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 Stars on Sports. As usual, I'm joined by our assistant athletic director and baseball coach, Steven Cutter. And Steven, today we're going to be talking about a myriad of topics. But you know, as we record this podcast, we're starting another year and as you know, we've talked about in previous podcasts of the excitement of that. But the one thing we forget are all the external things that impact our program or our sports and specifically what what student athletes bring. I mean, we have a lot of new students coming on campus. We have a lot of returners. You know, it's usually a 50, 50 ratio to be generic. And you know, and we think we know what we get with those returners. And there's a lot of excitement or hope for our new student athlete that come on campus. But, you know, there are a lot of things that can impact them. And we had a conversation that I would like to expand a little bit on that just, you know, are ones that even move here and have to deal with roommates and what a change that is for them. And you know, they probably forget, they probably had those same arguments with their brother and sister at home, whether they're messy or not messy. But when we're trying to compete for championships on and off the field, how much off the field does impact on the field performance? And the good programs I think spend time dealing with that. But we even talked about how much how time consuming that can be, you know, for coaches if they really invest in their student athletes. And one of my pieces of advice for coaches has always been to talk to every player every day and how difficult that would be for you when you have over 50 on your roster for this coming year. But I know you do and I know you or you break it down with your staff. But one of the ways by talking to every student every day is you find out things about them. And you know, I went to a great, as I'm telling you a seminar years ago about the Presentation was everyone has a backpack and everyone brings a backpack to work and what's in that backpack and are they going to open it up and let it out? And sometimes it just comes out, I mean, or you can see it. You can read their face or you can.

Body language.

Yeah, body language is a huge piece of evidence for that. So as we record this, we've had a lot go on in our area in the last week with storms and other things that have impacted the, of our student athletes that, you know, it just takes you one sit back and reflect and realize that, you know, there's a lot going on and it's much bigger than baseball or basketball or volleyball or running and challenging for a coach to try and deal with that yet still try and get them to perform at the highest level as we really start to get into our competition season. So do you think that's more common at the beginning of the season because you're getting to know student athletes and put it a team together or that it pretty frequent throughout your 10, you know, tenure in a program or during the year?

It seems like it's, it's pretty frequent. Really believe that if you're self aware enough, you know, coaches, administrators or anybody else, they're. We're also wearing backpacks and if something's going on at home or whatever that everybody's aware that affects, you know, your job and what you're doing or can affect it and can affect it really seriously. So the same applies for student athletes, athletes and sometimes their issues that they have are extremely large and sometimes they're really not that large, but they're very important to them. And we've experienced a lot of different things just in the baseball program alone. In the few short weeks that we've been going, we had players that couldn't get into apartments so their parents are paying for motels for them to stay in for a couple weeks. Some, some players are sleeping on floors because, you know, there a lot of them do not, are not from the Lansing area. You know, say they had to do a lot of that. Some now they're in apartments they just got in a couple days ago and now they're dealing with the whole, you know, a whole lot of other things. And then we go to the other side of the gamut and some kids are dealing with death and you know, so it's, it's a whole mixture. And I think once you start asking questions and start asking better questions, you start finding out more and then you get a lot more. But that also puts A lot more on a coach's plate once you start getting that.

And I think that's a valid point. As an athletic director, I worry about both our coaches and our student athletes. And I've seen it impact student athletes, but you're right, it also impacts our coaches. Our coaches are bringing backpacks every day. And I try and tell coaches, but I think it's tough in our business that you gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of others. And that's not always the case. And that's, you know, I think one of the positive things that came from the pandemic is to learning the old tough mentality. I can fight through anything that you have to listen to your body or you have to find time to take care of yourself. That coaches aren't really good at that because they spend so much time worrying about kids and worrying about the health and well being and the performance of student athletes. And it's constant, as we've talked about before on this podcast, that it's 24, 7, 365. I mean, you get calls at 7:30 in the morning and 11:00 clock at night depending on, you know, what's going on in your program, whether with the facility, whether with a student athlete, dealing with something outside of your sport. But you know, coaches have that same thing and we forget about that sometimes. And it's important, it's more important for a leader. I mean, leaders have to take care of others. That it's hard, but you have to take care of yourselves. And I've experienced that before flying, which, you know, I used to be anxious about that. You know, if I'm anxious and something happened on the plane, it would be hard for me to take care of that person because I'm worried about me. So.

