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, Stephen Cutter, and our producer, Dadalion Lowry. And. And gentlemen, over the last couple of podcasts, we've, you know, might as well get the ero right out of the way of talking about that, but we've talked about failure a lot in the last podcast and how prevalent it is in life and sports. And I'm reading a great book right now about Bill Walsh, who the coach of the San Francisco 49ers and kind of developed the dynasty. And I'm only right in the beginning. I mean, really the first chapter, and I already took so much from it, but I love the title, and I thought you would love the title, too, called the Score Takes Care of Itself. But it also just picks up where we've left off on failure in the past, too. And one of the key sentences in the chapter was one minute at a time. I know you've done a lot of stuff on staying focused, staying in the present, but this particular instance was about, you know, early in his career with the 49ers, he came from the. The college setting. He was trying to prove himself and things weren't going well. I mean, 16 months in and they were struggling and just had a bad loss and he was doubting himself and wondering, you know, am I cut for this level? I want to prove that I am. And, you know, on a way home from a flight after a bad loss and, you know, this hit him like low is low. And again, we've talked about that before and how to respond and how to re. You know, our podcast was responding intentionally, but this was more just present. I mean, I gotta forget what I had learned from it, build from it, but I can't let it impact me. I got another game in a week I gotta get ready for, and I have to win that game now. So. Real interesting. And there's a lot of different things to go from because we'll get into our other favorite Thing on this podcast, Ted Lasso, again, about regaining composure. And we did talk about that a little bit on previous podcasts about intentional response in the ero. It was very interesting, just about the regaining composure. And interesting in sports is when you have a big win, how long do you celebrate for? And if you have a big loss or a loss, how long do you dwell on it for? And each coach, I think, has different rules or different guidelines. And the time of the season also, I think, impact that too, because, you know, know, just we're taping this after the super bowl that, you know, their win can last a little longer because they're, you know, they're getting ready in the off season. Although, you know, I've shared before, even with the same 49er team that, you know, Jerry Rice, within the gym right after the super bowl, working out and getting better for that next season. So, you know, but getting back up and some things we didn't dive into on our last podcast. But, you know, one of my, you know, favorite things is you get knocked down seven, get up eight times, and it's hard to beat anybody that doesn't quit. And that's true. If they don't quit, how do you beat them? I mean, maybe time will run out. That's your best option. We've seen games where the other team was coming on and they just ran out of time. So, you know, quick thoughts from both of you, and then we'll decide which direction we head in on this.

Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the word resiliency. You know, whether you get knocked down seven times, you get back up eight, you're going to need some resiliency the more failure you have. I believe that once you have failure again, it lasts longer than what winning does. If you're failing a lot, the wins, when you get them, they're not very enjoyable for very long, but when the loss comes back, it's much longer and you hang on to those. And so being present is one of those things that is really easy to say, but in life it's a lot harder to do. And so you've got to have some processes in place when things are happening, have the ability to stand back from the brick wall that you build or anything else. And just in have some moments where you're really thinking about what have I done? You know, and taking some reflection to be thankful for what you have done or what you have, because the losses really stack up for people. And my loss, you might not think it's as Big as it should be for me. But it's one of those things that being present is super challenging, but it's always going to be possible for everybody if you can bring it back to 1 minute wins or anything like what you're talking about of just being in where your feet are, where your body is, and focusing on processes to get back there. Yeah.

It's interesting that you actually mentioned the idea that we hold on to those losses a lot longer than we do the wins and the wins are actually, of course, what, you know, you go to that next thing. I'm thinking of like all sorts of things as you're talking about this, but you go to that next thing and it actually carries you up and actually makes you perform better, usually at whatever you're doing. As you were talking about it. I'm very much thinking about other podcasts that we do here at LCC Connect and there is a mental health podcast where at one point they're talking about the notion that when they talk to somebody, a therapist, you know, and they're dealing with a difficult discussion, they have to completely clear their mind, get into that present moment and get into the next, you know, their next session and just be for there for that one.

