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, Steven Cutter and our producer, Jereny Robinson. Hey, I always give you a hodgepodge of topics before we talk today, and this one has always been on my radar and I'm kind of excited to talk about it and hopefully I prepared well enough, but we'll see what direction it goes. Is choosing your battles wisely and journey mentioned parenting in the pregame, I guess our pregame before we get on here here. And I always think of it as a leadership, but I also believe coaching and parenting are a lot of similar things. So I also think coaches deal with this pretty regularly and I always teach my kids and I live by this prayer and don't mean to get spiritual on here, but it's the serenity prayer. I like it. I try and say it every day and I just think it's good word to live by. And it's God gave me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference and that last time the wisdom to know the difference and people get frustrated about things they can't change. Back to that serenity piece and then the wisdom of knowing which ones to change. And that's kind of the thing that I really think we have to learn as leaders and coaches and parents to figure out. Because, you know, a lot of those battles come our way. And I believe in our business, the rules we live by by our national association help dictate what battles we choose. But again, any quick thoughts on choosing your battles wisely?

Powerful words. I believe that if you're going to fight all the battles that there are to be fought, that it's going to drain the energy and focus of what truly matters and what's truly important. I think in coaching much aligns with life. You have to understand the things that you should respond to and the things that you shouldn't respond to. And I think the best coaches, they've learned how to know where that line is. And not fighting every battle, only take on the ones that are most important and have the biggest impact on the people that you're leading.

Jereny. What do you think?

When I hear you say that, I think about, do you feel like you have to have control over everything?

And I wonder that same question and when you just talked, does experience help you learn what those battles are? You talk about what some. So I think that's a good gauge because I think your goals or what's worth fighting for, what's going to help you get to your end result are many ways help you to determine which of those battles to choose. And you're also right in the sense of if we did fight every battle, we would get tired and we would wear out and it would decrease our energy. And then when an important battle came up, that we wouldn't have that energy to fight that. And that's specifically true in the middle of a season or a season with team camaraderie or, you know, trying to play your best, that knowing those battles and knowing which ones, it's that wisdom of knowing which ones that escalate. Every kid is different. Even our own kids are different in how you handle them. And some might not think it's fair or not fair. I've shared before on this podcast before one of my great mentors out there taught me to take a breath for a second and see if they can solve the battle first themselves. I mean, because some, especially in today's society, I think our kids want us to solve everything and come to us for. For everything. And, you know, again, you know, give a man a fish, feed him for the day, teach him the fish, feed them for a lifetime kind of a thing. Picking those battles help educate and teach them how to handle adversity and fight through things while also, you know, saving some of your energy so that you can fight the bigger ones that come to you and that really need addressing.

I think sometimes you have to edge them into, like with my son, like, I open things up for him, Right. But as he gets older, I'm like, you have the ability to open this jar, but you're so used to me doing it that you don't even want to try. So then it's like, okay, the battle I'm gonna pick is that I'm gonna let you try your hardest first and then I will help assist you instead of just doing it for him.

Yeah. And I think you have to it solve some battles for them or you know, teach them to end up like.

The elephant story, you know, from another country, where the elephant is tied to a very small rope when it's very small, and then as it grows and gets bigger, it's still tied to a very tiny rope. And the analogy and the story are really the same thing. And the elephant, because it couldn't get away from the rope at a small age, didn't try. As it grew and got bigger, it could easily snap the rope, but it's been limited by that. And a big thing with problem with the issues. And what you're speaking about is like, you really need to be able to teach problem solving 101 to get through some of that stuff.

Yeah, I agree. It is teaching others how to solve their problems. And again, I think sometimes it might be easier to solve the problem for them. And those are probably the best examples to, you know, help them solve their problems because you don't want it to escalate. Time is of the essence, our time, their time. You know, the elephant one's a great example of helping them develop habits. You know, in that case, I don't know about negative habit, but what they've learned to do and, but they also, the other was perspective of that they learned parameters. They didn't go outside of those parameters.

