Hey, hey, hey. This is Lisa A. And you're listening to Who's That Star? On LCC Connect at Lansing Community College. Who's that Star? Is a behind the scenes show where I sit down and talk with the employees at the college. This is an inside look at LCC where you will have a chance to learn about their passions, projects, what inspires them both at work and in their personal lives. I'm your host, Lisa Alexander. I'm so excited to get a chance to talk to all the people who make LCC great. This show is for you to to get to know the people that work at Lansing Community College a little bit more and see what makes them tick. Are you ready? Okay, let's go see who's today's star. I'm so excited to have today's guest on Who's That Star? He is pretty new star here at LCC. He began working with us in 2021. In his first year, he has led LCC's baseball team to the College World Series since 2017. Our base team finished fifth overall nationally and had a 4411 record. This star has coached at many different levels of baseball including as a high school coach at North Muskegon and Spring Lake high schools. He coached at college level with the West Michigan Whitecaps in Northwoods League, the Muskegon Clippers in the Great Kales League, and worked as the lead development instructor at Extra Innings in Muskegon. Nicole Waters, acting athletic director at the time of his hire, stated he is sincerely interested in helping players be successful and experience personal growth and success in whatever way is defined for that individual on the field and off. Before baseball, he was an entrepreneur who owned an assortment of small businesses in West Michigan area for over 15 years. He currently resides in Mason with his wife and four children. All right, everybody, are you ready to learn who's today's Star? Today's star is Steven Cutter. Welcome, Steve. We are so glad to have you here on Who's That Star Today.

Thank you, Lisa. I'm super excited to be here, so.

I'm ready to just jump in. So I'm gonna ask you some questions and we go where we go.

Sounds great.

All right, so can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what is important to you in your life right now?

I think just helping people develop into versions of themselves that maybe sometimes they're not even aware of what their potentials are, that's really a driver for me in my life and in how I help serve our student athletes here. So that's, that's a big driver. I think too, too often we start out with common might be and we get used to it. And I'm a big proponent in pushing people to do a little bit extra, do a little bit more, find, find things that they're really good at.

Okay. So I bet with athletes, well, young athletes as well, you have students that come in and they are developing their personal self, right. And so you get to play. And so I think that's. Not that I don't think baseball is great, but I think that the investment that you put in our students is greater and then you can see that result later on. So kudos to you. When did you begin working at LCC?

I started August of last year. So I was hired by acting interim athletic director Nicole Waters and I started and we hit the ground running. Baseball and softball, I really the only two sports here that go almost year round. Both baseball and softball have fall seasons that start in August and they end around Christmas time. And then they have their spring seasons that start just after Christmas and end hopefully in June.

So I didn't realize that there was a fall season. So is the fall season just like is it. Does it count towards the.

It matters, but it doesn't. Your record doesn't necessarily exist.

Got you. So it's just kind of helping you get ready and prepare. Okay, well, what drew you to want to coach at LCC?

I knew many years ago that I wanted to coach baseball on a full time basis. And so I, I began working towards that. And as I began working towards that, I was given a lot of really special opportunities. And some of those opportunities you find out are not necessarily the fit for what your passions and what your dreams are. It was important for me when I transitioned to the college level that I went to a place that we had a supportive athletic department, that we had a supportive college, and that we had expectations of success. And not only on the field, off the field, in the classroom, in the community and everything. And Lansing really fit that bill. So when I first toured here and walked around campus, I could tell it was, it was uncommon, it was, it was special. And you know, it's, it's just, it's everything about Lansing, being in the capital city, being a block away from the capital, having so many different opportunities here, it's just, it's a special place.

Well, we're glad to have you. I'm a Lansing local, as they say, so it's always interesting to see what people, you know, view of Lansing from other people. So I am glad you're here because you were, you. You were by a lot of water, like west Michigan, right?

A lot of water, toes in the sand. A lot of water.

Yeah, for sure.

I grew up in west Michigan. It's a beautiful place to grow up. You don't probably realize it, but it's, it's a tourist, you know, area and a lot of people, that's a destination for them to come to. You don't really realize that growing up, what that's like, but when you're taken away from it, you do realize how, how special it was. And we understood that when we live, we. We live fairly close to, to the beach and, and it's, it's a special area for sure.

Yeah. You would have had a lot of visits from me if I'd have known you because been quick access to the beach and Michigan Adventure too is up there, so. Yes. All right, so what I knew, I read in the bio that you were an entrepreneur, right?

Yes.

At some point. How did you get started in. In wanting to coach baseball? Like what? How did that transition go from owning several businesses to then deciding that you wanted to coach, I mean, baseball full time?

