On this episode, the SOS team dives into the dichotomy of convenience in athletics, examining its dual nature as both beneficial and detrimental. They discuss how modern conveniences, such as technology and instant information, can hinder the development of essential traits like resilience and discipline. The conversation highlights the importance of embracing challenges to foster growth, ultimately emphasizing that true success in sports requires a balance between leveraging convenience and enduring the hard work necessary for excellence.

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Website: LCC Athletics

Related Podcast: Coach Cut’s Corner

It's time for Stars on Sports. A podcast radio show dedicated to sharing stories about our athletic program at LCC, past and present. Lansing Community College athletics has a strong tradition: 25 national championships, 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 by our gang today, assistant athletic Director Steven Cutter, producer Dadalion Lowry, and student producer Malakai. So, gentlemen, welcome. Thanks for coming out for another episode of Stars on Sports.

And you know, some of my favorite podcasts that I've listened to when I reflect and listen to our podcast is when I give you guys a word and you tell me if it's a good or bad word. And then that's what we're going to do today. Listening to a podcast about what what society is nowadays.

And it seems like in this podcast, the society is built around convenience. So again, I thought, well, yeah, that is true.

You know, Coach Cutter and I talk about taking the sidewalk or taking a shortcut across the grass every day. It seems like in our office, how many people try and take shortcuts, but how important convenience is for us in athletics.

Yet how, again, like many things, if we use it wisely, it's a good thing. If we use it and don't follow the process or the time to develop things, it can be a negative thing in athletics.

But it's really what our world craves right now.

You know, food in minutes, highlights instantly, schedules update automatically, information, you know, with one click, and how mad we are when none of those things happen. And those are ways that has improved our life.

But in sports, I mean, can it replace discipline, patience, resilience and that process of development to be successful? So there's good and bad sides to convenience. So I thought we would dive into that. And cut. Is it a good word or a bad word?

Well, when I think of it, the first thing that comes to mind simply is growth is not found in convenience. It's found through the hard stuff. So certainly convenience can be a positive.

But if you're looking to grow exponentially as a human being, convenience is not really going to help you with that good, hard stuff.

We will talk about the hard stuff soon. The Dallian I feel like I kind.

Of Echo what Cut has said. However, I probably am more of a.

Convenience guy than I'd like to admit.

Yeah, we all are very often. And there are times when convenience is very helpful.

Right now I'm having knee issues, and as much as I like to try to take the stairs as often as possible, it's just not possible right now. So right now, convenience is a good thing when it comes to an elevator.

And then kind of as said, though, I mean, kind of taking the harder path or the less convenient path in this case, it leads to growth, Malachi.

Yeah, I think dipping your toe in convenience, that's fine.

You know, everyone's got to get a little convenience here and there, but when it comes to taking a full body dip and you just staying there, you're never going to grow.

Yeah, and that's a good point. Both of you and Kai and even Diana is that growth grows outside your comfort zone. And convenience really is comfort. But it benefited us.

As I mentioned, you know, instant film review, better communication, online recruiting platforms for athletics training, technology, scheduling software, all things we use in our office. Travel is easier to coordinate. Communication can be faster. It removes unnecessary obstacles, maybe allowing teams to focus on performance.

But some of those obstacles, as we talked about in one of our previous podcasts, is the way the obstacle is the way.

And I think in sports, convenience leads to problem because of instant gratification and expecting immediate things, expecting playing time right away, expecting improvement quickly, expecting things to go your way.

And I think sometimes by having so much convenience in our daily lives, it creates more challenges when we're trying to develop a culture in team sports.

So have you experienced kids that bring convenience to practice that you, I mean, you train your kids right from the start with your leadership meetings and such. But if this is the word convenience been brought up in some of those,.

We certainly use a lot of technology and different things to help with the convenience factor.

But I know in different studying I found that the, with our brains and the way they work, like if you can do something that's hard, you can reframe what difficult is after you do that.

And, and we're not talking about, you know, running a marathon where, you know, maybe go for a 30 minute walk without your phone and, and maybe you can go with somebody else and there's zero talking. You're just going for a walk. You're taking everything in. If you can't do things without your phone, we all got our phones sitting out here.

You can't do things without your phone. That's going to automatically Be hard. And so that reframes what hard is.