But.

But it is about problem solving and whether it's you solving it for them, which is the job of leadership and coaches and parents, but the other part of it is educating those that are your followers or dependent to learn to do that themselves. And they'll come back to knowing which one to do and which ones not to do and journey. You gave a good example of parenting and kids growing up, as the younger they are, the more dependent on you. Hopefully as they grow older, they're able to spread their wings and fly away. And, you know, sometimes, you know, even with different kids, some of my own kids are better at that when they're turned adults and other ones are, you know, more reliable and dependent on the family. So I guess I failed in some aspects, but it's still that point and still teaching them how to problem solve. The. But the key proponent is again determining what problems to solve for them. And I had a colleague that always, whenever we called about a question about a rule, he'd go, is this a hill worth dying on? And it always stuck with me. And it's true. And it goes back to again, when you're trying to solve a problem, it's very similar. Again, we can't go a podcast without ero. It's a. What's the result? I mean, what is, is the effort putting in worth going to get you the consequence you want? And specifically when we're looking at winning or success, and you can argue which way to go on that, even in the middle of a game of those internal battles of your own players or those battles with the other team, like in basketball playing zone or man to man, in the battle, you got to determine matchups. But it's preparation, it's experience. As we've talked about many times before, and I actually believe more in this case, experience helps determine what battles you learn from your previous mistakes. You learn from interacting with your, your, your teams and your opponents and your officials and your own kids to, to determine, you know, what battles are worth fighting. And, you know, going back to the parenting thing, I didn't even think about this when I was working on this. But, like, is it natural? Like, you're hardest on your firstborn and you're easiest on your baby. I don't know if that's true, but did the first one pave the way? Did they wear you out with your energy or did you just learn, hey, you know what? That battle isn't worth fighting for because they'll be okay failing or dealing with that.

I think that a model that I kind of use is similar to what you talk about. Is this hill worth dying on. But I tend to step in when it has an impact on our culture. If it's got to do with effort or discipline, if it's got something to do with mindset, that can be extremely detrimental to the student athlete. And then finally, like the principles or the standards of the program, if it falls within there, that's, that's when I step in, or what I say is respond. If it doesn't fall within those parameters, if it's something else that's outside of those parameters, I let that stuff go because I've determined what's most important for not only myself, but our program. And if it falls within those, I respond. If not, I don't respond. So you can't. I mean, as I said earlier, you're going to lose energy and focus on the things that are most important. If you're trying to respond to every little thing that comes up.

And thank you for sharing that, because that's kind of what I wanted to leave with today is how do you choose those battles? And you hit on it. And it's interesting you hit on it because the other topic we were looking at talking about today, and we're not Going to dive deep into it today is core values. And that's what you're getting at. And I know it true in your own baseball program with the core values you guys have set for your program. But those are the guiding principles of your team, but they're also the guiding principles of the battle you choose to fight. So that's a great point. And, you know, how do you help determine the battles you choose of? Choosing wisely and the core values is a good place to start. I mean, I even think in, you know, going back through history, when you look at wars, you know that turning points in wars were determined by battles chosen or, you know, how you responded to battle chosen. And just again, assessing a game plan. And you mentioned preparation earlier about the more you prepare. And we were talking about preparation on this podcast before on the podcast and just how important it is. And the more prepared you are, the more battles you can probably handle. But also the ones that help choose you which one do. And some come to rise to the top that you have to deal with rather you want to or not. And especially when you're dealing with kids or young adults to the point of parenting, they're going to need some guidance.

