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 Tarzan's Today. I'm joined by our assistant AD and baseball coach, Steven Cutter. First thing I want to talk about, Steven, is our facility. LCC is invested in our athletic program and over the length of this podcast we've been in temporary offices and over the last week we have moved into our renovated offices on the fourth floor and just very exciting for our department. Still getting settling in, still figuring out things up there, paths, what works, what doesn't work, still have some walls to decorate. But as we move up there, one of the neat things for me throughout this process is LCC did a lot of the work on their own. Our electricians, our painters, our plumbing and talking to them how a lot of them are youth coaches or coaches in general and just love sports. They just took such good care of us and put a lot of nice touches up there. It is going to pay off long term for us in recruiting and efficiency and effectiveness. Talking to one coach, a veteran coach, and I'll quote Coach Ingram on this, he gets up there and hadn't seen it throughout the process and said it feels like a department now instead of a bunch of offices. And again, that's a tribute to our architects and the people involved in the committee that met throughout to really give us something to be proud up there. And we still got a lot of work to do to make it home and our own and get student athletes up there. But not many people know we're on the fourth floor of the Gannon Building. We're up there all by ourselves. When I first started, I hit the fourth floor in the elevator and the lady said, you must be the athletic director. I think, how'd you know that? She goes, no one goes to the fourth floor and we want people up there. We were currently stored on the first floor, which was fun because there was a lot more traffic and interaction down there and we got to meet some new departments. I believe you're as excited as me to be up there and make that home for many years and celebrate. Our goal throughout this process was one to create a space of collaboration, but also a base to celebrate our, our rich history, which that's probably the work we have yet to move forward is to add that piece to it. But I think the foundation is there for a good start for our department.

I think it's really exciting, not only for coaches, for yourself. And it's been a lot of work. Obviously we're trying to move, we're trying to get things to work. A lot of brand new stuff, it's really exciting. But if you step back and think about what's really important, it's the student athletes or the students here and it's the people here. We have multiple areas on the fourth floor now that are just real, really conducive to coming up, getting away from the crowds that you might see. And it's a great place where you can study and, and you can kick back, you can read or whatever it might be. But there's really three areas that are super conducive to that and that's something that we haven't had in the past. Anytime that you're a student or a student athlete here, there's going to be some downtime in between practices or study tables or whatever it might be. And to have another area that student athletes can go to is incredible.

And that was our main focus throughout that was to keep the spotlight in the space on student athletes. Obviously it houses our coaches offices, but just the natural lighting in there because all our natural lighting was a storage room in the path. And now that's the main congregation area for our student athletes is where all the natural lighting is.

You have some nice windows in your office too. Now.

I do. I get to overlook the gym now where my old office had the scoreboard on the other side. So every time they rang the buzzer, I mean it was loud in my office. I'm like, whoa, wake me up, you. So I've really benefited and I hope all our coaches do. And there are pros and cons. All our equipment was built for our previous office and we got all new furniture. But the stuff that you collected and have. So now we're trying to figure out how it fits into your current office. Moving has never been a fun project for me obviously because I probably keep too much stuff and need to throw things away. To your point of the technology we have up there, the tv, the monitors, you know, that we developed so coaches could have productive meetings. We have a TV that the whiteboard that coaches. Coaches can use for. To instruct student athletes. So some very nice touches. I talked about our painters and our electricians and our plumbing, but our, our technology people really hooked us up to help our coaches be more effective with instruction. You have a favorite part so far yet up there or the moving is

nothing new to me. I typically move every couple years anyway so that it's fairly easy. But for the most part, I think the transition's been pretty good. Figuring out how to get everything working and get everybody up there, it's been a whole nother thing because there isn't a ton of direction of traffic. So, yes, we have some amazing areas for the student athletes, but a lot of them don't even know that it exists or it's open. I think we took our leadership group up there at some point, their student athlete advisory group, and we asked them. We were showing them how new and everything was and we had about 12 people in that group at that point and only one of them had been on the fourth floor ever before. You know, so there's a piece of that where we need to be able to show people like, hey, you know, this is what's here. And I know you have up your sleeve and open house coming down the road with.

And I had the same experience with our shipping and receiving. I brought them up there and there were four people and only one had been up there before to see what it previous looked like. And even if you hadn't seen the faith, the new space is incredible. It's very inviting and very open and just looks very cool. And we're not done because we will have an open house and we want to have meetings like this, remote podcasts up there or other student affair meetings. Come up and use our meeting spaces just to help them get familiar with our space. Because we have tried to show throughout our podcast here, but our time here and I'm hoping you're not planning on moving anytime soon. So I'm going to keep working hard on preventing that from happening. But now we have a great space to host some of those events and it fits in.

I mean, if you walk into TLC or you walk into Arts and Sciences or the Star Zone or these different places, they are incredible. You walk outside, you have so many different areas that are just really nice and new. And now the athletic department is the same.

So it's exciting and that's a good point. LCC done an excellent job of investing in their infrastructure and the building. Then there are a lot of great spaces on campus.

I think we got the best. Best parking ramp in Lansing at this point.