And the other stuff that happens to you in life that day, most specifically, all of a sudden doesn't become that hard. So that's where like we build in things where we really challenge them many mentally and physically at least about every two weeks.

And it reframes what happens between those two weeks that maybe what we're doing isn't that hard for the rest of the stuff.

And again, that's a good point. Measuring growth. Phones are one of our probably biggest convenience because it does everything for us. I mean, and it's hard to live without.

Like my wife left her phone at home this morning. I'm thinking, man, is she, what's she going to do today without it? And then she'd done that a couple of times.

But I'm, you know, one of the last things I leave it.

That's how I knew she forgot hers because I thought she took mine with making sure I have mine on the way out and how maybe discomforting that is if we don't have that. You know, even I know coaches that like don't allow access during a two hour practice that you can't check your phone.

But I think that's becoming a bigger battle.

And you know, in the high school setting and even looking in the news across the high school how schools have gone back and forth of allowing cell phones in the classroom and not allowing cell phones in the classroom. And they can be a valuable educational tool, but they can be a distraction.

So the Dalian you mentioned the elevator, that was a great example because the elevator is convenient and the perfect example why they are there for us. In our office, we encourage our student athlete to take the stairs and stars take the steps. Yeah.

And you mentioned on a previous podcast about parking, you know, we've talked before about how many people don't put shopping carts back. You know, and so you mentioned the.

Parking lot thing where people will walk through the grass. And it's kind of funny you said that because I can think of the specific spot of the parking lot. I park at same place every week.

It really isn't that much extra to take the sidewalk up and around. And yet there's this like worn down path in the grass. And I'm like, why?

And that's, I'm not super, super certain on this, but that's what happened at like Walt Disney World or Walt Disneyland. They had all these paved concrete sidewalks in there.

And then they started realizing that people were cutting to, to go to rides and different things. So they tore them all up and put them in where the paths were to make. To make it still where it was clean instead of mud and dirt.

But, yeah, Walt Disney was a big piece of doing that for convenience, so they were still staying on the sidewalk. They just found the most efficient way.

We're gonna have to talk about Walt Disney in the future because we brought him up a couple times in our podcast regarding parking up front. And now. Yes.

And again, I went to a basketball camp when I was young at a small college locally, and they made a point of emphasis to stay on the sidewalk. Like they had police out there if you were gonna walk into the grass. And it stuck with me. And our team did stay on the sidewalk.

And again, back to a trained habit that I stay on the sidewalk. And that was one of the. The first meaningful things, parking.

To Dalian, that's a very interesting topic because I laugh because at athletic events, where you think it's full of physical activity and fitness, some of our biggest issues is parking and how people complain if they have to park too far away and how they pull up on the grass to park close or block cars in where you have three cars and the middle one blocked in because they created a spot because they don't want to. To walk farther.

And I get it if there's a physical challenge there, but for a lot of them, it's because they're late or it's convenience or they don't want to walk.

And I've had some of my biggest challenges and arguments were over parking and not having adequate parking at events, how people want to just pull up close and make a spot for them. So it definitely, you know, prevalent in our. In our society. And I still think it's a good thing.

I mean, there is good parts to convenience and if you use it right, as Malachi mentioned early on in this podcast. But as I think about how it applies to sports, I worry that it's going to get harder and harder.

And, you know, we've talked about the word soft before or, you know, definitions of hard work and such, but, you know, it does eliminate comfort and appreciation. And the thing that we build our program on, you know, hard work, commitment, sacrifice, even delayed gratification.

I think convenience works against a lot. And, I mean, you've hit on it a little bit. But do you see more of that with incoming student athletes or.

Yeah, I think it's a trainable thing. You know, we can circle back to, like, the grass and the sidewalks. And I know, like, when we do our Leaderships in August.

That's something I will, you know, watch where our players are walking and then just, you know, show them pictures and say, you know, is this the legacy that you want to leave here? You want to take a shortcut and bam, it's fixed like that with, you know, 50 kids. So it's more about the teaching piece.

I think that that convenience is, is pretty important. You know, I think back when I was a pretty small kid and I used to mow our lawn with a 20 inch, 21 inch push mower.

And it was acres, you know, and now I have zero turns to mow the lawn. So there's certainly value with convenience. That being said though, it's, it's like, what are you going to do with it?

