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. 24 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 today by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter and our producer, Daedalian Lowry. And today, gentlemen, we're going to be talking about a famous quote throughout history that is applied to sports a lot, but it's actually much bigger than that than I researched it and it was by Theodore Roosevelt in around 1910. Ish. And it's about the man in the arena.

April 23rd.

April 23rd. Great day. But sports uses it a lot. You know, it's in our office. It's in your office. It's again just prevalent in the in the sports world and even heard it, you know, in the last couple of weeks. That again, why I bring it here, the theme that sticks out with me because it's been on our radar for a couple weeks and it's very interesting to me and I like the quote and let me read it real quick. It's a little lengthy, but I'm it's.

An excerpt from a larger speech called Citizenship in the Republic.

It is and we'll get into that. But the quote itself, right. This is just is a small part in the first third of the speech is about it's not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how strong, how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strive valiantly, who errs to come short again and again because there is no effort without error or shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds. Who knows the great, that great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends themselves in a worthy cause. And again, I always looked at this boy, that was bad reading though. But I always look at this quote about the critic, you know, and I learned the really two sides of this story and actually researching for this I'd actually want to spend more time talking about the person in the arena. But I think a lot of people focus on the critic, the person that just sits back there and analyzes but had never done the work. And we see that a lot in our society and social media and especially now in our sports world and here at LCC. And that's why we tied in the stars on sports, because, you know, coaches are public employees. A lot of people can sit back in the bleachers and watch what they do. Our student athletes are public people and people sit back and second guess armchair quarterback, you know, people in the bleachers. So. But to your point, it is a much larger speech and the speech centered around citizenship, morality, courage. You know, he was talking to France about, you know, our obligation in a society after he was done being president, about doing what was right. But for some reason this little excerpt out of a 10 page speech is what people focus on and what people in sport focus on. And I just wanted to dive into that a little more today with both of you because I think there is a key to both sides, the criticism part, which I think where most sports people focus on because of the criticism they get. And it even talks about criticism, but it also talks about, you know, certain characteristics, courage, morality, citizenship, which are all important in our educational athletics. So any first takes on. Have you heard of the man in arena or.

Absolutely, it's in my office. And I think it's, there's a, like you said, there's at least a couple different ways to take it, but I really, I knew we were going to talk about this today, so I took a few notes and I think it has to do with if you're going to dare greatly, you also have the ability to fail greatly. And it's not so much about what the other people think about your failures. If, if it's very much in line with stoicism and a lot of the principles there as well. But it's, it's about what you're doing. It's not about what other people are thinking about you. It's, it's if you do things for the right reasons, the right virtues, and you fail, it's makes failing just a little bit easier because you know that you did as much as that you could. But it also means that you kind of followed the way that it should have been done. And maybe it didn't work out and maybe some people are not going to understand the work that you put in or the, you know, the ways that you followed. But it's 100%. If you're going to go big after something, you have the failure that certainly could be there. And it's very visible in sports when teams fail, coaches fail, athletes fail. It's also very visible in life and.

That'S where critics come in. Nadalion, any quick thought?

Well, I did not know we were doing this today, so I did not take notes. But I agree with cut. And at the same time, I will find that there's a little twist of irony that you came out the other side of what you were reading saying, I didn't read that very well. It was what it was about. So kind of humorous.

It is true. And you're right, one of the biggest points of is the dare greatly. And he really focuses on having the courage to, the efficiency to. And we see too often in sports where people are afraid to dare greatly that, you know, they use the excuse, I didn't give it my best or I was hurt or I didn't have everything because they were afraid. It's easier to say why you didn't succeed.

It's easier to fail.

And he spends a lot of time on laziness and easiness and calling people out for sitting back and relying on that and has some great words throughout this sneer. The keyword he uses in it about just people sitting back that haven't done it, that think they can critique anyone else. And I think, wow, how appropriate is that now with social media nowadays, how much we see it on it? I actually don't get on social media much, but during games I like to get on X just to see what other people are saying. And some are very funny, some are very appropriate. I don't, I take it for a grain of salt, but there's just so many people out there that feel they have to go on and do it. And you wonder how many have really been in the arena.