I think having those pillars really important for, for that guidance piece and understanding what's most important, whether it's your core values or whatever it might be, having those pillars. Because I, Tim Grover, I said something like, you can't win every battle. That's not what the goal is. You're trying to win the game. So understand what the big picture is. And I think that you can say it over and over and people kind of understand, like you, you can't fight every battle, but then sometimes you get lost in all the little battles. So if you have those bumpers on in the bowling alley, they're there for a reason, to kind of guide you through and keep you in the lane or on the tracks or whatever it might be so that you don't get lost with the noise. There's a lot of noise out there, whether it's social media. I mean, there's noise everywhere and you can get lost in it. And that's fighting a battle, too. And sometimes you, you don't need to fight those battles because it's taken away from whatever your purpose is supposed to be right now.

I was thinking about what you was talking about, and I learned, like, especially as a coach, when you know the bigger picture that you're willing to battle against, you're able to be inconvenienced with that thing as well for the greater good. For example, like a youth basketball, you can run zone, but is that gonna better your team to be better in the future? But you know, running man to man and teaching them how to stay with a kid might benefit them even though you might lose more games. And that's a battle you willing to.

Strategy is very important. Yeah. And I think the successful ones adjuster strategy and I think that's experience because I agree. I think we come into a profession and we want to control everything because we think by controlling everything that will lead us. And you almost choose every battle to fight and you learn that you don't have the time to, or the energy to and, or the, you know, just the bandwidth. Two that you have to learn from experience on choosing those one that fit your core principles but also get you the result you want to get to. Like, you might not be a zone person, but for the win this game, a zone would be our best chance that you implement that strategy and fight that battle. But you got to teach them and prepare them. But it's knowing the right time and the right result and it's very important to determine that. And it's hard. We've talked about reacting before and you know, when you get hit what you're playing and I think those still play into this too.

And when you see people or where we get lost into trying to fight every battle, I really think it weakens credibility because you start looking at somebody that's trying to fight every battle and you start questioning things like, well, what's wrong really important to you if you're fighting every, you know, battle. And so I think it does weaken credibility as well.

Yeah, good point. One of my favorite quotes I, I tell people is when you get in a pig pen and fight with a pig, you both get dirty, but the pig likes it. And, and, and I, I, I use that as an analogy that again, be careful. I mean fighting can be again, fighting for the right things, but just to fight the fight, you both get dirty. And the other one, that's what they wanted to do to you. And just like back to strategy zone, you know, the competitive advantage. Because the other thing I was going to talk about is the emotions and especially in athletics and competition, trying to either rise to the occasion or bring the opponent down. That dealing with those battles will determine a long way of how that that goes. And we all know it's important to remain professional and, and maintain your composure.

It's huge because you're gonna, you're gonna typically see that like Emotional control and like, things like strategic thinking are what separates people that have a lot of success and the people that burn out. And so it's, it's those two things that help you through determine which fight am I going to put up and which fight am I going to walk away from.

Yeah, and I think your ego can be a part of that. Back to the emotional piece, experience piece. Because as well as you prepare and that the great thing about athletics is it's reality. I mean, the game's not going to go according to script. And we've talked before how, you know, certain football coaches script the first 30 plays of the game and things go great and then, you know, then you gotta adjust. Like if they're gonna play man to man or zone defense or blitz or not. And so there's all those internal battles. And you know, I always try to tell coaches and it sounds done, it's have fun. You know, my last message to them before game is always have fun because the game is stressful. I mean, those are all those internal battles of what you're trying to like game of chess throughout that game and you know, on the attack or on the defense or physical or not physical or, you know, left hander, right hander, but you know, powerball or, you know, and again you're. So there's all those internal battles and you know, we talked about with your golf swing before is not ours, but you know, just play sometimes, you know, and don't fight those battles, but just go out there, have fun and play and, you know, be loose a little bit. And hopefully your preparation gets you where you want to be or, you know, again, your training that you fall to that level is where you need to be. And those are the battles you deal with every day in practice. Very intentional and we talked about that. So the last thing is just really, you know, the right time. And I think that's a big thing is, you know, that could determine like we're public employees, we're out in the middle of a lot of spectators watching us. And some battles are better to be behind closed doors. And I don't mean to hide or anything, just to protect emotions or because the emotions are high in our business. It's just again, knowing the right time, I think also helps you determine how to choose your battle because you might lose. I mean, it's okay to lose a battle here or there. We're going to. And understanding that, that you're not going to win every battle.

