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. 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 by our assistant AD and baseball coach Steven Cutter and our producer Daedalian Lowry. And today, Steven, we're going to be talking about Ted Lasso.

Excellent.

You know, for a while here the Daedalain and I were trying to get you to watch the show and I thought you were holding out on us,but

I was, I was.

From our recent conversation though, it sounds like you at least got the first season in. So I thought it'd be a good time to keep it light. And it's one of my all time favorite shows and I've seen all three seasons and I, I'm hoping there's no spoil alerts out there but you know, most people have watched it by now that are going to anyway. But I think it's a good show in the sense that it hits home in our world of educational athletics. But it also hits home to those people because there's just so many messages in it and I have a sheet here of 10 Ted Lasso leadership lessons but I'm not going to hit on those because it's been a while since I've watched the first season. So I'm interested to hear from you a little bit because I thought the first season, you know, I could rank the seasons if you wanted me to, but

Yeah, rank 'em. Interesting.

I would put.

I was kind of wanting to hear the top 10 there.

Yeah, well we can do that too. I'll rank them first for some reason I'd go season one, either one or two. Season one and three were pretty close and I like the tie ins in those two. And then I'd put season two third. But again it's not because it's last, it's just because I like the other two better, especially the messages and such. And again you haven't seen season three yet but they do a really great job I think of tying in, you know, and you really hits home some of the things they're trying to instill in season One which is so true to our teams. You know, the culture, the. You know, when you. When you take the premise that you hire a college football coach to be a Premier League soccer coach, it doesn't make sense. But for me, it makes a lot of sense because, you know what? You hired a coach and you hired a coach that has certain characteristics beside the X's and O's to be successful, and that's what's allowed him to be successful in his coaching career. And it starts with our topic of belief. And we both know you have to believe if you're going to be successful in this business. You know, the. One of the quotes was, whether you think you can or you can, you're right. You know, if you don't believe you're going to win, you're going to lose. And the premise, you know, back to the premise of Ted Lasso and believing in how important that is in our business, because, you know, especially if you're the underdog, but even, you know, if you're the favorite, you gotta believe in what you do to be successful. So. And that's the premise of the show. I mean, it's the sign he puts when he walks in, he puts above the door. And, you know, whether you laugh about it or not, I think it's pretty true. And then throughout my history in this business, it's become pretty prevalent. That is a pretty high characteristic of successful teams. So. But there are so many other messages in that first season that I'd like to hit on, but I'd like to hear from you guys, too, on the premise of the show and your thoughts.

Yeah, I think there was really two things that stood out to me watching the show, and it was process and leadership. And it was those two things. And I think even though he was a football coach that was now coaching soccer, he still took the same processes that had made him successful as a football coach, and he took the same leadership. And what I liked about it is it didn't happen. Success did not really happen in the first season. He had minor victories, but. But the overall, you know, the right side of the scoreboard didn't necessarily show those victories. And I think that's a really good parallel to life, is once you start processes, there really isn't any immediate gratifications that typically come from those kind of things. So I really enjoyed that piece of it. I think when you really dive into those belief systems and you dive into processes, you've got to become friends with delayed gratification. And it takes some time and the

other thing, I'm glad you brought that up about processes, because you're right, he did have a process. And you didn't always understand, like, where he was going with them. But there were setbacks in this process. He had a boss that was getting in the way of some of his processes, and when he finally thought he'd get somewhere, then it would change. And that's true of what we deal with. You know, adversity and other people or obstacles getting in the way of those processes, of us being successful as we know the process to success isn't like this. It's, you know, pretty bumpy. So I agree we focused on the leadership of Ted Lasso, but, you know, his processes there were pretty important, too. And I thought the show did a nice job of trying to really cover them and do them in depth. But, you know, he's such a positive guy. You know, he works on relationships. You know, I like the reporter in it and how he tried, you know, even with his boss, he brings her, you know, what is it ever? Bread. I'm a believer in killing with kindness or developing relationship that the taxi driver that he goes to his restaurant even though it's hot, but no one else ever took the taxi driver up on coming to his restaurant. So he is also big on relationships, which is huge in our business.

