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 Sport. Today I'm joined by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter and our producer, Daedalian Lowry. And as we record this gentleman, Happy New Year. It's our first recording of 2025 and that is crazy that we're talking 2025. Just seemed like Y2K was yesterday and now it's a quarter of a century away. Had a great 2024 and so today I'd just like to talk about 2025 sports trends. Goal I'm not a big goal setter and maybe that's part of my problem. When I reflected on this podcast, I think I work hard, I think I'm busy. I don't think I'm always productive and maybe because I don't have that goal setting. But the one thing I have learned, and partly from you, Coach Cutter, is scheduling calendar, putting my things on a calendar. And as I reflect, I think they can be intertwined. That is almost like goal setting because you're putting something down that you want to accomplish or or get done and it's helped me be more productive. So as we talk about this podcast and looking forward to 2025, I don't want to necessarily get in the goal setting, although I did list some things that I would hope to accomplish personally and professionally this year. But are either one of you like New Year's resolution goals kind of people?

I don't. I think yes, I do try to set a lot of goals because I think goals can be pretty important, but they can also be one of those things that aren't great as well, because you can set a goal and then you wake up the next morning and you're like, oh, I didn't stack any bricks on the way to that goal, you know. And so it can be. Goals can be a really negative thing too. I think it's kind of to each their own, but you should set some type of marker that you want to accomplish. And I really, you know, we've talked about telescopes and microscopes. I feel like it is very challenging for all of us to set goals that are just for a year. It's such a long period of time, and there's so many things that are going to come into play that you're going to have to work through with resiliency and things like that, that it's easier to set goals, maybe for the day or for the hour or for the half a day, things like that. And you'll have probably a lot more rewards out of that piece. So I think, like, for. For myself, I'm really more focused on this, this year, on impact over accomplishments and really watching the ripple effect of what that impact can do and not getting tied into accomplishments, whether they're team accomplishments or my own accomplishments.

Okay.

Yeah. I can't say I'm really a resolution guy. I will say that this year I decided to work on a skill, and that is specifically better listening, which you would think doing what I do, I would be pretty good at that. But occasionally I find myself in situations, especially in personal life, where I'm just. I'm realizing I'm not listening. I'm thinking about goals, I'm thinking about other things. I'm distracted with other things that I shouldn't be. And so I decided to make better listening a priority for myself.

I like that. Actually, I might take you up on that. Not on listening, per se, although I think our whole society need to work better on listening. That's a whole other.

Well, and there's a lot of truth to that because there's a lot of distraction that we all have now.

But I think it also reflects our society of even. Like stop signs, as we talked about before, people are not stopping because they're already going. And I think with listening, people are already wanting to respond. So they're not listening. They're not listening to hear. They're listening to respond that they're. They want to give that next answer before you're done talking. So we don't. Don't listen well, which again, stop signs. We've talked a number of times on this podcast. Gentlemen, today was my best reverse parking in my life.

I had to park between two cars.

And I wasn't gonna do it. I did it and it turned out well and not even too many turns. So I don't want to digress.

Well done. Well done. Regarding the goal setting, though, I find that goals tend to be very fluid. Whenever I set a goal, so I set a goal, and then all of a sudden I'm going. Maybe I need to go a little higher or maybe I need to bring that down. The other thing that you mentioned where I would recommend to anybody because you said that you get caught up into the day to day activities. And I do that all the time. So last year what I did is I incorporated into my work calendar where I just put a little entry where like things, the big enterprise type projects, things that I really want to get to, but I just can't ever seem to get to that. I at least dedicate a half hour of that, maybe an hour of that every week. And I just put a reminder that no matter what's happening, I block off that time and this is my time to work on this project.