So I'm gonna argue we have the best parking lot in the state. I. I'm not a parking ramp person, but I am. I feel pretty good before. So, yeah, we talk about parking. I was out of the lines again today. I. I walk out and then I look, I get back in my car, turn it on, and park more. You held me accountable, and I am doing better.

Back side of the story. I was leaving one day, had to practice, and I look, and there's Greg's car parked in, like, two parking spaces, prime spots, no less. So I. I took a picture and I was like, you know, there's line and, you know, and so he's working on it.

So Greg is the guy I yell at every time I pull into a parking space.

Right.

I'm not that bad. I don't take. But I was definitely over the line. And they're not very big person that

pulled into his right side would not have been able to get out their door. They would have had to get out the passenger door.

Yeah, yeah. And he actually used bottom third in my. As my. Of my driving ability. I mean, I just had that the other day where I had to walk sideways to get to my door. Yeah.

So, yeah, you're probably parked next to Greg's.

Well, I'm perfect the two times that you've told me. Right down the middle. And I have a smaller car than you do, and you do well. So I do not want to be one of those people. I don't get mad. I don't judge. I don't get mad at those people. Probably the biggest challenge of that ramp is the narrowness of the parking spots. But other than that, it is a beautiful facility. Again, we just went through a basketball season in the Gannon Building, and parking was probably as easiest it's ever been. You know, whenever we host events, one of the calls I get is, where can I park? And each floor is so big. We have enough on the third floor that all our event people can park there, and they walk right in. We have beautiful monitors there that we've worked with digital media to put announcements up there so they know where to go. So.

And even if they don't, if you park on the first floor and you're trying to get to the third floor, there's elevators right inside the doors that will take you to the third floor. So it's really set up really well for even people that don't necessarily know where to park or where to go. It's still super easy to get to where you need to get, and it's huge.

I argue if you park at the northernmost end of the parking ramp. I think the parking ramp on Capitol is a closer walk than if you parked on the end of that parking ramp. It's that long. To me, when it was closed, we'd have to park on Capitol sometimes and it's a nice little walk through campus. I'm a distance runner, so I think I'm pretty good with distance. I'm pretty sure that that would be closer. I keep going up a level until it's closer to the building and I'll take the stairs. But that parking ramp is a beautiful accessory to our athletic program. And they're still working on it. I mean, you see every day. So just as we talk about our office isn't done. And even in your home, some things never get done. So it's a continuous work in progress. We'll learn some things that work and don't work, that we might need to adjust over time. But it's a great start and great to be up there. Did you answer what your favorite part was up there? Did you talk. You were saying the three meeting areas?

Yeah, I think it's the areas for the student athletes.

Okay, me too. I like the more the natural lighting. I do like the congregation area that we have. They really did take care of us. And as we talk about facilities, they're so important in our business and we briefly touched on in the past, I mean, as we head into the spring season, you know, we talked about weather in one of our previous podcasts and how important having nice facilities is. And when I talk to our coach and student athletes, it's about respecting your facility and taking care of it. And many of our student athletes have to take care of their own facility. They're very important to what we do. Whenever we travel on the road, we always talk to our coaches. And I try and go to many other facilities as I can, and I know you do too, and try and learn from them what can we can and we can't do. And we're fortunate, you know, to have either a nice facility that are school owned or that we work with the city of Lansing on. I think we take for granted for facilities too much in our world today. And going through this construction process has helped us appreciate more of what we have. And even, you know, being off campus playing some of our sports, it's good to be home. And as we head out into the spring season, getting facilities Ready?

You kind of mentioned that the spring season has started. And do you feel like at least with your roles, is it more challenging now that the sports teams are outside versus winter season that the teams are ideally in the gym? This year it was a little bit different because we were off site, but typically they're on site and typically your spring sports are off site. So is that more challenging for you?

It is more challenging. You know, even as we mentioned with the construction process, I have a window now that overlooks the gym so I can see what's going on. If they're missing something, I can tell once you're off site, you're very independent of if you forget something or if you need to make another copy of something or if you need ice and water. You have to work with the city like, you know, getting foul poles up or making sure bases are where they we left them last spring. And our coaches do an excellent job of maintaining the facility, but definitely a significant challenge when facilities are farther away from your home base, which is our office area, just for a number of reasons. You know, I have coolers in my office that I mark to carry there and waters and stuff for the officials.

Yeah, maybe someday school equipment. We've talked about the parking ramp a little bit, but maybe someday those parking lots that used to be used all the time will get used for, you know, some on site athletic fields.

We have a dream and we have a plan. And I believe the school has that same vision and plan. And I don't want to be greedy because we're just wrapping up very nice renovation for the athletic department. My understanding is that is the goal of college, at least look into and invest in some baseball and softball fields and even other facilities. I know we've had Mary Croz on here and she would like a fitness center, gym, another drug dealer gym or on campus too. And in our business, we're always trying to get better and be better and see what other people have and either become better than that. So sometimes comes across greedy. But it just makes almost a game or competition. When they come to LTC for an event, I want it to be the best community college event they went to that year.

