12 minute read
Athletics
THAT MOTON
EAGLES COACH INSPIRES TEAM IN DIFFICULT TIMES
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Photo courtesy of Raleigh News & Observer
is a man of many sayings. LeVelle Moton Anyone who has spent time around the North Carolina Central University men’s basketball head coach knows that he has a quote for every situation. His depth of knowledge and vast experience allow him to pull passages from spiritual scripture, notable thought leaders, significant historical figures and pop culture. He also has quite a few gems of his own. These bits of wisdom and insight have not only made him one of the most followed social media profiles but also a successful coach who uses basketball to teach life lessons while gaining attention and respect around the country. His inspiring messages have spread through many mediums and can be found throughout his autobiography, “The Worst Times Are the Best Times,” as well as his TED Talk, “My Grandma’s Basketball Truth.” In February, the world experienced Moton’s words and philosophies through an eight-episode docuseries, “Why Not Us,” presented by ESPN’s The Undefeated about the NCCU men’s basketball program that debuted on ESPN+. Moton gives credit to his It is easy to become enamored with the grandmother, Mattie McDougald success Moton has achieved on the hard(pictured above), and mother, Hattie wood, both as a player and a coach, and McDougald, for his strong values. define his life by the sport of basketball. However, he is quick to point out: “Basketball is what I do, not who I am.”
Raised in the housing projects of Boston, Mass., and Raleigh, N.C., Moton became hardened by the circumstances of his surroundings.
“Every day I left my home, I was confronted with life-or-death decisions,” he said.
His father left the family when Moton was a child, but he found father figures in youth basketball coaches, who helped develop his athletic talents and personal character. However, Moton gives most of the credit for the man he has become to two strong women: his mother Hattie McDougald and grandmother Mattie McDougald.
A key moment in life occured when he was nine years old and won the national Pepsi Hotshot competition in Washington, D.C.
The youngster proudly returned home and told his grandmother that he was going to buy her a car and a house by playing basketball. After hearing this revelation, she sat her grandson down and explained the way she saw things.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why,” his grandmother told him. “And when you leave this earth, if people remember you as a basketball player, then you’ve done a poor job of living.”
Those words paved the way for many of the decisions he has made and the life he now enjoys with his wife, Bridget, and their two children, Brooke and LeVelle Jr.
Moton considers among his many blessings the opportunity to give back to those in need. He established the Velle Cares Foundation to assist community-based organizations that promote health, education and life skills for children and families in at-risk situations.
Moton and his mother, Hattie McDougald (pictured above), attending the annual Single Mother Salute banquet. HROUGH HIS FOUNDATION, he hosts an annual “Back to School Community Day” event at his hometown Boys & Girls Club that provides book bags, school supplies and entertainment to more than 700 kids and families each year, as well as a Single Mother Salute banquet to annually honor more than 100 single mothers.
These are just a few examples of how Moton has poured himself into his community and how he has lived his life to leave a meaningful and lasting legacy that extends well beyond being a basketball coach.
“The standard is the standard.”
As Moton describes it, there is a standard of excellence within the NCCU men’s basketball program that is rooted in a rich tradition, which includes two Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famers, legendary coach John B. McLendon and 10-time NBA champion Sam Jones. He feels a sense of honor and duty to pay tribute to those who built the NCCU basketball tradition, and sees himself as a caretaker of the program who will one day pass the torch to someone else to continue the tradition.
As a former standout studentathlete at North Carolina Central University and now a championshipwinning head coach at his alma mater, Moton stands as an example of Eagle excellence. He preaches about this standard to his student-athletes and demands that they understand and live up to those expectations without excuse. Moton reinforces his message by regularly reminding his young men that “the standard is the standard.”
Moton has personally delivered on the standard by guiding the Eagles to four Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament championships, four March Madness appearances in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, and garnering numerous coach-of-theyear awards during his 12 seasons as head coach.
He also upheld that tradition as a student-athlete at NCCU, becoming the university’s third all-time leading scorer with 1,714 points during his historic hardwood career from 1992-96, earning the nickname “Poetry `n Moton.” During his junior and senior seasons, Moton was voted first team all-conference, first team all-region and NCAA Division II all-America honorable mention. He was named the 1996 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Men’s Basketball Player of the Year and was inducted into the NCCU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004 and the CIAA Hall of Fame in 2020.
True to his grandmother’s teachings,
Moton insists that his team’s standard of excellence extend beyond the court into the classroom. He demonstrates the importance of higher education as a double-Eagle, earning both a bachelor’s degree in recreation administration and a master’s degree in special education with a focus on learning disabilities from NCCU in 1996 and 2013, respectively.
Moton has certainly experienced more than his share of adversity in his life, and he understands that the way he confronted and responded to challenges has helped shape the man he is today. He uses his personal story to help those he leads and advises them, “Adversity introduces a man to himself.”
That message held extra meaning during the past year, as his team and the nation encountered a pandemic and a divisive social justice movement. During this time, Moton leaned on his longtime approach of using basketball as a metaphor for life.
As COVID-19 canceled games, shortened practice opportunities and forced his team into multiple periods of quarantine and isolation, Moton applauded his student-athletes for their determination, grit and perseverance while finishing the season. And, as the nation erupted in protests over the death of George Floyd while in police custody, Moton used practice time to simulate a traffic stop. Arranging four chairs on the floor, he had members of the coaching staff role-playing as aggressive police officers and student-athletes assuming the roles of passengers in the car. It’s a situation that Moton unfortunately has
experienced first-hand – and a lesson that he wants to make sure is understood by the young men entrusted to his care was about survival.
