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. I am joined by our assistant AD Steven Cutter and production manager, Jereny. Welcome, Jereny. Hopefully you get the chance to contribute today. Cause today we're gonna be talking about, we're recording this podcast on Halloween. And you know, I don't know if Halloween where it ranks in my holidays,

but just another day.

I have kids and so, and grandkids now, so trick or treating. And I think of when I think of Halloween, I think of costumes. And you know, we were talking before we were on the air about costumes in the past and I was gonna go more towards uniforms. I think about when I grew up. Surprise, surprise. That's probably a lot of sports figures as Halloween costume.

You know, I was Marcus Allen one year.

Marcus Allen, okay.

Cheap helmet.

I had the cheap. The Cleveland Browns, you know, football player one year and I still have the helmet.

Surprised put out any brown stuff.

Ouch. You know, we were going to talk about being a Cleveland fan in, in uniform colors and such, but you mentioned other Halloween costumes and how they've changed. And I think of even my kids a couple of my favorites. My daughter was a fortune teller one year. My wife just did an excellent job on a homemade costume and she carried around like a piece of cardboard with a glass ball on it. And it was just really cool and homemade. And we've talked about how extravagant they come. And one of my favorites is I wear the same thing every year. So my son dressed up as me one year, wore khaki pants, Mason pullover with my badge. So those are two of my favorites. But going back to when we were kids and you had mentioned the cheaper

costumes, I think going into places like Ben Franklin and getting to pick out your Halloween costume and you might be able to, typically they all came with a mask that had a cheap rubber band that was stapled to it. You'd wear it and of course it would break within, you know, a few, a few minutes of wearing it. So you're trying to keep it on your face while you're still holding your candy bag. And you know, it was, it was sharp so it cut your face, you know, and, and now, you know, I look at our, our kids and stuff and I see these incredible masks that just slide over their face and you know, and so I don't think they know how lucky they are or maybe even how realistic they look.

That's it. How realistic, how cool, how far they've come graphically. And you know, it's a lot of excitement. Our kids have been talking about their cost for about a month now. So there's even, you know, lead up time and they go back and forth and change and you know, probably won't even change today for tonight. And the debate we've had in our family is how old is too old to be trick or treating? You know, I think middle school age is pretty close, but we get high schoolers and older.

What were the results on the debate?

Well, my daughter is a junior in high school and she's debating on whether she and her friends should go trick or treating tonight. And I would be against it. I think she's too old to trick or treat unless she takes, you know, our grandkids, our younger kids. And you know, weather is impactful, just like being in Michigan, it can be a really cold one. I've been in 80° Halloweens and I've been in blizzards and Halloween and I like taking, I, it was one of my favorite things of the dad is to take our kids around trick or treating. I'd rather do that than pass out the candy for some reason I like candy. So I like. It was a competition to me to get a lot of candy and you know, surprise competition. But do you have a preference? You've.

I don't think so. You know, as our kids have gotten older, the Halloween piece has become maybe a little less cool and trying to figure out, you know, whether you still do something or you go to a party or you know, whatever it is. And so I don't think so. I have a lot of good memories from when we were younger and we, when our kids were younger and we certainly would do it up for, for Halloween and, but not so much anymore. I mean, you know, as we're recording this on Halloween we have, we have baseball stuff tonight. I'll be getting home, you know, probably nine o' clock and you know, it's just kind of another day as it. So it really depends on where, where you're at in life and where you know, where the kids are and everything else.

And for coaches, I have some coaches that are practicing tonight and some that move theirs up if they have younger kids that want to go trick or treating with them. Journey, give you a chance to contribute any favorite costume that sticks out to you when you've seen one. You were.

I say my, my mom was super big into like creating costumes. Like what he was talking about, about how you, like, create your own costume. So for my son, he wanted to be a Pokemon. So we actually used a Little Caesar's box and cut it open, painted it and glued it and made him into like a whole Pokemon character. And it was like the best costume ever. And all the kids thought he looks so cool.

It is cool. And we talk about the ones you can buy, but even the cool ones that people create nowadays, as I mentioned with my wife, likes creating them. And I was watching the TV show this morning with all the homemade ones that were made. So you're right. Kids are spoiled nowadays on what they.