Yeah, that was one of the things that I always loved about his approach to life. And just the way he treated people, even the ones that did not treat him with kindness, he always would turn it around to the point where they kind of didn't know how to react a lot of the times. And I like that you mentioned the sign, because the sign, I thought the sign itself, I don't want to say what it is. Should we say it or not? It said believe on it. And it was one of the very first things he did. And it actually became a character within the story in some ways. Because there's a point where, you know. You know, without giving away too much, where it brings the team together in a way you wouldn't expect.

Yeah. And I think the sign is symbolic with Ted Lasso now. I mean, I have two believe signs in my office because of people. You know, I like Ted Lasso, and again, I had it written on my whiteboard before I got the signs, because you're right, I'd like to hit on that, too. How he does treat people, even who aren't kind with him, with kindness. And I think that's so important, not only in our world today, but, you know, in our business where we have rivalries or we're competing against each other and people forget sometimes that we, we're all humans and all working hard for similar goals. So I think the show really hit on that.

I think he also showed like that E plus R equals O, which is kind of the event plus how you respond to it will equal out your outcome. And he did a nice job of. He was struggling with different things in season one, but then when he went and a part of the team that he was leading, he put all that behind him and he just kept responding in really positive ways, no matter who believed in him or who didn't believe in him. And a lot of times, at least in season one, the players didn't necessarily believe in what he was doing. They. They didn't. They weren't behind it. But he just kept responding, kept responding, kept responding, and pretty soon you could see the tide turning. And like I said, it didn't always equal success on the field, but you could see things growing and people changing. And I think that's where true leadership is to begin with.

Yeah. And they'll dive much more into his issues in season two if you get to there. But, but you're right, he did block it out and brought it to practice, which we teach our student athlete to do. And even if they're having a disagreement with a teammate to try and block it out for that couple hours of practice. But, and, and the other thing too is they didn't believe in him because he didn't have the credentials, he didn't have the credibility in. And he shows it. I mean, it's funny, he didn't, you know, learn what know it offsides in the sport. You know, it' dive into more in season two and three. But he continued to learn and continued to grow and develop, but he also surrounded him with good people staff, you know, even taking the. I don't know if you call him towel boy or manager, and giving him confidence and believing in him and making him feel important, which no one else had done up until that point and become an integral part of his staff. So it really hits on those ways of when you do, you know the dying and treat other people well, how you can get them to believe in your system and help be successful.

And I think that when, if we continue to talk about the sports aspect on the show, if you think about it, I think that the really good coaches that have really good processes, you think of somebody like Mike Krzyzewski or Nick Saban or those people could. Would Nick Saban be a good basketball coach? I believe that he would because he has really good processes. And I think those end up becoming more important than the X's and O's because you need people to buy into systems and those processes to complete the X's and O's. And if you don't have that, you're not going to have a lot of success. So I think you can see somebody that's maybe managing a big time commercial real estate business and they're having a lot of success and they're really good leaders and you can see them move into another facet in life and do extremely well in that. And there aren't any parallels there. So those processes and belief system are paramount.

I think that's a great point because when you look back at the most successful coaches in history, they could be successful in other sports. And when I was at the high school level for so long, knowledge of sport wasn't one of my highest criteria. It was character and how you handled people because you just like Keith shows. And it might be a little unrealistic, but you can learn the sport, you can learn the X's, and hopefully you're continuing to develop and go get professional development on adjusting your X's and O's. But how you treat people and how you get them to believe our process is that you gotta be you. You gotta be genuine to be successful and authentic. And he was. He didn't change, you know, just because he went from college football to premier soccer. And to both your points along the way, he could have. I mean, people kept trying to count him out or everyone's going to say he's going to get fired in that. But he stayed true to who he was and continued to build processes. So two of my favorite scenes of the whole series are in season one. One's not a scene, but actually there are two of the quotes and one is the dart scene. I show that every presentation I give because I just, it just hits me hard of how important that is in life, but in teams, because, you know, one of the best things about being a part of a team is the diversity, is the inclusivity. If we're going to be successful, we're all working toward the common goal. We don't really care where you came from. We just want to look forward and where you go and it's important. And you know, he brings in Walt Whitman, you know, which is. I studied Walt Whitman in high school and college, but didn't. Had not heard of the Don't Judge be curious. Quote in, in the movie and in the dart scene of him against the the previous owner. So I just love how that scene played out. And even your assistant coach Elijah, every time he emailed me, we he said barbecue sauce, which is what Ted said in that scene that hit the winning dart. So that's just one of my favorite. I mean there's some other favorite all time television scenes. Some of them come from my other favorite show, Cheers or Coach. But that's up there for me. And the motto I try and use to every student group I talk to about don't judge, be curious. And you and I talk a lot. Like when we're driving down the highway and someone flies by us, we don't know what, they could be heading to the delivery table, they could be heading to the emergency room. But we're all quick to judge like they're a maniac driver. So it's in so many facets of life that holds true. Don't judge a book by its cover kind of a thing.