Great example.

So, yeah, I mean, we have to worry about coaches and it starts with them to be able to take care of student athletes. But the other thing that you hit on too, that's interesting to me that I haven't processed is routine and the schedule. And I think there is a little more anxiety at the beginning of the season and figuring things out because you mentioned moving in and hotels and getting classes started. But, you know, we're a creature of habit. And after a week or two, you probably sit in the same chair every day in the class, you park in the same spot in the parking ramp. You know, we practice at the same time every day mostly, you know, so, you know, we become a creature of habit to try and eliminate some of those uncertainties and you know, you see a lot of coaches that try and really eliminate the peripherals and the external things so they can focus on that sport. But back to my original premise that that's not realistic. That, you know, even as much as you try and put our student athletes in a controlled environment, you know, there are so many things, unless they live in a bubble, which we did in the pandemic, you know, that, you know, there are things that are going to impact them. Getting a bad grade on a test, you know, breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, I mean, can. Can ruin someone's day, most likely does ruin their day, and that impacts probably how they practice. And do you worry about it more against, you know, maybe certain, like, times a year, like, you know, at the end of the season, there's, you know, postseason events and that. That. Do you focus any differently on that or.

Yeah, we certainly try to limit distractions as much as possible at those crucial points, but trying to limit distractions throughout somebody's whole playing career or season or whatever is just not really possible. You know, there's so many things that come up and, and without, without mental toughness, mental performance, different things, they really, really affect people. We had, we had a group of players that came into a practice a about a week ago, and they were pretty upset. And they were upset because once they got into their apartment, the air conditioning wasn't working. It was when it was really hot, you know, and. But everybody else was just their apartment. So there was just four of them affected, you know, so it was a big deal to them, you know, and so you're just not going to prevent all that stuff. But it's more about not what happens to you, but how you're going to respond to it. And it's. And that's a great saying, but it's super challenging and you have to work really hard at that too because, you know, somebody smashes your thumb with a hammer and you got to respond to, that's okay, I know you didn't do it on purpose. It still hurts. And you got to figure out how to, how to deal with that.

And again, we've talked a lot about ero, you know, event plus response equals outcome. And you know, the. How stressful that can be. I mean, as you know, we've talked about too, the coaches stress of dealing with those, those particular incidences that it wears on you. You know, if your kid had a family member that had a significant injury or, or you can tell that they're hurting, that that added stress to you. So you have to handle that. And if you have multiple, because it's not just one kid on your team or more, that it can become a time consuming, very difficult situation that does take away from the sport. But it is something you sign up for when you are working with student athletes, adults, people in general. And you know, it can be the most rewarding experience if you look at maybe what the outcome is from that experience. And the nice thing about today in sports is the resources available at different levels too. LCC has a good counseling staff. They have success coaches. There are different resources that we can help send them to, though it doesn't always fall on the coach and that's important. And you've seen it at the highest level of athletics where each program had their own within their program. And you in your program have a nutritional coach, a sports performance and a mental performance, people helping out. So, you know, that helps a coach if they have resources that available to them to help solve some of these issues or take some of that responsibility off the coach. Because, you know, added stress is not a healthy for any part for your mind, your heart, your body, that if you want to, you know, be the best that you can be, which we, you know, talk about every day trying to be. And, you know, that's the other thing I think, I think athletic does a nice job of helping participants learn for life. As we always talked about life lessons on this podcast and again, that's my biggest reason why I'm in this field is I think it really teaches life lessons for these kids to be able to handle it. Losing a baseball game is much less and different than losing a family member. But losing a baseball game can help them handle that adversity in life, hopefully. And as we talked about dealing with weather events that the more practice you have of it, the better you get at it. You know, the better I get at parking, the more practice I have at it. And there's a lot of people now that the parking ramps full that need some practice at it. But, you know, the same with, you know, like we talk about in Michigan, you know, how different in Lansing compared to the west side of how much snow and how much you deal with and how much different it is down south. If they get up a trace of snow, they're like panicking. And we experienced that some of this last weekend with the wind and the storm that came.