In sports, you see that everywhere. It's not just the college level, but it's a high school level as well. You know, if a school builds a incredible football stadium and it's first one to put turf in, then everybody in the conference is trying to keep up. They're trying to make upgrades to their stadium. The same thing happens in college. It doesn't matter what level you're at at the junior college level right now, what's happening is video boards for baseball and softball, and those are going in in the south. And now other teams are trying to do the same. Before that, you'd only see video boards at minor and major league stadiums. So it's constantly trying to keep up. And that keeping up is not necessarily a greed thing. It's a way of recruiting. You know, whether it's a high school level or the college level, you're trying to get people to come to your campus, come to your college, your high school, whatever it might, because you have really nice things to offer. And that's where athletics really drives that piece of it.

It's marketing. You're right. It's recruiting and marketing. As we talked a number of times on this podcast about music and athletics, bringing people to campus, a lot of spectators come to our facilities. And it's a marketing tool. It's a tool of branding for LCC, of what they leave with. As I talked about, when our coaches go somewhere else, we give a thumbs up or thumb down, would that facility nice or not? It's huge impression on when people come. And we get a lot of compliments when come to our gymnasium. Like, this is a nice gym and we take good care of it. Our maintenance department keeps it clean and keeps it up to date. So everything is working because it's constant. Whether you're investing in new things such as technology and video boards, you still gotta keep up on the bleachers and the scoreboards and lights that are in there. And we again got new lights and a new H VAC system in Gannon throughout this process too. That go underrated. But it's a brighter gymnasium that makes people happier. It makes photographers happier. When I first started in the business, the parents got a job in that community and then they moved into that community. Over the last 10 years, we would get parents that would come visit us, come visit three other local schools and then determine where they were moving to. And then their parents just worked in that general vicinity. So that changed. So you had to.

But why? Why do you think that changed?

Two things I think it changed. One is commuting. People are willing to commute more instead of just, you know, I move into the community where my kids go to school and I work there, which is

crazy because gas prices insane. It's not like we've got really, really cheap gas prices where people are like, it's no big deal to drive. The maintenance of cars is a lot More, you know, get your oil change or you know, buy new tires. Everything is more expensive. So why are people willing to commute so much today versus maybe where they were 10 years ago? What's changed?

The technology in the cars in your truck. You're sitting in a La Z boy in there. You know, if for an hour I could sit in that car and drive. And then the second thing is back to competition and even sports and music or even academic program, parents are looking at where the best one for my kid. If I'm a music kid, I might go to this school. If I'm an athletic kid, I might go to this school. If I'm an AP kid with more AP classes, I might go to this one because I can commute.

So what drives that is people and facilities at the end of the day. And you've got to have really good people and you've got to have really good facilities. Otherwise the people are not going to come there. They're not going to just get a job there and send their kids to school there. They're, they're going to look for who has the best people and who has the best facilities. And not just talking about sports, but in general. And that's why you see what you see today and that's why things have changed so exponentially. Even at the high school level. There are some incredible high school football fields. There's an incredible high school softball and baseball fields. And it's been driven by that piece of it. That's what attracts people.

They're building indoor facilities right now, multi purpose indoor facilities at the high school level. Football, spring sports, even additional winter sport practice facility. Those have become a popular trend at the high school level.

It's a great thing to do, especially in a state like Michigan where it's a cold weather state. It's a wonderful thing to do. Where I came from Muskegon, they just built one at Whitehall High School. It's just an incredible facility. And that's, that's what happens. You just have to adapt. Instead of complaining about how bad the weather is or how much rain we get in March or snow or whatever it is. I think Lansing just came in at like 50 some inches of snow so far for this winter, which is insane. You know, I moved from Muskegon to kind of get away from that a little bit. But instead of complaining about it, people are building facilities and stuff. Whether it's just turf or these indoor places, that kind of mitigates everything. And that's ahead of the curve. Kind of thinking Dalia, I just think

we got a meteorology report on this podcast and from sponsored by Lansing Baseball. Lansing Stars Baseball. But very. That's an interesting point. Now we're not going to talk long about weather that preview, but it does seem like the middle of the state got hit harder like that kind of bell curve here this winter more than the other parts of the state and I within some of the other parts of state and they did not have the snow that we had which go back to impacting us as we try and open up outdoors, you know, running track, baseball and softball in the coming weeks.

Yeah, I think everybody's above average. Even places like Grand Rapids, I think top three or four snowiest winters of all time, you know, so.

And you know why that is. I'm going to give you another meteorology. I read this. I'm not 100% sure, but I said that Farmer's Almanac. Yeah, but because, because the Great Lakes didn't freeze. When they don't freeze, there's more precipitation because there's water there and it like, like picks it up and brings it over the land. So that causes more snow when the Great Lakes don't freeze early stars on weather. There you go. We could spend all day. It's a new show. We could spend all day talking about Michigan weather and the good bad and the politics of climate change. Well, I wasn't planning to spend the whole time talking about facilities, but it was a nice conversation that led us to, to different places. And again, thank you LCC and Tim Martz and for, you know, providing us with a brand new space up on the fourth floor in the Gannon Building. And for those people out there listening, come and visit us and we'll greet you with open arm and share with you how happy we are at being a star.

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!