, we got some out of season regulations we can follow. All our teams are going. It's exciting. As I've told you before on this podcast, it's one of my favorite times of the year, although it's been really busy. So it hasn't been my favorite time right now just getting all of eligibility and everything up and running all the forms and roster that these kids have to do nowadays. But I think I've been to every practice and watching every practice or at least observing it because I like to do that. And the beginning of season is interesting to me because we spend a lot of time on working on the fundamentals. And it got me thinking. I've been wanting to do this podcast for a long time because I really like the book the Art of War by Sun Tzu. And I think there's so many things and a lot of sports people have used it to apply to athletics, but I really believe it is a manual for athletics. And the key, you know, there's a lot of keys from that book is the other fundamental stuff. And I know like right away you start with leadership before you even have your first practice and then you do leadership weekly. I know a lot of our teams have a team meeting at the beginning of the season. Don't go over rules and expectations though. But what about the non fundamental stuff, the strategy stuff? And I think that's where Sun Tzu was really big on that strategy. As they start the season, when do you kind of looking at coaches and watching them try to. It just. You're so busy at the beginning of the season trying to get everything in and even watching your own team, learning your own student athletes. And you and I even talked about after your first scrimmage about what do you know about your team yet? Individuals and getting to know them. And just like when you start class, usually you go around and have everyone introduce themselves and give them some fact and something. You're just cramming a lot in right now. And I just thought, let's dive into that a little bit and even tie in the book to it. Again, you're a veteran coach. You've had a lot of success. What is that beginning of the season? Is it fundamentally focused? Is it strategy focused? Is it a combination? Does it depend on. You know. Again, another interesting thing for LCC this year is we have a lot of freshmen. Usually you say the 50, 50 split. I think it's significantly higher this year for us. Just, we lost a great sophomore class, so a lot of our rosters have 60 to 70% as freshmen. So that's exciting. So I don't know if that changes your approach. I mean, you're right in the beginning of the heart of the season, what's your focus?

I think you're right. There's always a lot going on for coaches and also for our athletic department when things kick off. And then as you get a little deeper in the season, things kind of level out. And then as you get towards the postseason, things start getting busier again. So it's kind of the natural flow with the athletic department, and I think it's somewhat the natural flow with coaches and teams. I know that it doesn't really matter what the sport is. You really have to work on the fundamentals, whether it's your shot or your running form or your stamina, your swing, whatever it might be. You do have to work on the fundamentals. But I know that there's more than. Like, last night, we had a leadership session, and I was speaking to them about what it looks like to be on a great team. And most would think, okay, the great team has a lot of great athletes, and they also work hard. And albeit that's usually true, there's more to it. And we started trying to define what the more to it is. And one word we've been using in our program for the last couple weeks is equanimity. And that's basically a thought process that you can remain calm and composed in the most stressful situations. Of course, there's the other side of the coin, which you can remain calm and composed in the most exciting situations, too. But equanimity, we started talking about, like, a little bit of history, because history really tells us this has happened for hundreds of years. But we didn't have to go back very far. We started talking about September 11, and there was a lot of people running out of those towers, but there was a lot of people running in. And how do people run in? Well, most people are going to say, well, they're trained. Well, the same thing with the equanimity. If you work on it, you can train it, and you can learn how to be calm and cool under pressure. So when we talk about fundamentals, yes, that stuff's going on, but you're also working on other things that in theory, should make an enormous difference, not only in a season, but in somebody's life.