That's another good one because I feel I struggle with that too. Getting to. I'm so busy doing the day to day like things, I don't have an opportunity to work on those bigger vision items I have for our department and I do schedule them sometimes just again with the interruptions and that. So another good tip. Well done. You're on Fire in 2020, 2025 of helping us be better. So. But back to, you know, even what coach Cutter said about stacking wind, that is, you know, when, when researching goal setting, those are some of the things, you know, like one of my, one of our, I think favorite things is from the Admiral that said make your bed every morning and, and we do that at home. And it is stacking a win and a goal, you know, starting the night before that you know you're going to do it and getting something accomplished. That goal setting does help you focus because you have something to work towards. It does help with determination that you do have to work towards something. And then if you measure it and do well, it can be those stacking wind that we have talked about. So I think there is a lot of merit to goal setting. I think like you said, it's different. Both of you have different people and how you phrase it or how you word it. But you know, one of my favorite things, and I might have shared this on a podcast before, but I use it all the time. It's one of my favorite memories. In athletic administration, we were at a student leadership summit and the presider in the room had all the students take out a piece of paper and write down as many numbers as they can in 30 seconds. I don't know if it was 30 seconds or not. So everyone's writing down numbers. And then she went around the room and how'd you do it? And then she had Them do it again, and you should see the significant improvement. Now, they knew that they needed to do better because the first time they didn't know what they were doing. They were just writing down numbers, but then they had a goal in front of them. And so if they wrote 1 to 30 the first time, they wrote 1 to 76 the second time. And it was a real good example about goal setting of the differences between the two of just writing one, however, in 30 seconds and then trying to beat that number the second time. So that's always stuck with me. It's an example I use all the time. So. But yeah, so for me, I don't. I mean, I need to. I like the skill one. I will have come up with a skill one for our next. Our next podcast. And you talked about impact. That's a great example. You know, in our business, you get stuck on winning and don't get stuck on it, but that's what a lot of people's goals are. Win, win.

How you're judged.

It is. And it's a measurable thing you can see on the scoreboard. And I want to win. I want to compete to win. So, as we've told before, usually our number one objective is to win the all sports trophy, and we're halfway through the year and, you know, we'll be in contention for it. And I think, you know, we'll hopefully in a good position to earn that. But, you know, the word that stuck with me are like, like the impact and skill is, you know, take risks, challenge, not, you know, thinking, doing the same thing every day. You're not going to get this. You're going to get the same result. So back to even doing those things that will help me be better, because as I've told before, be better. The general goal I use every day is just be better than yesterday. One of my favorite shirts is Beat Yesterday.

It's hard to do, but if you do, it is a mindset. But if you do focus on, you know, kind of the theory behind plus one, where, you know, it's really small stuff. It's. It's not the. The super large dream, but it's the, the small things. And through those small things, it could be, I just picked up a piece of garbage in the hallway and threw it in the trash can that was, you know, seven feet away. Plus, that's a plus one. And that's what winning looks like. And that's how confidence starts building. And you just go through your day stacking these really, really small bricks. And at the end of the day, if you do that for one full day, you'll sit there and say to yourself, that was a pretty solid day. And it's not the fear of how do I get 1% better tomorrow or 2% better tomorrow. It's just like I'm just going to keep plus one and I'm going to push my chair in when I leave the room. Plus one, you know, it's that kind of mindset. So you're stacking all these wins which then builds confidence. And we all know that people that are confident can accomplish a lot more than people that are questioning and full of self doubt.

And I like the plus one because I do that. I'm a list person. So every day I write a list of things I like to get done. And I've done every leadership personality test out there and one of mine is achiever. So you know, like when I check something off, I'm excited and if I check off the whole list, you'll see me stand up and dancing in my office and doing this good thing. No one does see me, but it does give me energy. And, and those lists never seem to end. I mean, at the end of the day, even though I checked four or five of them, you know, I've added more to the, to the list. But it is crazy what little things can do to, to help move you forward or excite you to move on to that next task, which is similar to sports. And being successful in sports. And as we start new season this week or start new semesters in the next week, that's important too. Getting confidence early and building on, you know, it's a tough transition in college from high school and now kids figuring out how to be successful in the classroom and now a long season to check things off. And I think we forget that sometimes because again, we get too caught up on the big picture of the scoreboard or I'm not starting or I'm not scoring this many points or my batting average isn't this or that. But then you got to start breaking it down back to the process of being successful. And that's the nice thing, as you talked about the Dalian is reflection, having time. I don't think our society spends enough time reflection on our goals or you know, we put a lot of things out there, but when do we stop and think and, and evaluate where or how we are at? And so reflection. I had a mentor of mine always talk to me about the importance of reflection. So I've worked hard at trying to reflect, but we get busy. I mean, at the end of the night, some of the best podcasts I've read, you should prepare tomorrow, the night before. But by the end of the night, time flies.

I will say that since hanging out with you guys on this podcast and just listening to the show a lot of the times, I now look at things, as you guys very often say, brick by brick. Because I used to always look at that big goal and just kind of go, am I ever gonna get there? And, you know, you gotta realize that, yeah, it's this. The small victories that lead to the big one.

