Systemic racism, basketball and hot yoga take the stage at virtual Charlotte festival
On a weekend afternoon in June, North Carolina Central University Division 1 basketball head coach LeVelle Moton sat down with a group of local yoga students via Zoom to tell his story.
What does yoga have to do with basketball, growing up next door to Bobby Brown and facing systemic racism? On the surface, it may not seem like much — yet Moton had a message to share, and yoga was at the core of it.
“His story is just super inspiring to my whole family,” said Arrichion owner Clay Reynolds.
In the midst of a global pandemic and a resurgence in social justice movements after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Reynolds said Moton’s message was important, especially now. “We thought it was just a good opportunity for our clients to hear an inspiring story from someone who has maybe experienced life in a different way that many of our clients have.”
And the talk had the desired impact. Based on feedback from clients, “people were blown away by his talk,” Reynolds said. “I mean I was crying, I’m not afraid to say it.”
Moton is now the head men’s basketball coach for North Carolina Central University. But his legacy goes beyond his professional career. At a virtual yoga festival for Arrichion Hot Yoga and Circuit Training, Moton shared stories of childhood, growing up with a single mother and what lessons he carries with him today.
A ‘nontraditional upbringing’
Moton was born in Orchard Park in Boston, where he said he had a “nontraditional” upbringing. “No one from my neighborhood made it out, and you thought you were going to live fast and die young. Why? Because that’s what everyone ever did,” Moton said.
Next door to Moton lived singer Bobby Brown, a member of New Edition. Moton remembers seeing the group win a talent show and record the song “Candy Girl.” “The next thing I know, they are on TV and they got the No. 1 song in the nation, and it was really weird to see. It was insane,” Moton said.
Later on, his family relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina. “It was the inception of the crack era, so they were recruiting kids my age to sell drugs, and now kids were having guns in their hands — and it was just chaos,” Moton said.
But a contest at the Boys and Girls Club changed his life, Moton said. Pepsi sponsored a “Hot Shot Competition” at the gym. Moton said he initially refused. “That’s corny,” he remembers saying.
But the two-liter Pepsi bottle prize was enough to get him to participate. And he won.
He won again in basketball contests at the city level. Then at the state level. Then in the Southeast region. Finally, he competed in Washington, D.C., for a chance to shoot during halftime at an NBA game.
He returned victorious, and his neighborhood celebrated with a parade and a party.
He remembers telling his grandmother, “I’m going to buy you this big house and this big car,” he said.
“Then she looked me directly in my face, and she said, ‘When you leave this earth, if people remember you as a basketball player, you’ve done a poor job of living.’ That was heavy to a 10-year-old,” he said.
His grandmother’s lessons stuck with him.
Another memory that Moton said influenced his upbringing centered on a picture on a food stamp, depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His grandmother asked who he recognized in the picture, and he responded: Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington.
“Tell me who in that picture is advocating on behalf of LeVelle?” she asked.
“It was the realest, most humbling situation,” he said.
And that situation still applies today, he said. “I would just tell every parent to be completely honest, because what we’re seeing in this world right now is a harsh reality that we live every single day.”
He said ironically in the year 2020, many people can finally see the reality of systemic racism clearly, as if with perfect 20/20 vision.
Off the court
Moton’s organization, the Velle Cares Foundation, serves community organizations for children and families in at-risk situations. The organization’s main event, the Single Mother Salute, hearkens back to his own upbringing by his mother and grandmother.
Moton has also learned to balance a coaching career with his family. Finding mentorship in Mike Tomlin, he learned: “There is no balance,” he said. “There is no 50-50.”
Traveling left Moton wracked with guilt, he said. “What I started to do was just take them on the road with me, take them to practice with me, so when daddy’s gone — this is what he is doing, Moton said.
What does yoga do for basketball?
But feeling centered in his personal life led him down another path — yoga.
Moton said he had never felt a sense of peace within himself. Then he joined Arrichion Hot Yoga in 2014, which has studios in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and Park City, Utah. He first came to the studio with another basketball player, Julius Hodge, Reynolds said.
“We’re grateful that Julius brought him to us years ago,” Reynolds said. “He’s been an important part of the community for us, we’re just really fortunate to be around him.”
“It was one of the best things that happened to me,” he said. “What it did, it calmed me down and it gave me a peace of mind.”
This ability of relaxing the mind was something he wanted to add to his players’ lives, too.
Seeing them glued to phone screens and plugged into constant updates about the world, Moton said he wanted to offer them a similar routine that gave him ease.
“When you’re doing that, your mind can’t rest,” he said. “I just wanted to implement a program with some of the things I did to help me become a better man.”
And while Moton didn’t brag too much about his career as a basketball coach, Reynolds told CharlotteFive confidently: “He’s one of the best basketball coaches in college basketball right now.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 11:40 AM.