Yeah, coaches said it. And I think it applies to that same thing too, where folks don't always live up to their potential. You've said it more than once that you don't feel like most people live up to their potential.

Yeah, I think it's going to be a challenging thing because even as you were talking about me and I didn't read that that well, you're usually thinking about, well, what are other people going to think? And so you're basing it off that. And this speech is 100% about what you're doing and the work that you're putting in and that if, if you do not dare greatly, you are going to regret some of this stuff and you may fail. And Failure is okay as long as you put everything that you had into it and you fail. It's. It's probably. There's. He's saying. Teddy's saying it's going to be easier to fail that way than fail by putting half effort into something. Yeah.

And I think there's so much into it to break it down because you're right, part of it is about daring greatly, the key word of greatly and even for our sports teams, of having high aspirations of winning championships or being the best. And then there's the other part that the Dalian mentioned, that a word we don't like is potential. Because our goal is to maximize that potential, to reach potential. And there's too many people that don't or it's lost. So there's some of that. But there's also the character side. There's the. He challenges society, engagement by all, which is another big component of a team is you're going to be more successful if all of us get engaged in our goals and back the lofty goals. And he was challenging society, the political movement, to get engaged in citizenship, get engaged, help make France a better country. By making France a better country, you make the world a better place. So there's again, we could dive into so many little things, but. And we've touched on some of those, but the other one was citizenship. And you know, it's okay to dare. He wants you to dare. Greatly. But do it with morality, do it with courage and virtue and do it the right way, which again, it's something we live by, something our national association lived by, our league with standards and bylaws. So, um. So yeah, it's. It's actually a very difficult challenge. I mean, it's not just dear greatly, but, you know, there's so many parts of it that's not easy with the virtues.

We've certainly seen it in the sports world. We've seen teams that have achieved greatness, we've seen individuals in Olympics that have achieved greatness, but they've done it outside of the parameters of those rules or virtues. But, you know, and so that. That's more of what's being talked about in this is, you know, do do these things within certain parameters. And if you can do these things, even if you're going to have success or you're going to fail, but at least it's within the parameters of what it should be. And he kind of just stated what, you know, he thought. And this was something from 1910, you know, and you can search man in the arena now, and you. You'll see posters. And that's what I've created in my office is a picture of a field that I used to coach at, and the man in the arena is hanging up. And it's not so that I can just see it, but everybody that walks by my office can see it.

And why, though? What, what. What part?

Like, because I think from just the coaching aspect, if you. If you don't dive super deep into just athletics and you say from my perspective, from the coaching aspect, you've already hit on it, it's like you're going to have a lot of critics. The more success that you have, the more critics you will have, the greater the team, the greater the band, the greater the individuals, that you're going to have a lot more critics. And so it's one of those things that's a reminder. It doesn't matter so much about what the critics are saying. It matters most about what you're doing, and that's why it's up there.

Yeah. And so again, two other points I want to hit on regarding this speech, and I'm glad you said that, because my first focus was on the critic, but it is on what you're doing. And. And part of that is what you're doing is lessons learned through failure. He also hits on that. He talks about daring greatly and failing greatly, but there's lessons learned that you have to understand and move forward with. And that's another topic we've talked about, is having those losses, those failures become lessons, and making something positive on that. So another key point I think he hits in this speech that we've also touched on before in this podcast that I'm not sure people focus enough on because they're. They're focusing on the critic or daring greatly. But that's only part of it. You know, we had the Mike Tyson quote about, you know, getting hit in the mouth and that that's this, too. That once you dare greatly, what's that result? And it's okay. Like you said, it's okay to fail. It's. You know that. But how do you. How do you move from there? And then the other part I wanted to touch on, too, that I think he hits on is that you talked about, about coaching is when you step into leadership, it's filled with scrutiny, criticism, and the potential to fail. And he hits on those things. And that is true. And I've talked about it before in leadership. You know, one of my favorite quotes is people have the responsibility to take care of Themselves, Leaders have the responsibility to take care of or the honor to take care of others. And leadership is not easy. Coaching is not easy. Being a student athlete is not easy. You know, when they're in the classroom, no one really sees how they do or don't do. But when you put them out on the court or field or course and compete against Kellogg or Jackson or Grand Rapids, people pay attention. They look at how they do that. That's what leaders are faced with. And don't be afraid of that. You know, embrace it, step up to it. But that is a part of leadership that most people don't acknowledge. And that he specifically uses that in his challenge that back to. There are critics, there is cynicism that goes along with that. And again, so true in life and so true in sports, especially in the. In the profession of coaching.