If coaches can use convenience and technology and different things, and then they can shorten the amount of time that it takes for them to do X and Y, but then they can take that time and invest it more into their student athletes, then that's a very valuable thing.

If you're using convenience for valuable things such as you've got to take the elevator to get from point A to point B because you're struggling with a knee injury or ankle or whatever it might be, that that is fine.

But if you can take the steps, it's gonna help with your health factor piece, you know, so it's all about what are, what, what are you gonna do with it if you are using.

Convenience and it's a priority thing.

I mean, we were talking on air or before on air about you mowing the baseball field, how zero turn will help you with time, that allows you to do other things that might be more valuable to you. Not to say mowing the field isn't valuable, but it's not where you want to spend all your time to get things done.

Where a riding lawnmower benefits more than a push lawnmower, zero turn benefits better. And you know, we've talked about electric lawnmowers and you know, the future of those.

But you know, even with cars that you got to be sure the battery can last. I mean, my little electric lawnmower wouldn't mow a big baseball field. And so yes, it can be used positively.

But to your point, when you're talking about training people on convenience, for us to be successful, it takes repetition, it takes handling failure, it takes patience, it takes our superpower consistency. And I think sometimes that's where you're fighting against convenience.

Because one of the things you worry about is losing some of those memories, those Bonding things by making everything easy. Like, I don't know, in your family. But my parents always joked they walked to school four miles and it was uphill on the way there. Yeah.

You know, and so there. I'm sure there's some truth to that, you know, and my point is, you know, long bus rides can be a positive thing.

Having limited resources can be the things you look back and reflect and talk about and can come be some.

Some of your greatest accomplishments by overcoming those things that if we give too much conveniency to student athlete, that they're gonna lose some of those, you know, I guess handling adversity, which we try and teach our student athletes, that's what, you know, kind of their thing they deal with the most in educational athletics is how to handle adversity. That conveniency will limit that. And I think we see that with.

I just was talking to a coach about a quote that Dawn Staley, who's the women basketball coach at South Carolina, and I'm gonna butcher it now. Cause I didn't bring it in front of me.

But like, overprotected kids become unprepared adults and to the point of overprotection is kind of a convenient thing that you're trying to get.

Provide comfort for them and take away the bad thing that it doesn't prepare them as they get older and you're not around all the time to help them deal with them.

Where I truly believe that's where educational athletics is at its most important to society is helping students in a game handle adversity and fight that. But I think right now, I think convenience is a resistance to that.

And one of our biggest challenges, because back to the podcast, is how important and how much we gravitate towards convenience in our lives.

And you mentioned it, it probably starts with the phone that again, I always laugh because the phone is probably the least feature I use on that thing talking to someone else. So I worry that it will. That it impacts us. And again, a successful team find ways to overcome that. And you do train by those things we mentioned.

And accountability is important, but, you know, difficult workout, honest feedback, failure and sacrifice are all things that convenience I think kind of minimizes that are still going to be prevalent in the game we play, in the life that we live. Because I don't think, you know, toughness or even patience is another word. We haven't talked much about that.

I think people are losing and I get frustrated even, like if it takes a long time for my website to reload and I'm trying, you know, when I'm trying to search something, I get mad and I'm thinking I'm going to reboot it or I'm going to start over.

But prior to that, to search something, you needed Britannica or make a trip to the library, which I love.

I love the library. And you're right, I would walk over and look it up. But having said that, or even back.

In the 90s or the aughts, you would have waited at least a half a minute to a minute just to have it load and you would have.

Been fine with it.

Right?

You'd be like, that's fast. Yes, again, dial up compared to wired, compared to wireless.

Faster than going someplace.

You know, in sports a lot of people are going to wireless scoreboards, which makes me nervous because I always, you know, we have wireless mics in our gym and I want a wire back up just in case something goes wrong. And I've seen more games where, where the wireless feature sometimes doesn't.

Oh, as a sound guy, I highly recommend that you do do that. You should have a wired backup in our gym.

We don't currently right now, unfortunately. KNOCK ON TABLE we haven't had it. I have two wireless mics and we've had to go back and forth. But I agree, I have every connection.

When Radio Shack was across the street, I'd go over and buy different connectors just so we had everything. So I appreciate that I'm going to have to go find a way. I think there's one in our floor that we just haven't used regularly. But again it just.