Extremely interesting, really. As I was working through the entrepreneurship of owning businesses, I found a lot of joy in that. I found a lot of freedom in that. But as I did it a little bit longer, I wasn't able to connect with people as much as what I thought. I wasn't able to find a true, really good passion for serving people by providing them with services, if that makes sense. I started coaching little league baseball. I was coaching youth football. I was coaching youth basketball. It wasn't just baseball, but when I was coaching little league baseball, something just kind of clicked. And I get to a point where I got nominated to coach a maybe 9U all star team. I mean, nothing big by any stretch, but to me it was, it was. That was cool. And I was spending so much time working on practice plans and trying to figure out how I could best serve those little kids. And that's when I kind of realized that maybe, maybe I need to make a transition. That transition didn't happen overnight. It took a while. I had to get our family on board for sure, starting with my wife and then of course, children and stuff. And it was a tough transition because when you're a business owner, you have a lot of freedoms. Meaning that if our children had a school play at, at 12:30 on a Wednesday, I could pretty much always be there. And the transition into coaching, especially where we're at now you miss a lot of, a lot of things. There's, there's a lot of stuff that you just don't get. So that's. I got started at the little league level and just kind of started building up from there. And I said that I wanted to work, get, get a full time job in baseball and, and serving others through the game of baseball. And so here we are.

Yeah, that's a great story. I mean, because, yeah, you. Right. I know that had to be a transition from a lot of different areas, but it sounds like it went well for you because you're here. But I was curious, so do you go to school to be a coach? How does that, is it just blood, sweat and tears where you just go through an experience and learn from someone else? How does that work?

It depends on what type of coach you want to be, I think. Do you want to be an average coach? Do you want to be a great coach? I knew that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it at 100%. And so I had to start learning from the successful coaches out there. Wasn't just baseball, it was just, you know, are you a successful coach and what are you doing? Because success always leaves clues and so does the lack of success because. But that being said, so I, I, you have to have degrees to coach at the college level. So that's, that's pretty important. So you do need the education piece, but it's, it's more of a process of trying to learn as much as you can and then continuing that process of never stop learning. Because once you think you know everything, you're, you're pretty much going to start going backwards.

Right? Okay.

And so, and so that's kind of, it's kind of where that started.

Oh, that's interesting because I never knew how, you know, people got to coaching. Like, what was that? Like, is that, do they have a bachelor's degree in coaching, you know, and what does that look like? Or do you do it through blood, sweat and tears? And it sounds like you kind of figure out what you want to do and go for it. So what's the day in the life of a college baseball coach?

I'm not sure that time really exists. Everybody gets 24 hours in a day, and everybody uses that time differently. It starts with early mornings. I'm working on something usually at all times. I'm also helping our children get ready for school and get to school. And then I'm in our athletic department very early in the morning and, and I'm there until at least lunchtime. At that point I transition to our facility or our home field. I'm usually mowing, edging.

Really?

I maintain the whole field. Yep. And then we start practice at 1:00 clock and we go until about 4, 4:30.

Wow.

And then we usually have things like weight training or leadership classes or different things that we do. So I get home, I try to be 100% present when I'm at home as much as possible. I remove. Try to remove the phone as much as I can and we try to have dinner as often as possible. That's challenging today. Our children have busy schedules like everybody else do. They're playing sports and different things. But I try to be as present as I can. And then once everybody goes to sleep, that's typically when I try to do a lot of the work. And that's what I've done for a number of years in the baseball world. That's where I'm able to learn as much as I possibly can. I try to figure out ways to separate myself as a coach because anytime you're coaching, you try to. How can you connect with people? What makes you different? I got into the mental, performance psychology and those areas and because in the game of baseball and in athletics it was not heavily understood or used or even known. So that's kind of where I made my niche. And then through that it worked into relationships and the building, the trust building and cultures. That's where we've had a lot of success.

That's interesting. That sounds like your day doesn't stop up until about what, eight or. I mean, it's just constant going and going. So that's what I always wondered about coaching. It seems like it's just never ending and that you always are doing something to help the team and. But I love to hear that you try to get a good work life balance as much as possible to do that. So what are you most proud of in the last year?

I think the. The. There's really two things. One was seeing the group of 28 players last year go to the College World Series. That was something that was extremely special for them.

Yeah. But a college too.

And it had more to do with wins and losses or what happened on the field. It was just really special. So I was really, really. I'm really proud of that. The second thing is when we moved from West Michigan to the Lansing area, our oldest daughter was a freshman in high school and we moved in the middle of the year. We moved in November. So it was before it was after the school season had started. It was before Christmas break. We moved at a weird time, but in the housing market, that's sometimes how that happens.

Right.

And so that their transition between elementary, middle school and high school into a new school system with without knowing anybody was extremely challenging for them, as you would expect for anybody. So I think I'm most proud of that. My wife and I were able to help them transition in really tough situations, and now they have lots of friends, as you would expect, and they're fine. But change is hard for people. It's so hard for whether you're 95 years old or you're 5 years old, it's so hard to make changes. And so I'm most proud of them for being able to get through a little bit of adversity and come out on the other side where it's, you know, they're fine.

That's great because that's more than a notion, traveling as tweens and teenagers and all that that has to go into that. So, yeah, I commend them. Kudos to you guys for doing that. So. And for you all to help them work through it. What motivates you to work hard?