Tornado. Tornado in a press box, right.

I was, it was a Mason football game on Thursday night and I went up to help him out in the press box to close It. By the time I got. Was able to get out of there, I couldn't because the storm was coming in. Thankfully, the storm was going north to south instead of east to west or west east or. I think I would have been blown across the football field. It's one of the scariest events I've been in, and I've been in many different weather issues in my tenure here, but that was. It was. That was a bad storm.

And so if that happens again on Thursday or Friday night, say, Mason's playing at home again, which I don't know if they are, but would you do anything differently?

No. I mean, you know, like, my family was mad at me for helping out when I wasn't even supposed to be working, but that's just the nature. I want to help people out, so I went up there to help take care of that particular area. I would, you know, you don't know. It came in fast. I mean, that's. That's, you know, something that you've been there with. In weather with, you know, baseball games. And there's. Sometimes you get to your car before it pours, and there's. Sometimes you're drenched by the time you get there. And we. I would. Last year in baseball, I got drenched running to the concession area. And so it happens in our. You try and minimize that. The more you're in it, you get better at it. You know, the technology helps us with the apps on our phones and such, but. And, you know, we can debate, as we've talked about, well, you know, someone acted soon enough or not soon enough to make that happen, but it's still scary regardless. And so you think, well, you're done with it that night. But no, now there's no power, fences are down, and you got to figure out how to. They had to move the game to a different facility the next day. And we've been there. You have to. Again, problem solving. And that's another thing we like about this business, is that you got to figure out how to get it done. So. And you were at that game, but you were able to get out before?

My wife wasn't, but I was.

Yeah. See, they're back to the conversation about what kind of husband you are.

Gotta get out.

Yeah, I know, but. And there were cars still sitting there because that was probably safer sitting in the parking lot than trying to get home. But in this business, you know, you don't ever want to say you see it all, but a lot of things do happen that are out of your control that you still have to handle. And. And as you and I have talked about, accept that reality where it is. And that's your starting point on how to handle moving forward and making the best of it, even if it's not what you want it to be. And that's so true about your season, too, right?

Talking about making the best of it. Is Urban Meyer a pretty good coach in your eyes?

Well, I'm not the biggest fan of Urban Meyer. He's been a successful coach. He's won national championships.

I bring it up because Swamp Kings is on Netflix right now, and it's. It's very, very popular. I think it's number two right now, most watched and crazy that I know that, but very interesting to watch that. And there's a lot of the student athletes that I've spoken with have watched it as well, and I've heard the same. I think one of the more amazing things to me is they've all given me their. Or us, their perspectives on that. And they're all significantly different in their perspectives of. Of what they've watched. And they all watch the same thing, which I think goes back into, like, the, you know, police used to talk about this in. In training and stuff that you could. You could have an event and seven people could see it, and they could interview all seven people, and they would get different descriptions of what happened, what they were wearing, who did it, you know, stuff like that and how inaccurate that that can be. But. But the perception, too, is you think that you're watching something that is pretty black and white, whether it's with the Swamp Kings or anything else, a game that's a contest that's taking place in our gym or anything else. And people have extremely different perspectives. And.