We used to do pumpkin decorating at the schools too. And, and man, you, you want to talk about competition coming out in full force, there's no way those kids were decorating some of those pumpkins that were winning. I mean, they were going crazy. But yeah, it's, it's a, it's definitely a special holiday. And you, you see scary stuff and, and then, and then candy, too. Do you have a favorite candy?

I like all candy, but anything with coconut in it. So Almond Joys or the other kind are ones I don't like. But I, I'm a candy freak. I like but 100 gram bars, chocolate caramel nuts. I, I love licorice. Yeah, I'm unfortunately too much candy. You.

Yeah, I like Reese's. I mean, that's peanut butter.

Stand by Journey.

I don't know what's going on, but like, as I get older, Reese's has turned into like my favorite.

Okay.

But I used to love Twix.

Twix.

I like chocolate caramel nuggets.

I was an M M's guy and then, you know, as things aged a little bit, it turned into Reese's. Man, I love them.

I like when being an ad, you have a concession stand around you almost every day of the week. So I went in cycles. Like, I remember our concession stand would like cater to me like one year with 100 grand bars. So they had 100 grand bar one year with peanut butter M and Ms. So they, they got peanut butter boxes of peanut butter M and M for me. Twix was one.

Are you foreshadowing that our athletic department's going to have concession stand in it coming up soon?

I'm not foreshadowing that. You know, there's challenges with that, you know, having concession. People expect concession stands at athletic events.

I'd say they're disappointed when they don't

have them, especially the popcorn or hot dog, but. And maybe sodas. But on the back end, we talk about things that you don't see. It's a lot more cleanup or, you know, management. You know, money management. And the bleachers. Ye bleachers a mess, you know, that those leave. And even we have a vending area,

so why don't you just put more garbage cans out? I mean, people are going to throw their stuff in garbage cans, not on the bleachers. Right. If you have more garbage cans, though, I disagree.

You know, one of the most humbling things I did is my kids were in National Honor Society in high school, and one of their service projects is you had to go clean Spartan Stadium the next day after a football event. And it really made you appreciate to pick up after yourself at an athletic event. And my kids do pick up at. When we leave our area and we go to a lot of sporting events at the college, our kids work hard because of going there and how bad. I mean, it's a couple hours of just cleaning up all kinds of trash. So, you know, and I think of at LCC, we clean up. You know, we have a cleaning crew, but, you know, the people that help me out at events, we go through the bleachers and clean up the big stuff after the events. And we've had student workers, from my understanding, clean them up in the past. But it's something you overcome at the lug. They ask you that they remind you. At Mason, we had our PA announcer remind them at the end of the night, please pick up your trash. And we emphasize that with our student athletes in our room, our student athlete lounge and such. And I work hard. At Mason, one of our biggest penalties was when they didn't pick up their lunch table at the end of the day, they would have to come and clean the whole lunchroom if they didn't pick up their area. So it's again, another microcosm of society between sports and real life. But I don't think too many people do pick up their trash at athletic events. And it could just be a piece of paper, such as the roster, that they no longer want to use. And I'm not here to Pick on spectators or such because you do have clean crew that that's their job to go in and clean up. But when you do it, you have a new appreciation for.

Why are we still handing out paper rosters? That stuff? I'm curious. Because most everybody that you see has some sort of phone. So why are not digital rosters not being handed out?

We're transitioning to digital rosters. I still have a couple. I do less and less every time and just more just probably for those people that don't use their phone or might not have a phone capability. But that's one thing the pandemic led us to was putting, you know, because you didn't want to touch things that you put everything online. And you know, my last year that mason, we would put rosters on the table and they could take a picture of them even instead of grabbing them.

Oh.

Or have them online. QR codes. I mean, I learned a lot about QR codes of doing it. But to your point, they're on our website, so you could easily just go to our website. That's what I do when I'm at baseball. I try and grow it. So I think we are getting away from that. It used to be you had these big media guides that were many pages. Yeah. But even those are going online and sending out. So I think we are transitioning. I don't know if we'll ever totally get rid of. I think we will. I mean, that's just. But that's a big change for some people and some entities and money makers too, for some. I mean. So I mean, people charge for programs or media guys that they make you get sponsors for them, but you still put those online too. So it's finding that balance, that fine line. Our rosters are online, but I still, you know, print a handful for our events at Gannon for those that might want to grab one. Look at it.