Yeah, I got a great example. So I watched like my little YouTube shorts. And I saw one of them giving a story about Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett. And they said Carmelo got mad at KG during the game. And after the game, he was so mad he got dressed right away and went to the tunnel to wait for him. And he said KG was walking out and Carmelo got up ready to go. And KG said, man, that was just a basketball game. And he could have responded, you know, in a way of, I'm a tough guy, too. But his response was, hey, man, the game's over. I'm good.

And that's a great attitude. And the game is over. And we've seen sore losers or poor losers that haven't been able to let go of the game. Very competitive people that haven't let go, especially if it's like a championship game. But also, that's a great analogy right into choosing his battle that wasn't a battle. He was going to fight after the game was over.

I'm good.

Hopefully we left everything out on the floor for that to happen. So again, I go back to, you know, that prayer that I try and live by every day. You know, most people, the quote is, choose your battles wisely, but serenity, wisdom, courage and wisdom. And if you those things, I think you'll be a lot more successful in coaching life and parenting. So anything else real quick on choosing your battles?

No, Just like you said in the workplace and anywhere else, like you talk about the pig pen analogy, some people want to argue.

Yep.

And you have to know those people and know that, hey, it's not worth that battle because you're giving them the dirtiness that they want and you don't even want that in your life.

That's a great point. And I think that's very common in athletics, especially if you're losing or you need to try and find an advantage. And, you know, we see it, you know, with crowds and such. But yeah, that is definitely. Some people do want you to stoop to that level. I always say the high road is a lonely place, but, you know, it's where you can get things done. So that'll be a whole nother podcast. I agree. But talking about YouTube short, I want to talk about that sometime. I'm not real Familiar with you YouTube short. I learned more about it when Tick Tock was banned for a day or two in our country. But are you familiar with YouTube short much? Okay, good. I don't feel the only one, but I'm gonna have to learn more because I know, like our kids in that too. So in choosing your battle, again, a lot of dumb food questions here at our last one. I know not dumb. I already know Cutter's answer. But there was one little thing out there is for the rest of your life, if you could only have pizza for breakfast or pancakes for dinner, what would it be?

So easy.

That's an easy thing.

I know it's easy for you.

Nice supreme pizza. Yeah, I'll take it for breakfast.

You pizza too.

You know, I can choose between sugar and bread or, you know, a multitude of choices of sauce and pizza.

So do you like pizza for breakfast?

Yeah, it's fine.

Especially breakfast pizza.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm about like. Like pepperoni or supreme pizza. Yeah. Do you warm it up or eat it cold?

It doesn't matter. I could eat pizza all the time.

I thought you could. Really? You could.

Could. I don't.

Right, right, right, right. I knew you liked it.

I have something called an air fryer and it brings my pizza back alive.

Yeah. And it's great than a nice invention for that. And cold french fries.

Yeah.

Would you eat your pizza cold or warm in the morning? Like a supreme pizza. Not a breakfast pizza.

I probably because I've been doing the air fryer thing is just spoiled me.

See, I like the less toppings on it. I eat cold. But the more toppings on it, I want it warmed up. I can agree like a supreme pizza I'd want warmed up. But a pepperoni pizza I could eat for breakfast cold. I like pancakes too. I could we have breakfast for dinner a lot in our family, you know. So you don't. In your family, Cutter?

I don't think so.

Okay.

I've done it before. Yeah, it's cool. It's one of them. Like. All right. Meat is not unthawed.

Right. I'm not talking cereal. I'm talking waffles or pancakes. All right. Good contribution, Jereny. 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!