I think that that's one thing that I've seen through my coaching time is, you know, another thing I have. My office is a saying that says leadership has a cost, and there's a cost to leadership. And we see it. I've seen it for a few years. In our program, we teach leadership. Leadership is a huge piece of what we teach in our program. And we get people to start buying into that leadership, and they start trying to lead. And the other. Other people do not like that because they feel like they're being picked on, they're being held accountable. And that accountability is hard at younger ages for student athletes to accept. And so it's something that you need to keep building that muscle. But when you first start with leadership, it is very challenging. And there's a cost. You get looked at differently if you're a leader than you do if you're a follower and you get held to higher standards. And sometimes those standards are not applicable to other people by any stretch. And sometimes people are holding you to higher standards that they don't even hold themselves to those standards. And that's the cost of leadership.

And we see that, I think, with the most scrutiny with our student athletes in trying to develop leaders there. As you talk about, you teach leadership daily, weekly, and have leadership classes. And, you know, through. Through my experience on this job, coaches that do teach leadership are more successful and one of the, you know, core values of being successful. And we now have other coaches that have weekly meetings on leadership and intake journals. And because that key point is the team that do well and are most successful, have student, have captains or leadership on there from within that help the coach lead the team. So it's not just A coach talking or disciplining or coach.

You know, our philosophy is coach fed, player led. But it's also a bigger picture and it's, it's a real picture for our student athletes. They're going to be a part of teams for the rest of their lives. You know, and it's not just the teams that are wearing the jerseys. It's families and it's work environments and everything else. And it's teaching them how to lead in those environments. And there's a lot of different models of leadership. It's not the leadership is not the person that's the loudest or the. You know, leadership can come in a lot of different forms. It can come in actions, it can come in what you say, but it's most tied into you being able to do both of those things. Your actions are matching what you're saying, and that's how you can get people to start coming along in the journey, pulling on the rope the same way and, and providing the same kind of actions that you're providing. And that's what great teams look like. And that's also what great environments look like in the, in the business world or in families as well. And I'll talk about like the difference between an average family and a great family. And they're both going to have the same problems, but the average one let the little things cause divides with them. And the great ones, what they do is they agree to disagree and nothing really can get between them. And this is really the same stuff. And it's about not necessarily what other people think or what happens to you, but how you respond and what you're doing.

Ero, can you help my wife with that principle? It's okay to agree to disagree because I lose that battle at home. But yeah, back to Ero, but even leadership again. The part I like about this though is he's being frank, he's being candid that when you step into leadership roles, there's going to be critics, there's going to be people that sit back and challenge you sit back and don't do anything. But just everything you do could be right or wrong. And good leaders, I believe, help back your pull the wagon is trying to get those on board a sale job of the more you get your critics on board. Another one of my favorite quotes is we learn the most from our biggest dissenters, you know, and so, you know, it's okay to have critics. I believe it's okay to have people. You know, he's calling out the ones that have never Experienced it with that. The next part I'd like to get into is risk taking. He says dare greatly. And I'm not a risk taker in life. I always joke, I'm an actuaries, you know, favorite. But, but I saw a great guiding principle a couple weeks ago that more people look back on life and regret the risk they don't take, not the failure that they made. And I think we, we lose that in the present moment because we get caught up in failures or being safe. And I think this speech challenges that greatly about daring greatly and it's okay to fail greatly that take that risk. And he uses the word deficiency, moral, encourage, as I keep saying. But, but about taking risk and even for our team to challenge them to. We have high standards here at lct. We want to win championships and that's not easy or common. It is so the dare greatly but to take the risk to help get to those goals. And I think that's something we might get too safe in in a society or we're more worried about the outcome of failing than it is now that there's, you know, science proven that, you know what if you fail, you're going to be okay. 20 years later, you're going to regret more of not even taking that risk. So I think that is important with.