You mentioned money makers and that kind of circles back to the Halloween stuff. And there's these pop up Halloween stores that tend to go in old shopping centers or whatever. And you know, we would, we, my wife and I were going to one the other night and it moved and it was gone. You know, so it's just an empty shopping center. But you drive down the road just a little bit and there's. There, there it is. It's moved into a, a new one, you know, and the, the money piece of that is. It's incredible how much money you can spend on a Halloween costume, whether it's for yourself or for your kids. You know, it's huge. Huge money business.

Yeah, it is. And there's so many, you know, with the movies and there's just so many Ingo, the traditional one, those, those Halloween places are taking the spot of our pickleball facilities, if you remember correctly. So. No, but you're right. It is interesting how the seasonal stores have become more popular, especially Halloween. You know, I don't see as many people wearing costumes like in the workplace, even at the. The high school setting. That used to be before the pandemic, but it's still.

Have you seen costumes?

I'm not seeing any today. Have you seen any today?

I haven't seen. I've seen one girl wearing like a clip on hat. That's about it.

Okay. I'm sure they're out there. I think we have a costume contest actually that you submit a picture to and you can win prizes. But I don't know if that's a trend or not. But to your point, it's interesting that these stores do pop up and you know, are here right through today or maybe the next week to get a discount on next year's costume, which changed so much because of things that trend. So I haven't gotten my costume yet. I don't think I'll be wearing one.

Yeah, me either.

With practice tonight, do you let your kids dress up at all or that take away from the focus of the practice or.

Well, we practice early, so that's before the, you know, the trick or treating happens. So. No, I mean we could, but I think a lot of that's just eyewash.

It's fun. I disagree. I like teams that add some of that to that theme of the day. It's hard because it could get in the way of practice if you don't have like I was eating out on Sunday and they had the trick or treating going around these local businesses and how many inflatable costumes there were. It was hilarious. The dinosaurs and the characters, but they kept bumping into everybody. That was so funny to me. So your pitcher wore that to practice today. I don't think that I've seen some

funny videos of practices with those inflatable costumes, you know, for Halloween. So it's. It's certainly out there. Yeah.

And it's situational. Like if you're in a postseason tournament this week, it would be hard to turn that focus in the Halloween costume. But we hosted basketball district many times at Mason and we allowed our team to practice it on Sunday and one team every year would. It was because it's Just more to shoot around and get familiar with our gym. They would have a theme like basketball jersey day or favorite team day. It was pretty cool. He made it fun to come in on a Sunday, but they got to wear, like, their favorite jersey or their favorite sports team or throwback day instead of the practice jersey of that team. So in that sense, I think it's kind of fun to chain things up and it breaks the holiday. But back to your intentional practice. It's hard to do that, you know, laugh at the guy in first place or, you know, your guard out there in a inflatable. But it's still a fun holiday, and you do work around. And, you know, when we talk about. I wanted to talk about superheroes, how, you know, that seemed to be a common theme, and listening to a podcast this morning talking about how you can change that into a positive, that we're all superheroes, that there's a superhero inside of us, and that Halloween can help us acknowledge that. And I'm a big believer in that. And I'm something that I haven't done well in my life is believing in myself or always in your team. But how I've learned how important that is. And, you know, that's one of the neat things that the Ted Lasso TV show has really emphasized is, you know, believe was one of his big topics. But I know it's also, you know, something you emphasized. And, you know, I have these couple pieces of paper on my desk, and I was in an interview a couple weeks ago, and the person that I was interviewing said, you know, I have a Lou Holtz piece of paper on my desk that says, do the right thing, be better, and treat people well. And he goes, I try and live by that every day. And I thought, that's pretty cool, you know, and I wonder how many people have something on their desk. But one of the things I have on my desk is called collective efficacy, and it's the shared belief in capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment. And that's by the psychologist Bandura, but that's sports. You know, the collective and that. And they did a ratio that. That's like 1.57. And the next highest level of the get attainment is achievement, which is like 0.65. So if we all believe in what we're trying to accomplish, how well that will help us reach our goals. And so I have that on my desk. I have three or four others, too. But when I think of Halloween now, I think of that. Of the superhero. And we are who we believe we are. Which is CS Lewis. I have that one on my desk. And believing in yourself. So do you have anything on your desk that you look at or.

Oh, we could go for a long time about belief systems.

So that's a whole nother podcast.