But wireless is convenient because you don't have those wireless and you just turn a button on and it goes. I don't have to plug everything in. So another. I mean many plenty examples of convenience in our society. Any others you want to hit on real quick?

No.

Dadalion.

I think I'm a convenience as convenient it can be. Okay.

What about you, Malachi?

Anything you think of as a student? I'd say the most pressing issue with convenience is AI right. We talk about it.

It's very hard to not be swayed by the efficiency of just being able to look up whatever you want. Any specific question.

It's even more effective than a Google search now where you can look up the very specific health question that you have and it's answered to you. Maybe it's not the most accurate, which it comes at the cost of, you know, being convenient.

It's not always going to be the most accurate, but as a Student.

I've noticed the quality in my group projects going down over the years as the prevalence of AI has gone up, which is concerning for the future, I think.

Have we dabbled in AI on this?

We haven't.

A little bit here.

A little bit.

I look at it really in a, A different light with AI. It's like you. I think it's super important to have some perspective with it.

And what I see like with, you know, there used to be a, a certain level of something really positive when somebody put some time in, put an email together, and it was really well worded and well written. You know, there was that. That stacked a brick for something very positive.

Now every one that you get is extremely well worded and put together, so that's been lost. But AI is not perfect either.

But it's no different than talking to me or Dadalion or Greg or anybody else and asking them my opinion, you know, tell me about, you know, bone cancer and, oh, I'm going to give you an opinion on, you know, whatever it might be. And then you take that and you say that, well, that's gospel. And that's. And that's kind of what's happened with AI is to get something out.

Oh, that's gospel. Boom. This is what it is. And you're not necessarily keeping perspective.

Oh, well, he's saying that because he, he knows somebody that went through it or something like that or, you know what I'm saying, where you're just putting the gospel in whatever's being said from any certain person. And that's kind of what we've done with AI and we'll spend.

We'll do a top. We had a. Again at one of our New Year's things. We talked about how AI was going to be a topic. We talk about. We just dabbled in it.

And it's exponentially changing our world. So. And it is a convenience. It's almost correlated with convenience. And it's interesting you say that because I've used.

I had not used AI until, like within, until the last year. Now I find myself using it more and more and I usually use it as a starting point. Like, give me an outline for this. Even, like for my podcast.

Sometimes I put it in and give me, you know, give me some highlights and then I take it and tweak it, you know, like for an operations manual or something. I give me an operation manual. Then I go through and tweak it. Well, recently I wrote a letter of rec. And I'm not a great writer.

I like to write, and I like to write letters of rec. And I, you know, it was two pages and I wanted to consolidate it. So for the first time ever, I put it in AI and.

And within like three, it wasn't even three seconds, it gave me a new version that was just incredible. And I thought, well, that doesn't even sound like me. So I tweaked it again, but it still was much better than I had.

But I think of you now, like, how many people are using AI for letter of rectif? How do you differentiate that? This is a good one compared to other ones. But to Malachi's point, I think AI is a convenience factor for us.

It's something we are becoming more dependable on, but it's also something we could dive deeply into a whole podcast.

So I'm going to summarize convenience real quickly because I think, you know, championship teams are willing to do hard things, but convenience can help performance, but comfort rarely creates excellence. So convenience isn't bad. The issue, and I think Malachi talked about this at the beginning, is the dependency on it.

I mean, we've talked about how technology helps our life, how efficiency helps our lives, but you also need the discipline part, the perspectives part, using it when it's best for us. Don't expect everything instantly, because the keyword we use a lot on this podcast is process.

And back to shortcuts aren't the process and convenience has changed us and it's improved our communication in that. But character takes time, trust takes time, as you've hit on many times. Development takes time, and championship culture takes time.

So we need to embrace it.

But we also need to embrace the hard work and patience that goes along with developing a championship culture, which we are going to find a championship culture in the future on this podcast, too. So, again, I think it's an interesting word. We've had a lot of words in our past where we've. We've said, is that a good word or a bad word?

And we've been split on it. And I think this is another one right in there that a lot of aspects, it's a good word, but in other aspects, it's a word that can hold us back.

So work hard on the next week to make sure we use convenience in the right way and work hard in the other way. So let's get to the point, time and point. Everyone's been waiting for Greg's food question.