Moton knows about survival. Those life-or-death decisions he made when he left his home as a child frequently led him to the neighborhood basketball courts. His mother did not like him hanging out there because elements of drugs and violence gathered at Raleigh’s Lane Street Park. Still, those courts were Moton’s place of refuge.
In a bit of irony, but more as a testament to the significant impact Moton has made in his hometown, in December 2019, Lane Street Park was renamed LeVelle Moton Park by the city of Raleigh.
BY KYLE SERBA '19
ON THE COVER
KOBBY AYETEY, '21, left, and NICOLAS FENNELL, '21, played for the Eagles and appeared in the Why Not Us docuseries.
ABOVE: Eagle Pride kept the men's basketball team in competitive spirit as they faced opponents throughout the past season.
BELOW: Pick-up games helped a young LeVelle Moton avoid less productive pastimes in his Raleigh neighborhood. The park on Lane Street is now named for him.
Ethan Hyman, The News & Observer
The docuseries Why Not Us premiered in February 2021. Cameras followed Coach Moton, his staff and players as they navigated a season beset by disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through it all, the men's basketball team strove for greatness on and off the court.
Catch the eight-part documentary on
For Volleyball Standout CHRISTINE
ALCOX Life Skills and Athletics Go Hand in Hand
LAYING VARSITY VOLLEYBALL
for NCCU seemed like a natural progression for Christine Alcox, who took up the sport in middle school and was a key player on her Carrboro High School team.
Granted a full scholarship from the Eagles in 2017, she attended the Preparing to Soar Academy, an orientation experience for incoming student-athletes.
“They talk about maximizing your experience during this period,” she said. “They encourage student-athletes to broaden their interests and look for other things they might be good at, academically and otherwise. It helps build their resume and prepare them for life.” Alcox took the advice to heart
As a freshman, she joined the Athletics Department’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee that works on behalf of student-athletes in various areas of university life and began to take on responsibilities and leadership roles.
“The point of the committee is to be an advocate for athletes, plan events and professional development programs for them and make sure their needs are met,” she said.
Under Alcox’s leadership, the committee sponsored a series of workshops, guest speakers and skills-training sessions to help Eagles prepare for their lives as adults. Including a voter registration campaign and a Rock the Vote appearance, the committee’s get-out-the-vote efforts culminated in a “masked and distanced” march to the polls that resulted in 150 Eagle athletes casting their ballots in the 2020 national election.
Alcox also served in other roles during her time at NCCU. She was a volunteer tutor and coach in the surrounding community and worked as an intern for Academic Support Services, among other duties.
Her university honors include Student-Athlete of the Month, the Debra Saunders-White Leadership Award, and a spot on the MEAC All-Academic Team roster. But perhaps most importantly, she received her magna cum laude bachelor’s degree in kinesiology in May 2021.
Leading others was not something Alcox said she intended to do when enrolling at NCCU.
“I didn’t come with the idea of being super involved, but there is a lot that you learn being a student-athlete, like time management and being able to work well with others, and those skills are transferable,” she said.
With encouragement from her mentors at NCCU, Alcox said, she was able to “step outside my comfort zone” to help herself and other student-athletes soar.
– Christine Alcox
Baseball Hits a Home Run in Final Season of Competition
Members of the Eagles Baseball team completed a winning season in 2021, securing the team’s first division title playing in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). And that was despite learning in February that the sport was being eliminated for budgetary reasons and that 2021 would be the final season for Eagles Baseball competition. Coach Jim Koerner broke the news to the players after meeting with Athletics Director Ingrid Wicker McCree, who explained that the cut was being made to stem financial losses suffered by the university’s Athletics Department during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her statement, Wicker McCree expressed empathy for the student-athletes, including 13 seniors, who worked diligently toward the goal of playing college baseball.
“There is never the right time to make an announcement such as this,” she said. “However, this decision was made after a rigorous internal and external review of our long-term financial model.”
Koerner has since taken a position as director of player development for USA Baseball.
The team’s final home game was a 6-1 win over Florida A&M University, completing a five-game winning streak in the team’s home stadium, played in the Durham Athletic Park. The win also put the 2021 team in a tie for third-most wins by any Eagles baseball team, 25, and an impressive win percentage of .581.
Pitcher Austin Vernon also was credited with throwing the first no-hitter in modern history for NCCU on May 7 against Delaware State. Later that month, Vernon was chosen by the Tampa Bay Rays Eagles in the Major League Baseball Draft.
On May 14, 2021, NCCU SOFTBALL defeated rival NC A&T and Norfolk State to advance to the MEAC Softball Championship Game for the first time in program history.
PHILLIPS STOKES BLOUNT MILLS
NCCU Baseball alum KOBE PHILLIPS was selected to coach with the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
STEPHEN STOKES of NCCU Football was one of only 22 student-athletes in the nation named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team for his dedicated efforts in the community.
Men's basketball alum JIBRI BLOUNT, 2019-20 MEAC Player of the Year, has signed a professional contract with the Miami Dolphins. Blount is the son of NFL Hall of Famer Mel Blount, who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Former North Carolina Central University cornerback BRYAN MILLS is headed west after signing a free-agent deal with the Seattle Seahawks.
Ryan Smith '15 (left) and Nick Leverett '18 (right) became North Carolina Central University’s first Super Bowl champions when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9, on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021. Smith is currently a member of the Los Angeles Chargers.
TWO EAGLES RECEIVE SUPER BOWL RINGS