I think so. And, you know, there's. There's plenty of stories out there of, of, you know, humans who have. Have changed their belief systems through one way, shape or form, weird things happening, tests coming back or anything else. Just these crazy stories. And then they start. They change their lives just because they. They stop listening to themselves so much and they just start talking to themselves like, I am. I do have Olympic athlete genes. I mean, there's a crazy story about a test coming back to a lady who was really struggling with just feeling old, not feeling, you know, good about much. And she had done some. Some blood work and some gene testing for just some other stuff. And they, they ended up calling her and telling her that through really a. Just a stroke of luck that her genes came back that she had Olympic. Really, the. The Olympic genes that most Olympians had hers matched up. And it really just changed her life because she started believing that, you know, she had the athletic genes of an Olympian. So she starts exercising and she starts believing all this stuff, and she just changes her whole perspective. And then. And then her husband is completely off guard because he can't believe how much has just changed by one phone call, you know, and that. And so, like I said, there's a lot of stories where we can go with belief systems or things that are

in my right on. And this will be a whole nother podcast because I have lots of stories too. And one of my favorite was a National Geographic thing real quickly where he was a photographer. And, you know, it always, like, he always tried to find the best picture. And it was, you know, I gotta see it to believe it. And he switched it right around to I gotta believe it to see it. And then he started, like, zooming in on the picture and he saw, you know, like, instead of a whole row of flowers, he zoomed in on one flower. Like, that was the prettiest thing that you've ever seen. And that was fun. I had a leadership plat that they showed this presentation, and it stuck with me because it is a choice. And for most people, they need to see it to believe it. She needed to know that I need to go out and get a gene test, I guess, to see if I'm Olympian. Maybe I'm pretty sure I'm not in any capacity, but I think that's what you're telling me is to go out and see if I have any Olympic genes left in me. I could participate in the master Olympics or something. But the belief system is huge and the choice it is to make and how vital that is for us, too. I mean, part of the thing I wanted to talk about that we're not going to get to today is, like, when we talk about costume, you know they're fake. And you know, those teams out there that might have been the biggest fakes in history that might have gone to the championship game that weren't just very good, but what got them there? And is it a belief system? Is it luck? Is it the schedule that they played? And we know there are many different variables that lead to championship seasons that. But I think you and I are both in agreement that belief is right up there and making that happen. And if you don't have that, you're not going to be successful. And, you know, we talk about every week when we look at our opponents for that week, like, do you believe you can beat them? If you don't, don't go play because the game's already over. You have to believe it to achieve it. And again, talking about these other stories, but it's so important in athletics that even if you. If the other team is better, we still play the game to see who's better that day. You don't have to beat them 10 times. You know, in postseason, you might end a series. That's where really the true winner comes in instead of, you know, playing them once, like the NCAA basketball tournament or football, you each got to win one game where the other one that, you know, have the series might give a true, true picture of it, but it still starts with belief in my eyes. And we try and, you know, share that with our student athletes. And that's why, again, I like Ted Lasso because he had it above his office that, you know, believe. You have to believe every day. And again, if we talk about Halloween and those costumes.

You've mentioned Ted a few times, and that's kind of a little bit of smoke and mirrors, right? I mean, it's not a real story about a real person, is it?

It is not a real story. It's an interesting story. And he's a college football coach and the owner of a premier soccer team gets the team from her husband in a divorce, so she wants to ruin a team, so she hires him. But kind of like the major league, which is a Cleveland baseball movie. We're going to talk about movies someday on our podcast here. So we're going to hold that up. But. But he comes over and he doesn't know soccer, but he knows people. And being positive. And again, believe is a big thing. If you believe, I don't care if you know soccer or not, we're going to be successful. If you want work together as a team, we're going to be successful. And there, I mean, I have 10 things of Ted Lasso things right now. You know, happiness is a choice, just like believing, you know, tell the truth. You know, those are all themes of shows. That's why I think it's popular. But it's positive focus. And I truly believe that's what I want our coaching staff to be like. And I think for the most part, they are the focus on the positive. You know, look for the best in our student athlete thinking. Not that we're not going to have bad days or, you know, change our mindset and get frustrated, but in the end, if your overall culture is that you're going to be successful, good stuff. Yeah. I mean, who thought this would have gone from a Halloween topic? So, again, great conversation. And 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!