And that's what I love about sports. And I can't wait to watch Swamp Kings. Even though I'm not a big Urban Meyer fan, I still like learning from those things and learning, like, what made him a successful coach on the field, I think, you know, and he's got some great leadership qualities. I just think he just brought a different perspective, in my own opinion, is, you know, he was from a different conference that recruited and did things differently and brought that mentality to the Big Ten and changed some things. And there's no right way or wrong way. I mean, unless you're breaking rules. But, you know, that's one of my favorite things about sports is like, you and I could be sitting and watching a game. Let's say we're watching a football game. And I could say that's the worst offense I've ever seen. And you could say, no, that's the best defense I've ever seen. And you know, and just, just the totally different perspective of that contest and what people walk away feeling from and, and it creates fanaticism, it creates great discussion and conversation that again, I consider it the best reality on tv. And that's cool that, that it provides that and it, it done that throughout time, you know, back to the Romans with gladiator fighting or circuses or the Olympics that, you know, with a big entertainment part of our society. And one of the main reasons why is just, you know, one of my favorite quotes of all time is it's, it's, it's not good to see the world through one set of eyes. But realistically we see the world through one set of eyes and, and it's contradictory, but to your point, we seek

less to understand and more to be understood. And when you can kind of flip that or try as, as hard as you can to flip that piece, you see different perspectives and, and it might not necessarily align with yours, but you can actually see it. You can feel it a little bit. You can feel when you can have a little bit of empathy when the air conditioning is not working and it's 92 degrees. You know, you can feel that a little bit because you, you've been there at one point or another. Maybe not in that situation, but a different, you can have some empathy when kids are dealing with death or, or anything else in between those two things. And you can feel that a little bit versus trying to be understood. You can, you can work on trying to understand.

Well, about back to even the perspectives on Swamp King, your experience, your nature, your nurture, the things that you bring to the table that help you look at things will help lead to what you see. And if, you know, if you grew up a Florida fan, you would like Urban Meyer. If you grew up maybe not liking Florida, you might not like it.

I don't know if I mean, is an example, I think he only won one national championship, right?

That's a good question. Yeah, I think he did.

And his last few years there weren't very good.

So I think if you're field issues. But he won one at Ohio State too, though.

I. But if you're a Florida fan, your standards at UF were at least in those times were much higher. So only winning one wasn't enough. I think Urban in one of those is like, you know, now that we've won a national championship, I'm just going to have a lot of joy in my coaching and everything and because of Slayed the Dragon and things will be easy moving forward. And he was talking about it in retrospect, and he said I was so wrong thinking that.

Well, we've talked about that. About when you win something at a high level, are you satisfied or do you want more? Is it what you thought it would be? And that's more about the standards off the scoreboard than on the scoreboard that it's harder to win that second one. People believe and.

Absolutely.

And. But we take the grant of winning that first one, not how many coaches have won a national championship.

Very few.

Exactly. You know, so he's got more than a lot of college football coaches out there, so.

Right. But yeah, if you're eating something you really like and you take one bite, are you just gonna take one bite? Well, you. If you're going after something that you really want, which it might be excellence or a championship or, you know, a 4.0 or whatever, and you get one. Do you just want one bite or do you want a couple bites of what. What you really want? And. And that's. That's why it looks like that.

Well, that's very interesting because I'm competitive, and I would think Urban Meyer's competitive. That one is never enough. I'm always like, if you're looking forward or looking backward, of avoiding that next one. But accomplishing something of that magnitude, you know, could be, you know, a lot. And you've been there, you know, like being relieved instead of, you know, like, excited just because of the pressure of, you know, back again to the. Where we started. The outside, the external factor, that impact, you know, what is on or off the field.

There's a lot in people's backpacks.

There sure is. So, again, what a great conversation as usual. Unfortunately, we didn't get our buddy Daedalian in today, but we will next time. And until then, Go Stars.

Stars on Sports Outro: Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studios. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry. You can listen to this episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand at LCCconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit LCCstars.com thanks for listening. Go Stars!