Person, which is a process. And if you don't understand how to do that, you're really going to struggle to be in that moment because that loss is or win is still going to be with you and distracting you. And that's what that's when we talk about like noise and stuff like that and being able to just turn that noise off for whatever set time that you need to turn it off for because it'll still the volume will still be there when you're ready to get back to.

And I think that's huge in today's society. And I know, coach, you do a lot of that with your team of the mental and cognitive performance regularly to handle that. But to this point, I think we struggle with that because the shiny squirrel gets the ball. Kind of a society where it's hard to stay focused and present in a conversation. And we talked about communication before on this podcast of being able to listen or give that person that is talking undivided attention. And podcast I just listened to talked about we have two eyes, two ears and one mouth. And there's a reason for that. We should look in here more than we should talk. But I think that's hard and I think that's hard in sports because of what's next. You bring up a good point too, is the Motivating part of it, how you can use it as motivation to. For that next minute or that next event that you're dealing with. And that's the tough thing in sports, I guess life too, is that there is something next. And we talked about in a book just read about, endings are new beginnings, and that game's an end, but they're the new beginning coming up. And that was Bill Walsh's fear in this particular chapter was, I got to get ready for the New York Giants. We play them in a week. And back to the motivation I have to win. And it was one loss. I mean, it was back. There was a number of losses that led to it. But why would this one more than the week before or. Or what? Or whether a bad loss or they. I don't even think they were winning in it. That, you know, the team came back.

But most of it comes down to what you label as important as an individual. And so as I was trying to tell you, you know, if something I view is like super important, it's a big loss, you might view it as, I mean, that wasn't that big of a loss. Some are going to say, well, that's just one game, that there's a lot more games to go. But it's about what you view as important. And that's why it's so impactful at times, because others look at it as not a big deal. And so having the processes for yourself is why that's super important. Because you're not always going to get help from somebody else. Because they don't see it as that important.

Right.

And that's huge because a couple of things he mentioned is don't expect sympathy, don't blame others. And you're right, it was one loss to one team that they were probably supposed to lose to, but it also was a combination back to the total losses. But that process. And that's what he talked about, regaining composure, believing, building confidence, having direction, which are all part of the process. But he also, the neat analogy gave and he was a boxer, which I didn't know this, but I think of the Rocky movies, you know, you know, like round 13, they're just beating each other up. And like Rocky gets knocked down and he's grabbing the ropes to get back up. And you know, the mentality in fighting is stand up, get back up. We all get knocked out many times. And that's why I use boxing as analogy. And you talked about that too. Losing, but that mentality of stand up, get back up. And again, that the response that we've talked about, that the mental process of having that mindset and making failure is part of a success. Because even in the Rocky movies, if it's the late round, how close are you to just stand up? Maybe, you know, that's just enough to stand up. And it's true. We believe it. We've talked about before on here. Showing up is half the battle, or we discuss that. But another thing, and I don't want to dive into it today, is an article you gave me the other day about mental toughness is fake it, fake it till you make it kind of a thing. And it was much deeper than that. But acting like you did it because we can't bring it every day and you're going to get knocked down and lose. But having that process in place for when you do, because it's the toughest time, it could be the lowest of lows when adversity is at its highest. And now we'll head into my TED Lasso. One of my favorite things of TED Lasso is be a goldfish. And at the end of season one, they get relegated. And the goldfish has the shortest memory in the animal kingdom, I believe. And, you know, I think he says.

Like eight or ten seconds like that.

Just forget it. Just forget it. Ten seconds. Yeah.

Which really comes back to staying in the present moment. And that's one thing that I was thinking about as you were saying it, and it's the one thing that all three of us seem to agree on, and that's the notion that the past is the past, future hasn't happened, and present moment is what counts. So I'm kind of curious. Do you have a technique that helps you to stay into the present moment?