Yeah. See, you know where we are constantly because of everything that's happening. We're missing the trees amongst the forest, you know, kind of deal. And so when you're trying to do that, another great thing is to be able to journal. And it can just be five words, but it kind of gives you some feedback of where you are, what you're thinking, what just happened to you. And it. You can look back on that stuff and you say, man, you know, I was. I was down in the dumps at this point. And just a week later, or a day, a day later, or maybe it's a month, whatever it might be, and you can look and you'd be like, you know, there's a lot of plus ones that have happened since then. And that's where, like the, the word resiliency. That's where resiliency is built, and that's where that muscle is built. Through resiliency, you. You going to grow confidence.

God, I think you just got me back onto another resolution. I think I need to get back on that journal.

Me too. I wrote it down.

I haven't done that. I did not. I don't even think I wrote in it once last year. Not even once.

I wrote in a journal last year. And do you have frequently.

Do you have it in that stack over there?

It's actually, I went, are you sure that stack is not your podcast stack? And then I'm going to put piles on my list for this year, too. There's another skill, but, man, I get two today. Now you made me lose my train of thought. But I love journaling. I look back at my old journals and just laugh or smile and think of what I did this day in, you know, 2014 or something. And even have encouraged my kids to journal and look at their journal. I don't look at them, but they share them with me or such. I know you do a great job with your team every day journaling, but you're Right. But that also helps with reflection too, because it gives you something to look back, reflect on. So another thing that I need to do better this year. But you know, back to prioritizing, you know, that's where scheduling can help in balance, avoiding conflict and interruptions. You know, we talk about getting hit and how you handle those. And we all have, you know, jobs are the interruption. Back to your big picture thing. It wasn't until recently this wasn't one of my favorite analogies, but it actually has become more higher on the list for me is how to eat an elephant. And it's one bite at a time. And if you look at an elephant, you think how you, how would you accomplish knocking that down? And it's one bite at a time. And there's a nice little parable about that. And that's really stuck with me over the last five years as an example, one I use and I just heard it recently because that is it. One back to one brick at a time, one step at a time. You're not going to eat the whole thing at once. You got to break it into pieces and chip away at it. And again, I think that's also true. As we talked about in our office, we again a lot of good podcasts in our office about stories, how seasons are stories and they're pieces, pieces that come together and there's some happy ending stories, not happy ending stories. And as we start a new year and many people in our world do resolutions or do do the one word goal thing that, you know, that we've talked about in the past, it is, you know, there seems to be a lot of like pot, you know, like happiness or whatever that I can maybe do that this year that I, I haven't done enough.

Craig's beating up the microphone just so.

Everybody knows you had me lifted up and now it's in my way.

He's using some hand gestures and they're good ones, though.

But so yeah, so I think, you know, we just completed a busy holiday season and I love the holiday season. Thanksgiving is about gratitude and Christmas or whatever you celebrate is about giving. So I think those are great attributes that our society can embrace and not just celebrate during that month, but should try and celebrate year round. So those are what, stick with me that but now as we head into a new year, people are looking forward and maybe trying to do something, something they haven't been able to do in their previous year or lifetime. So it always seems like this is a big topic right now of what I'm going to try and accomplish this year or what we can do. And in sports, we do that every season. And then we live by seasons. And so for Some of us, January 1st of 2025 is in the middle of a season. For some of us, it's out of season. For some of us, it's the beginning of a season. But that's one of my favorite things about sports is every season we kind of set those goals, set those expectations and then work toward those. Because one of you mentioned earlier on December 31st of 2025, how many look back and say, well, I didn't get that done or well, I didn't accomplish that or you know, there are, they're probably looking for and say, well, I should try it again this year or I should should do this. And so again, I think it's important, I like that our society does use in a year, beginning of a year to try and move forward because again, we all should be trying to be better or plus one over yesterday.

Very good.

So anything else to add to that quickly? Another topic that we'll spend a whole nother podcast on is as I'm talking about 2025. I was looking at trends in sports and there's some neat ones, but most of them are 2024 for your program because you do a lot of these. But I just would like to share and maybe we can dig deep into these in a future podcast. But when you're looking at trends for 25, there seem to be two areas, technology and then environment and what I mean, so in technology, the number one trend is wearable technology. And I'm not wearing mine today because I charged it last night. But you know, more and more sports teams are using wearable technology. And our baseball team has a watch that they wear to help determine their performance readiness and where they're at. And so that's a big trend that we can probably talk more on. AI is obviously in data stuff and virtual reality, which I know again, you guys use some virtual reality for skill acquisition are trending. I just used AI for the first time over winter break. I downloaded ChatGPT tea on my thing and my son's going to be the best man in the wedding. So I just put on their best man toast and it was crazy. I've been a best man in a wedding a couple of times and, and so I put features together.