And very interesting. A lot of good points. And you're right, you know, when you think of a practice plan, there's probably a core part of that practice plan that you're working on fundamentals every day. And then to your point of what you kind of said what the model of a season is at the beginning of the season, you're also spending probably more time implementing some of your strategies, plays, you know, bunt defense or such. And again, we're at the college level, so hopefully these kids come in with a basic understanding of those. So there might be more time of that right now. And that's what I was trying to hit at. But there's also, as you mentioned, the time of these kind of discussions and handling those situations because it can be overwhelming for student athletes. At our orientation, I show them a video of, you know, how I think they feel right now, because we are throwing a lot of information at them right now, and it is important. I know you and I've learned this from you, but I was also a believer in journaling and how your team did journal. And we got a compliment about your team coming to orientation, and they all had their journals. At least half of our other teams do journals. Now. I've encouraged my daughter at her college to keep a journal and take it with her where she goes to write things down and reflect, because those other things to learn that help you be successful, to your point, and even in Sun Tzu's point about, it's the strategy, the mindset, it's the. The mind games you play. And I've Struggled with that in the past about, like, should you know yourself better than if you do your things right, do you have to worry about what the opponent does? You know, with scouting and such. And one of his premises was confusing the enemy. And he, you know, Bill Belichick, they said, took a lot from him about all these different strategies to kind of make it difficult to defend. But the more I liked about him, it was more of the mind stuff. Knowing yourself, knowing when to fight and not to, which we've talked about before. Adapting, which is a little early for us to adapt. Even though, like, again, our volleyball team had their first tournament. So now they're figuring out how to adapt to the things that they learned at that tournament. You've had your things. Our cross country team runs this Friday, but it's still even early for that because you don't like, the team's ranked third. They might not be the third ranked team. So there's still a lot to figure out about that. I actually believe his book, probably more important at the beginning, about the beginning of the season than elsewhere, but knowing your team and how to get to know your team. And there's a lot of different ways. Watching practice every day. I'm a believer in watching before and after practice how they handle themselves. And then again watching their performance in a game early on. I mean, like you had said it, you don't know what it is right now, but they're starting to build clues on what it could be. So, you know, just a lot of information right now that we focus on the fundamentals, which to your point, should be a part of practice every day. But you also, as a coach got to start, you know, I mean, we get going and like you've said before, you're going to June now. So I mean, you gotta build that out. And we've talked about motivation before on this podcast. It's teaching them, intentionally teaching them that the mind stuff of, you know, a lot of these kids were the best player on their team coming here. Now they're figuring out they're among a lot of other best players. So being honest with themselves, figuring it out. I mean, we talked about quitting, how it's not for everyone. We've had kids quit and that's the last thing we want. One of the conversations I was going to talk about was transition, the transition from starting a new season. I think a lot of kids feel, you know, you got to have some confidence and ego and believing your talent. But I'm sure there's a lot of doubt right now, too. And a lot of I got to prove myself kind of a thing.

Yeah. And as you start the season, you're looking around at everybody else on your team and you're trying to size them up and, and see where their games are at. But I know to start our season, we've had a lot of success so far, and a lot of kids have had a lot of success, but not all of them have had success. And when you really talk to the ones that maybe didn't have success, whether it was on the mound or in the box, they really start questioning if they should be here. They start questioning their values, their talent and stuff like that. And that's where, like, things like equanimity can come in. You really have to buy into a process, a really solid process, of course, but you've got to buy into a process and know, like, we're going to go through some ups and downs of a season. Every season has those. It doesn't matter what sport is, you're going to go through some ups and downs. But if you, if you can remain pretty balanced through that, you're going to be able to stack some bricks and come out on the other side much more positive than when you started. But it's going to be hard. And like you mentioned earlier, I mean, the student athletes here are getting so many things put on their plate and their plates are only so big, you know, and they're getting a lot thrown on those plates and they're trying to manage that. And oftentimes they feel alone because, yes, they might have teammates, but they're looking at it pretty secular, and they feel like, you know, they're kind of on their own right now and they've got to manage all these plates. And that's a tough thing, especially when it's really new. As you know, you speak about the beginning of the semester and the season, it's a challenging thing.