In our program, we talk a little bit better than goldfish. We say five seconds. And so no matter what happens, you've got five seconds to react. And then after the react. After the five seconds is you need to respond.

Okay.

And so that's. Once again, that's a muscle that you can work on, because we're talking about failure. We're talking about overjoy, excitement. You know, it's five seconds to react and then respond to what you need to do next.

So you're saying train the brain kind of a thing.

Yeah.

You practice it.

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of the times what I'll do, though, is I was thinking about myself and the things I do, like golf or bowling. Those are my sports. And a lot of the times if I'm finding myself distracted with other things I'm not saying it always works, but I kind of focus in on my feet, and I'll focus in on the feeling of being grounded. And that kind of helps me to kind of clear my mind and say, this is what counts.

That's a great technique.

It works. It's something that. If you can go barefoot, that's where grounding actually starts. But it's a feeling. You can have it in the batter's box. You can feel the dirt under your feet, under the cleats. It's a big grounding thing. And just the feeling of something helps you become present of where you're at.

This is a great technique. And I took it from Brian Kane, and I had my daughter do it in tennis. Was he had said, when you're playing your best tennis, what are the three things you're doing well, and. And real simple, like one or two, three words. And I had them write her on her shoe. She had white tennis shoes. So every time she. At an end of a point, she could look down on her shoe and bring her back to interesting. These are the three things that I do well. Like, I get to the middle of the court, I throw the ball higher on my serve, and again, it was much shorter than that because your shoe would be sky feet.

Hey, I know, I know. I've also heard your players kind of talk about how they do that with their mitts, right?

And it worked. And it's a very neat technique of back to you to try and find a visual thing to bring you back to the present. And again, we're talking sports, but even in life, and we've talked enough about this in there, but breathing is a big thing. Music is another thing that can help. Humor. They used to talk about presidential candidates are good at wag the dog where they like. If we're talking about this topic, they try and bring a different topic in to distract you and get you away from the topic that you want to focus on. And that's what you're doing with your mind, is finding something that can bring you to the present or back to what you need to do well, even in good moments, because you can get overconfident or cocky.

So another solid one is just being thankful, you know, seeking and then being thankful for this moment, whatever you have in this moment. And you can take really short walks, you can just stay sitting in a chair, but you just start thinking about, you know, I'm gonna come up with two things that I'm thankful for. Maybe things are not great, and you have to start with one. But you can come up with things that you're thankful for. And when you start thinking about the things that you're thankful for, it removes the sadness, the anxiety, all that. All that stuff starts going away. Because it's really hard to be thankful and angry at the same time. It's almost impossible to do that.

But the thing that's not impossible, and I again learned this at the first pitch dinner a couple years ago with Zach Sor in, is how you can change it quickly. How we think we can't. Like if we're in a slump or, you know, we had a bad shot that we can't change and get it. And he did a neat little thing like he had us clapping and getting us like all jumping high. And then a second later he had a breathing and brought us all the way back down to a nice point. That there are method that can, even though you think it's the most extreme or you can't get from, you know, red, green, yellow light from one to the other without skipping a step, there are methods that change it relatively quickly. And we just talked about a couple of them that I think are very beneficial. And gratitude is another great one. I'm glad you brought that up because we do have a lot to thankful for and it just changes your mindset when you think of gratitude. So that's an important thing that all of us should do better. And there's theories out there. We should have gratitude journals or wake up and do our gratitude every day.

The gratitude helps you stack like micro or really small victories.

Which, by the way, I still haven't gotten to that journal. So it's been sitting on my shelf and I'm going, I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there.

Keep getting there.

I'm there.

Not consistent, though. So I have journaled, but not as consistent. So I'm glad you brought that up. Actually, Dalian, that's something I got to work on too.

Sounds like you need an accountability partner.

I probably do.