I think it also plays into just asking questions. And if you're willing to ask questions, I think it really says that you're willing to learn. And that's where the curious piece comes in. And I think if you can ask questions and continue to ask questions, you'll be a little less judgmental because you're trying to understand other people and the other people on your team or the other people in the room or in your business environment or wherever it is are all going to be a little bit different. And so instead of wanting everybody to be like you, you can ask some questions. You'll get further in that dart scene if, if the one guy would have asked some questions about his dart ability, dart throwing ability, then things would have been a little bit different. So I think that was a night a really nice scene to pull something out of that people can use on a daily basis.

And the other quick thing about that scene is judging a book by its cover. We're always quick to label people. Like I rem. One of my favorite examples is this. I was in a strength and conditioning class in college and the professor had the starting center stand up who was like 6, 8, 300 pounds. And then a guy that looked like me, 62180. And he goes, who do you think knows more about strength and conditioning? And everyone goes, the six, eight guy, you go, he's an art major, this guy's an exercise physiology major. I'd go to him. If you wanted to really learn about strength and conditioning but again, we this look and judge instead of asking questions like, what's your background in this? So that's why it's such a powerful scene to me. And again, one of my favorites, and I think it's a great message to try and share and teach student athletes that we come around because they deal with it every day with their team, whether they have a bad day or whether they can throw a long ball or catch or something, which most can at this level. But again, to ask questions instead of

judging, it goes into recruiting, too. And you see it in sports and at the baseball level, the, at the younger levels, the biggest kid always goes and plays first base. He always gets positioned at first base, you know, and so you do see it a lot. And that has really no relation to how well he can catch because those are, you know, that's where the majority of the plays are made, when the ball's head is at first base. So you want to put your best player that can catch and field over there, not your biggest player.

Then I'm going to get my last favorite part of season one, then I'm going to let you two get in a little bit. But my other favorite part, and you hit this a little earlier, that they're not always successful. And even though as fans we want them to be successful, I like stories that are realistic and there are setbacks. So my other favorite message is that I really believe, as I reflect on Ted Lasso and my own leadership has really helped me be successful, is be a goldfish, forget 15 seconds, and then move on. And, you know, I think too many times in our business we hold a grudge or we remember, you know, this person did this or this person did that, and, you know, I don't have time for that. I like, well, you know what, we'll deal with it. You know, I'm on awareness or watch, but I can forget, you know, I can move on. And, you know, one of the best leadership things I learned is don't give criticism harshly, don't take criticism harshly, and don't hold a grudge either way. And it's so true if you have a grudge or if you, and in this case in Ted Lasso, if you remember that you lost and, you know, it didn't work out the way you want, that's hard to getting back to the premise of believing in that in their future and what you can do forward. So, you know, even at home with my family, you know, dealing with kids and my wife and, you know, getting mad at other ones and you know, they get mad at me like 15 seconds later. I think all is good. And I'm thinking, why not? I mean, let's move on, you know. And so I think that's hard for many people, especially in sports, when you lost or even when you won, you know, like 24 hour rule or how long can you celebrate or how long can you dwell on it? And so I don't think that's one of the most prevalent messages that came from Ted Lasso, but I really think it's one of those hidden ones that's very important is it'd be a goldfish. But you know, short term memory, forget it and move on and worry about what's the future.

I wish I could say I excel at that, but I do not.

Most of us don't. That, I mean that part.

I have actually just recently had this happen where I did not forget.

I was, I was.

And I was legitimately trying. I was working at it, but it just wasn't going away.