Fear of failure is a big, big motivator. And I think about things as in I really try to seek perspective. And so I think about, like, this could all be taken away because everything we have is. Can be removed in an instant. And so that's a big driver for me. Not just the idea of that. Today is all we have. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. And whatever titles or whatever jobs we have could be removed immediately and somebody else could do the same thing you're doing. So that's what drives me. I'm definitely scared of failing and not making those that I love proud.

Okay, hey, that's the best motivator, isn't it? Keeps you going. And in what ways do you achieve that? Work life, balance? Because you like the schedule that you told me you are very present with your players in the program here. How do you get to be present with your family and make that balance work? What do you do to. To do that for yourself and your family?

It's really a great question, and I wish that I could have better answers. I know my feelings of if you want to be great at something, you're going to struggle with balance. It's going to be tough because if you're giving 100% at whatever that is that you do, it's hard to have balance. Thankfully, I have a great home life And a wife that is extremely supportive. So she helps remind me of that balance. We're always connected as coaches. Just last night, my, you know, my phone's going off at midnight with, you know, a player reaching out with an update on something that was important to him at that time. That's normal. We're connected with the student athletes at all times. They have so many different needs than one might assume that they have. Sometimes we have kids that get homesick. We have kids that are emotionally sad because of, you know, something that's happened in relationships. We have so many different things that are going on that it's hard to be present. It really is. So I try to, I try to be where my feet are. I try to, wherever I'm at, I just try to black out everything else and try to be, have my head, my heart, my feet all in the same spot. That's the only way that I can find balance. Because I really don't know what balance is. I'm terrible at balance.

And it seemed coaching would make that difficult to be, you know, balance would be difficult and hard because of just so much time you get. But I love hearing that your wife, you know, is a good supporter and there and someone to help you, you know, bring it back in, buddy. That's a good thing. If all your needs were met, time and money not a factor, what would you spend your time doing?

Exactly what I'm doing right now.

I knew you was gonna say that. I was like, he's already doing what he loves. He's had an opportunity to own a business and do that. And then I think that's like the great thing to be able to live your passion. You know what I mean? Like, you're lucky because you love what you're doing. You got the option to do that. So I think that's pretty cool. What life lessons have you had to learn the hard way?

I think the one that really comes up is when I started out in the business world, I was extremely driven, but did not have great trust in others. And I tried to do everything on my own. I tried to, you know, be the CEO, the worker, the cleaner. I tried to do everything. And that led me down a road where I ended up in the hospital with a lot of stress induced issues. And so I, I had to, I had had to learn the hard way through that. And that was a process. But what happened through that process was I learned how to build strong teams around myself.

Okay.

And we, we definitely, we have a, you know, today's coaching staff is that is that way, too. They have titles, but they also have jobs. And we just. Just let them do their job, count on them to do their job. And there's not a whole lot of micromanaging or anything else. And so that was a really good lesson to learn. I think if you're going to go anywhere in life, you're going to realize that you didn't do it on your own. You had a lot of help, and it's important to never forget that.

Yeah, for sure. Right. You don't make it on your own, in my opinion. I agree with you. There's a whole bunch of people lifting you up and supporting you. Okay, I got two more questions, and we're almost done out of time. But what really lights you up and makes you excited in your life?

My children, for sure. And seeing people succeed and have success, we talk about vicarious joy for others. We try to teach our student athletes that that's where you have a true passion for others succeeding. Sometimes today in our society, that's not always there. Sometimes we have a lot of jealousy and things like that. So we try to promote that. We talk a lot about, if you get a team pitcher, what does normal people typically do? They're going to look at themselves in the team, pitcher first, and then look at the rest of their teammates. We try to build a culture where they're looking at everybody else and looking at themselves last. And when we can teach that, we did really well last year. When we can teach that and see it come to fruition, that is absolutely what fires me up.

Well, I definitely. I have an opportunity to advise some of your students on the baseball team. And I was talking junk to them, and I was asking them, are you guys really that good? You know, what y' all gonna do? And they were like, yeah, we're that good. We're, you know, So I could see where they had that kinship together. They supported one another. They would come down to adv in groups, and you could see them where they were trying to get stuff done. So I think that you came to LCC and built a great culture so far. So we're so glad to have you. I let you say what, what, what? Would you like to leave our audience with your last thing on Who's That Star?

I think because we're always recruiting student athletes to come to LCC. One of the things that I've learned in the last year is so few actually know about all the special things that are here. And it's not only things, it's people the college is full of so many great assets, whether it's people, buildings and so many special things that are here. And so the more we can spread that knowledge, the more you'll see our campuses, both campuses, continue to grow. And that's something that's important to athletics, to everybody, because through that, that serves more and more people.

Right? Well, thank you, Steve, for coming on Who's That Star? today. I appreciate learning about the baseball team and also learning a little bit about yourself. And I will see the audience next time on Who's That Star? You've been listening to Who's That Star? I'm Lisa A. and you can listen to this episode of Who's That Star? And other shows from LCC Connect anytime online at LCCconnect.org thank you for listening. Catch me next time to find out Who's That Star.