We all do. We've talked about that before. That is very important, I believe, and that can be a future podcast. But back to the present, it's so important because again, another thing we've talked about on this podcast is what you want happen, what happened and what the next best decision. And that's the important thing about practice and the intentional practice is trying to handle all those scenarios and preparing for all those scenarios. And we know we can't. I've seen great coaches that scripted the first inning or the first 10 plays of a game and they go so well. And then you wonder. And we've seen coaches that make halftime adjustments or lineup adjustments, and some have worked and some haven't. And again, because in the end, we're still dealing with people and emotions and competitiveness, and those don't always mix well together. And then you put the focus on the scoreboard as your main evaluation tool that, you know, it all plays into how you handle that when you, when you get knocked down or when you're at the lowest of low. And, you know, I already mentioned that it's hard to beat someone that doesn't quit. But another couple quotes I've heard of recently that I hadn't heard before is the bottom is when you stop digging. And to me, that can go twofold. One, you could keep digging yourself a hole further if you're doing the same thing. But two, if you keep digging and, and, and filling that hole, then don't stop, you know, get better and get back up. And the reverse one of that was the only job you start on top is digging a hole. So there's your little quotes for the day or for the podcast that I try and find and really like. But again, that process of how you're handling it, and we've seen too many times in sports where you dig yourself a hole and you dig deeper, or we've seen people that have done a great job thinking their season is over and, and dig themselves out.

Sometimes you're not actually digging yourself a hole. Other things are digging yourself a hole which could push into, you know, where we're at in the time of year, you know, the weather digs holes for our athletic teams, and you're working through that. And that's not a great hole to be in, but you have to be able to respond to it and start figuring out a process to be win this moment after everything that's happened. And that really sums up a lot of what you've been talking about.

Yeah, definitely. What a good point into that, especially being a team, which we are all part of, is that you're right, you might find yourself in a hole with another. And a neat thing is a totally different direction is the foxhole of who you want in your foxhole with you. And I saw a neat thing I haven't even talked to you about is, and maybe you do this because you do a lot of interesting things with your team is have like a.

Is that a compliment?

It is a compliment. Some of them might not work, but most of them are an interesting.

It's interesting one way or the other.

You do a lot of neat development mental things with your team but you know, have the team identify each person identify who they want to be in a foxhole with and then you can really see like what member of your team is like the most reliable or the person that you know got, you know, most vote that that's your go to person. So whole nother whole story that we.

Get because that kind of go into experience too. If you never been in a foxhole you might not choose wisely. But if you've been in a foxhole before, you're going to choose a lot differently than somebody that hasn't been. So experience matters in that. In that game as well.

It does so but to the point though is when you're in a tough situation or you think the lowest of low back to the accountability partner. You also need a team there to build you up or help bring you back.

You don't need to but it helps. It does help for sure because you can do it. It's just. It's harder.

Yeah, no. Yep, you're right. And. And again doing it would be learning who you are and how to overcome that or just your experience in dealing with that before. But it's tough. Back to our original premise is the more you lose the hole might be bigger or the tougher you seem to think that it is to get out of it.

And that's why they say winning and losing is contagious.

And it is. But also how important back to the minute of getting back to the present is experience and just making sure it's short and move forward whether you celebrate or lose for the past weekend it's it bring it that one minute at a time and trying to remember to. To get that mindset to that point.

Which helps with the law of attraction as well. You know, when you're consistently losing you're just kind of replaying that over and over which then is an attraction piece. You can reset that law of attraction immediately. Just you have to have the process in place and the mindset, the self talk, maybe the support system but you can reset that instead of replaying the loss over and over and over which then attracts more losses. And it's not just in the game but.

Right. I was going to say a losses could be a bad at bad. It could be any. Not the. It's not always the final score which we do focus on.

It could be a bad parking job. You know, I mean it's. There's a Lot of ways to look at losses.

I'm getting pretty good at parking.

I give you plus ones when I see it. There's a plus one.

I've been practicing on the fourth floor where it's not as busy. And there was a streak though, like a couple weeks ago I was bad, I'd get mad at myself. So, man, parking.