All right, I was in the convenience store and we were getting snacks for family event. And as many of, you know, on this podcast, I like candy. I've really cut back on my sugar intake, actually, but I still like candy. And we were.

It was our kids and my brother and adults, and we were in the candy aisle and we were debating on what we wanted.

And it was interesting to me that the older people in the group wanted chocolate, you know, like candy bars or, you know, little miniature bars or something.

And.

And the younger ones wanted chewy things like high chews or ropes that are chewy. And so I thought this. Is this a genera? And I like both, to be honest. I mean, I'm not gonna say.

Huh.

That's interesting. Yeah.

So my question to you three is, do you have a preference of chocolate over a chewy candy or.

So is it chewy or chocolate?

Yeah, so either or neither.

Does Charleston Chew. Is that both?

That's a great one that we ended up getting Charleston Chews. I love Charleston Chews. And we didn't even put them in the freezer because I ate them so fast. But that is both.

But yeah, Chewy's more like the fruity candy and stuff. So I'm a chocolate person. I would prefer chocolate. I like licorice. And we'll talk about favorite candy bar. That is one of my questions at some time.

So I don't want to dive there.

So lately I've been all about the Andes mints, first of all. I don't know why, but I just love those.

Are those chocolate coated?

It's chocolate and mint. So they're the little. They come in the green wrappers, and you usually get them at like, fancy quote unquote restaurants.

They give them to you afterwards. So that's been my thing lately.

And as much as I hate to say this, after all the conversation we just had the chewy stuff, it's just a little too much work for me. Yeah, Just not my style. Twizzlers. Maybe from time to time, but that'd be about it.

Yeah. One of our track team just went. I don't know where they went. I thought. I thought Olive Garden, but it wasn't. It was either.

It must have been McAllard or something. I have a whole back I can't forget in my graters of the. No, the Andes Metzard.

Oh, yeah.

And eat a couple. Now that you say they're. They're in our fridge at. Back at the office, so they're yummy. Cutter.

Yeah, Tough one. I think I would lean towards, like the Twizzler spites.

I definitely like to get those when we're on the road, stopping at truck stops and stuff like that. So it's not that I'm not a fan of chocolate by any stretch, but definitely it's.

It's from what I've seen, at least from the student athlete baseball players, it is more in the candy than it is in the chocolate, really.

Okay, so it might be a generational thing and so. But you're kind of a Twizzlers person.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So, like, whenever I go on the road, I usually try to go to a convenience store my first night when I'm traveling and I try and get a bag of Twizzlers, like a bag of pretzels and some pop. So I have it in my hotel room. They'll ask me through that Sweet. I like Charlton Chews, too.

Would you consider Skittles Chewy?

I would consider them more the Chewy.

I mean, I am down with the Skittles.

I like Skittles, too. Again, I like chewy candy. I like the high chews and the ropes and the sour, like Skittle Gummy. That they're.

When I was a kid, I used to like Taffy. Not so much a fan anymore, though.

Malachi.

You know, funny, when I got my first paycheck, the first thing I bought was a Snickers bar. And I'm still the biggest chocolate guy. Especially chocolate and caramel nougat. Oh, man.

Yeah, I'm right with you.

Yeah. You know, I don't really like plain chocolate, like just plain milk chocolate. But when you get the combo. Yeah, the combo. Just caramel and chocolate.

Oh, man, I could eat a Snicker. I think Snickers is a meal, to be honest. Yeah. I bought into their commercial is when you have time, grab a Snickers. You know, I mean, I will say.

It keeps you satisfied.

Yeah, right.

But we're not. We're going to talk about candy bars at another time. I just wanted to know if it was chocolate or chewy.

Did you ever declare you're chocolate or chewy?

I am a chocolate person. I like Chewy Chew. But I would take a Charlton Chew like that. My kids buy, like the High Chews or the, you know, like nerd covered Gummy.

I don't know that I've ever actually ate Charleston.

Yeah, they're strawberry, vanilla, chocolate. So all good again, it's convenient. So don't.

In moderation on the road, too much sugar is not good for your teeth from our font or dentist or other people. But until next time, go stars.

Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studio. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry and you can listen to the episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand lccconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit lccstars.com thanks for listening. Be sure to join us next time for more Star on Sports. Go Stars!