Yeah, that's where the processes come in. I'm not exactly sure why the goldfish are getting slammed at this point.

I think they're getting rewarded. He's making them famous because, you know, I think it's true. And to your point, Dalian, it is hard and it is a choice to try to. But that's something you got to work on. Because the longer I feel we hold on to the past and grudge it's not allowing us to get better and work on things in the future and we're human again. There's. It's crazy. Some of the pet peeves I have that, you know, make me mad that I can't get over, like if I make a mistake at an event that I hold onto it or if something's on the floor, not picked up by. But in the end it's just a good message to try and have us remember because I think our society and our own teams sometimes forget about that. I think it's really a hidden thing that when I look back at my success and I never thought of it until I saw this message, that it helps me be happier and it helped me progress and be more learning capability of doing.

I think it makes you a better person too. From a coaching aspect, I believe that it's really imperative that you have a short term memory. If you're able to have that short term memory, you're able to. That have kids that make in really innocent mistakes and you just, you, you stop it right there and you tell them that, okay, we're moving forward from here. It's a, you know, and it also prevents them from getting put in to boxes where, you know, playing time gets involved at that point. And those, those biases and those judgments over an innocent mistake get held against them for long periods of time. And, and so what I think makes really good coaches is just having a short term memory. And that can apply to, you know, officials, umpires, fans, you know, reactions and most of all the student athletes that you're coaching. Just they need that grace for sure

and it doesn't overcome like if they habitually continue to make mistakes or argue or yell that we don't, you know, do consequences. But great analogy of, you know, if you make a mistake, let's not hold it against them and move forward and build confidence and try and help them not do it again. If they do it again, then we got to figure something else out. So I don't want to like, well, everyone rosy and moving forward, as, you know, experience does help us if we learn from it, not just because we go through it. So, you know, as we wrap up any other, you know, highlights from season one you want to hit on, I

mean, I can't think of anything specific, but I do love the characteristic that he shows throughout the entire thing and he is very forgiving. That is just, he excels at it and doesn't, doesn't hold those grudges, like you said.

Well, again, forgive first is one of his leadership lessons. So again, another one that, you know, our society I think struggles with, with social media because it just keep continuing to be in front of us and you know, we're all guilty of.

So I think if you're aware of it, that's the first step and you can start working on it. Nobody's going to be perfect, but if you're aware of whatever that is, you start working on it and you can get a little bit better.

Yeah. And in the grand scheme of things that come down to me, positivity and happiness and how those are choices as we talked about and how he tries to constantly demonstrate them. And as you see through the three seasons, he's not perfect and it's not easy to do and there's so many outside influences and you know, there's so many other characters we could hit on that I think, you know, this could obviously be something we come back and visit after. Especially with you watching the other two seasons.

And there was a point and I don't remember the season because I kind of just watched it all in a flow But I do remember a point where he had lost his cool a little bit, and that's because he was dealing with some outside forces. That was in his personal life where he has a troublesome player and he really lays into him, but he doesn't do it in a way that belittles him. He just does it in a way where he's just trying to tell him, look, either you're part of the team or you're not. And just the way he does it, it's just so well done. Even though you can tell he is bad,

it's also a good thing to remember. Sometimes we, we talk to people in ways that we would never talk to ourselves or talk to, you know, other people. And so kind of keep, try to stay away from the personal attacks as much as you can and focus on, you know, maybe if it's a mistake or something, focus on that kind of stuff, but not the personal attacks. I think when people start getting the personal attacks, that's when it becomes really hard to manage because they shut off, they get upset, they don't understand. And so I think the more that you can kind of do that stuff, the more success you're going to have, just with people in general, certainly.

But to your point, too, is we talked about this before, backpacks, what people bring every day to the table that we don't know they're dealing with, that does impact how they act, how they perform, how they, you know, their energy and their positivity. So, you know, back to the point of trying to block as much of that out or still being true to yourself and treat other people well. So we'll have many more topics of Ted Lasso and future podcasts on here because I just think it hits home to a lot of things we're trying to do here at LCC. And, you know, we only touched on some of the very basic and most visible leadership principle that he provides. So anything else quickly to add before we say until next time. Go Stars.

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!