Kind of interesting that you talk about that is we during the bowling league that we've been having very first half of the season, my team was like way at the bottom of the list, you know, and it was this thing where you could tell it was just in our mindset that we were going to lose over and over. Now we're in the second half. I just told the guys it was like, you know what, just have fun with this. You know, we're way at the bottom. Don't worry about it, you know, we'll be fine. We're up to second place now. So currently at this point in time now that could change by, you know, a couple of weeks.

But, but that's the neat thing is if you bring it back to the present, even like a bad at bat or a bad inning that there's still time to. And even at the end, and we've talked about this before of a season where it might be tainted, you can still build that ending can be a nice beginning for the future heading into the off season to get momentum or you know, developing younger talent to get them ready for the future.

What you experienced is a version of success because you're not worried about the results anymore.

Yep. Yeah. And I will even say some of my best bowling games have always been when I'm outside of the league. So if I'm just playing on my own just for fun.

Yeah. The pressure, the.

It's gone.

Yeah. And we forget that sometimes. And I know how glad you know, we'll talk about core values also in the future. But made that just the joy. And you know, I had a youth parent in my office the other day and I said, you know, if they're smiling out there, continue to do it. If they're not smiling, then they're not. They're too much. And we forget that sometimes. And when that's my joy is watching our student athletes smile when they're out there competing. And that can help with the minute to minute success. So good stuff, man. That went a lot farther than I want. So those that are still listening, you.

Didn'T want it to go that far.

Well, we try and keep it on a, you know, certain time Frame. So we're at. Good question. We had a couple of them before the podcast itself, but we're gonna go with the one we kind of talked about is your go to quick food at home when you're by yourself and you just need something quick to eat. And I can start to give you guys a second. But a couple of things, for me, cereal is one of them. That's pretty easy. But my main go to is a microwave grilled cheese. And that sounds so bad on this podcast. But going home, we have nice bread and nice cheese. So put a couple slice, throw it in the microwave, and I have a grilled cheese. So my only other one would be frozen burritos. So put a couple in there with cheese on it. So those are my. Like, if I'm home late and they're, you know, dinner's cold or not there or kids ate it all. Those are something I. I make quickly to get me through. You guys have any of those impressive.

I do do the. I do the grilled. I do the grilled cheese. Yeah. Quick grilled cheese.

Do you make it, though, on a griddle instead of putting it in the microwave?

I do not dig that microwave vibe. So, yeah, I will throw it. In fact, I've got a cast iron skillet that I use that really makes awesome grilled cheese. And then cold cuts, just, you know, a ham sandwich or a pepperoni and salami sandwich, something like that. Always good.

You, Greg, you tend to do a lot of interesting things at home that.

Good or bad Cutter?

Depends on the outcome.

Do you have one?

Yeah, I mean, sort of. I. I think in the coaching world, your hours are always really weird. And so sometimes I do get home at. At extremely weird times. And if I'm really hungry and there isn't a dinner that has been made hours before or something else, sometimes I just won't eat, but I'll try to. Like, typically I'll go to grab a granola bar or something like that instead of making something. I just find that that's even quicker than throwing something in the microwave. So that's kind of usually where I go. But it's also important when you're working a lot of hours that you try to eat healthy, as healthy as possible. And that. And so sometimes I've found because of that situation, I need to be a little smarter about it. But if I wasn't being so disciplined, I'd probably turn to, like, chips and cheese.

That's another good one. Yep.

That is one that unfortunately, I do rely on from time to time, so.

And again, the real grilled cheese is better. I was just trying to be quick and simple. And grilled cheese, the whole nurse topic.

I'm not gonna lie, Greg. That kind of just sounds disgusting.

I didn't say it was great. I just said that's what I do quick and for a sandwich. So I will start. I will start griddling. All right. But in the grilled cheese, there are so many variations now that we can talk about in the future. But until next time, go Stars.

Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studios. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry and Jereny Robinson. 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!