I think two points I'd like to go farther on are those ones that are struggling. And I see it in every sport. Like in cross country, we've increased their mileage. So for some people, that's harder on them. And going farther for another sport, it might be freshmen tweaking their technique again, not saying theirs is wrong, but just to try it a way that we might think better for them at this level. So there's two things you mentioned is one, their struggle, which could make or break them in how they respond or how they move forward. And as a coach, understanding that and building a culture where leads to trust, which Again, we're still early in that process, though, for these kids to totally trust and buy into it. Because again, talking to our softball coach the other day, he was tweaking some pitching moments with their starting approach or even a swing. And mostly freshmen, because, again, they've already worked with the sophomores. And for the freshmen, it might be a little regression before they get better by changing it and then finding that time. Well, this worked or didn't work. Let's go back to what you did. So you're right. Trust is instrumental in a lot of things we've talked about, but especially right now, building that trust because they are new or they aren't familiar. And that's where team bonding activities or being part of a team is so instrumental because it's a connection group that helps you get through those things. Because one other topic we're going to talk about eventually is accountability partners. But I don't want accountability at this time. I want, like, encouragement at this time. Because, again, most of them probably are struggling in some way. Even those ones that are having some success, it's probably a little more up and down than consistency, which is what we want to get to. And what you allude to probably happens more in the middle or hopefully to the end of the season, building those things because it is an overwhelming time right now. A lot of variables, starting class, being away from home for the first time, which are all things that impact each kid differently. I mean, we have kids that they're five minutes away from campus. We have kids that live hundreds of miles away from campus. And some of them do better than the ones that are five minutes away, just depending on their approach or what their experience is. But again, in the book Art of War, there's some really good things that I don't expect our kids to read it. Maybe they've read it somewhere. But of knowing that, and the book does spend a lot of time on culture, you know, of treating others the way you want to be treated, of building a culture. I'm trying to find the quote here. When one trusts people with benevolence, justice and righteousness and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and will be happy to serve their leader. And again, that's what, you know, again, we focus on the fundamentals right now. But that's probably the bigger thing right now with a team is trying to build that. And it's hard because you are correcting them or you are challenging them or trying them to live up to this team standard. So it's a very fragile time, I think, for a team. And we focus, you know, more on the, what they do at the end of the season, how they win or lose. But a lot of it make or break right now at the beginning, pretty.

Much where it starts. You speak about the end of the season, but everything matters. And, and this is kind of where it starts, is at the beginning of the season. One of the bigger pressures that we see when we're not talking about fundamentals, we're just talking about the mental side, is two words and it's playing time. And when you come into a sport, that's one of the first things you're thinking about as you're sizing the team up and stuff. You're seeing how much playing time you think you're going to get. And then as you go through a season and it starts getting laid out a little bit well, between the haves and have nots, a lot of times you see how many teams have you ever been on where somebody doesn't get any playing time and they've been a super positive contributor to the team and all the other stuff. And very few, very few have had people on the team like that. But that's where the selflessness comes in. And the playing time really is built upon what you do, of course. But if you don't put pressure on yourself about the playing time, we'll speak about, instead of trying to compete against another first baseman or another catcher or another point guard, you're competing with them. So both of you are kind of rising those ships which you spoke about before. If you can have that mindset that takes some of the pressure and busyness of all this new stuff coming at.

You, and it is new. So I think you have to work on it intentionally because, yeah, you want competition in practice that makes the team better. You want people pushing each other. But to your point, playing time can be a separator and it can make or break kids on the team that they feel it's not worth it or they see the writing on the wall or don't think the coach is giving them a chance. And I truly there are a handful that do just want to be a part of the team. Maybe not. So I see it even at the pro level that they know their talent is farther and they do other things that help contribute team. But that takes the right person and the right personality. Yeah, playing time does start to impact team chemistry. And again, another big thing, the Art of War is adaptability, you know, being adaptable. One of the quotes there Too is water shapes the course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows. But again, I'm a big believer in practice plans and intentional practices with it being overwhelming time for all our coaches and our student athletes just to be cognizant of that. But there is part of your practice that you have to spend on the other things besides, you know, strategy, fundamentals, mental preparation, even strength and conditioning. And then those other separators we talked about. So exciting time of year, busy time of year, overwhelming time of year, all those emotions. And I truly believe those teams that manage it the best and kind of are intentional. I keep using that word. But how they prepare this team to handle all those things will be better long term, maybe more so than being fundamentally sound or an expert in any one of those fields. So again, something we can definitely dive into more in the future because cut off a little bit. But as we end this, you know, I always have a food question. I usually like to dallying here for his input.

I'll cover for him.

Okay. Okay. I had two different ones and my one I was going to go with is if you're opening a food truck, what would be on the menu? And it can't be pizza.

Why? Why can't it be pizza?

Because I. Okay, if it's pizza, what kind?

Wood fired.

Wood fired. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Is that your favorite actually, with the wood fire? I don't know if we've ever died.

No, I just like pizza in general, but it sounds great.

Okay. A wood fire pizza?

I think so, yeah.

Okay. I mean, it'd be like a grilled cheese. I know we have a good one.

Yeah, we have one out on campus, a good one.

And it's clever all the different variations they have. But food trucks have been coming popular. We have food trucks here on campus to kind of complement our food needs right now. You know, there's some cool hot dog ones out there, but so you wouldn't deviate from pizza.

I don't think so. Consistency is a superpower.

It is that and that's a good way to end it. So 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!