This speech and kind of my final thoughts is something I wrote down this morning. And it's really short. But I also feel like this points out how we all have our own battles and people from the outside take a peek in and make comments and judgments about those battles and what we're going through. But what they say doesn't actually matter as they are not in the arena. Your arena.

Yeah, and I agree. If the shoe fits, wear it. So if their critic is right, then and fix it. But if they're just sitting back and it's not right, move on and continue with your moral compass on leading the way you, you should be leading.

Right? And I think that's the understanding of. You're not trying to say don't take advice from somebody that's failed. You're trying to take. You're trying to say you want to take advice from somebody that's failed as long as they've stood back up and have earned their money back or earned their stripes back. That's the advice that you want to take from people. You don't want to take it from somebody that's had success all of their lives and had all the green lights and everything. Because that's usually not realistic in our world. But you want to learn from those people that have failed and have stood back up and have done something after their failure. You can learn a ton from those types of people.

The pat.

Of course, your own failures.

Yeah. For both your own failures, your experience, but also the person in the arena that has experience it. And that's where he's calling out is those ones that haven't. I think he respects those ones that have been in the arena and criticize. But the more vocal ones are the ones that are, you know, he uses the word lazy and, you know, other words. So. I love presidential history. This is again, one of my favorite excerpts from a speech, and I'm glad we had some great discussion on it. Any other closing thoughts on man in the arena? Okay, but we're going to go to our final question here now. We spending a lot of time on breakfast in our last couple of months. I had one more breakfast. 1. But now that we've kind of done the speech, I'm going to change. I have a whole list of them here. And, you know, I asked my kid this a couple weeks ago is do you have a personal mantra, a personal saying that you live by that, like if you had a T shirt made for you, what would it say? Or something that you refer to in your own mind that you kind of live by on a. On a regular basis.

Wow. So you.

I can start it.

You want us to go pretty deep here. I think if I had a shirt out, it would just say chasing great. And greatness is one of those things that you'll likely never, ever get to. But it's just, it's. It's the journey, it's the chase, and you're trying to be the best that you can possibly be. And I don't think that ever ends.

Good one. Good one.

Yeah. That's thought provoking. I was again, not prepared for this. I'd have to say I actually have many different mantras.

Okay.

But I will say that one of the ones that I have used before you mentioned earlier, and that is it's better to regret something that you've done than something you have never done.

Haven't.

Okay. All right.

The other one would be I'm hungry.

That current. We need lunch in here or what? But mine is. And I asked my kids the other day this, and they knew it. So I felt good because I feel like that helped me that I'm leading it. And it. It's Carpe diem, See the Day. And one of my favorite movies is Dead Poets Society, an old movie. But, you know, one of the main mantras of that movie was seize the day cards. Carpe diem. And I like Latin phrases, too, so. And I try to wake up every day and do that. And I think it's important for all of us to do that. You know, we know what else we get besides the day ahead of us. So make the most of it. Whether chasing greatness or taking risks, you know, that's all part of seizing that day. And I had a, I do have a T shirt that had that on there. It sits under my Ted Lasso ones now that I get a lot of compliments on. But I think it is important that we have something that we talked about waking up to a song before, but having something that we refer back to that it's our own motto to keep us moving forward. Excellent discussion today. We have a little history in here, little sports, a little quotes. So good stuff. And until next time, go Stars. 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!