You did edit afterwards, right?

I just did it for fun. I didn't even, I just kept it. It was pretty. I mean, it's something you really could.

Work with it is, you know, so.

It was a good foundation. Yes. I would definitely tweak it. I'd even share it with him.

Yeah, that's the one thing I recommend for anything that's been written by AI is make read that afterwards.

But they talk about how AI can help as we talk about in sports data driven analysis and statistics and how plugging them into AI can help tailor or be more sport specific or even be more accurate than human analysis. So that was another topic, but the interesting one too for me because we're going to talk about sports venues on this podcast in the future too. And I've done a lot of research. I love sports venues.

Junior college venues.

Oh, of course, you know, I'm a big be the end of the question. But the Coliseum, the Rome and Greece, the built facility thousands of years ago and some of them are very similar characteristics to what we have now. But I believe that's going to change. And looking at some trends, they're going to be more fan interactive, they're going to be more towards social gatherings. And I think minor league baseball has already done this with some of the things they do. Picnic tables instead of.

Yeah.

Stadium seating, food, you know, where they fit in even. One of the things I saw is it's going to be blurred between the fan and the athlete, like even including virtual reality and games and like that. Which makes me a little nervous. But that's how far we'll go because the other side of it that's also going to big is streaming and the way we watch sports now and how accessible it can be. So any quick things on sports trends or other music trends for 2025 that you want to again, we can go over those.

I think the AI aspect is both exciting and scary for everybody, really. I mean there's so many things that can happen and honestly, we could just do it a whole episode on AI. Really.

Maybe we will. Maybe we will. I'll highlight that because again, other trends is sports betting. We can talk about issues that we will deal with in a Future podcast in 2025 at the NJCA level. Another one that attracts me about stadiums is environmental sustainability. Going I never say go green, but it's, you know, I always joked if they would have said go blue, it would have picked up a lot quicker in history of helping us be more environmentally sound. But I even saw a stadium that's going to reusable cups, you know, if you buy a pop or something that you know. So that's exciting for me on trend that could be happening in 2025 so quickly. Any other things on 2025 we want.

To hit people are just super briefly. The. I think the AI is incredible, and it helps people become more efficient, and there's a lot of positive behind it. And then as I was thinking about it, as we were talking about, I was like, man, it's not any different than a generation before us being afraid of the Internet and what that could bring. And Google's right at your fingertips, and you can find the closest restaurant and. And you could see the reviews and, you know, that car dealership and, you know, the Yellow Pages went away. And then you start the podcast by saying Y2K when everything was gonna shut down because of.

Right. Yeah.

And that was one of those things.

That was super scary. So just talk about bringing it full circle Y2K to AI.

Listen to the song 1999 on the radio this morning. We talked about Y2K over what we were doing 25 years ago when that happened.

Progress.

And as we talk about it now, we're probably affecting AI, so it's kind of interesting.

Yeah. We'll talk more about AI and sports in a future podcast. So those who are still listening, I have two questions at the end as we talk about. So the first one is, what country would you. If you could visit any country in the world, what country would that be?

Wow. I would say almost all of them, but.

Interesting.

But the one that I've always wanted to get to and I still have not had the opportunity to do so, would be Ireland.

Okay.

All right. You know, it's beautiful.

I got a story about Ireland, but what about you, Coach?

I was. I was kind of thinking the same thing because I actually coached a player that did an internship in Ireland, and he came back talking about the. The incredible. I'll just start with the landscape.

Yeah.

And he. He had such a way of sharing a story that it just made me say, wow, that. That seems like a really neat place to go to.

Well, three for three.

I would.

I remember. Me, too. The other one would be Rome, Italy, just because.

Or that would be my second one, actually. Mine would be the art and the architecture.

Yeah. I did not sport.

Beautiful.

Right, right. But back to Ireland, I had a friend, he's Catholic, and he had a buddy go to Ireland, and the guy calls him, goes, you would love it here. There's a pub and church on every corner. And my friend goes, I didn't know you went to heaven. I thought you went to Ireland. So, yeah, the landscape is also cool, but very interesting. So we'll actually save the next question until our next podcast about food. So until then, 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!