How a boy with autism grew up to be one of the Charlotte Knights’ and Hornets’ biggest fans
It’s the final game of the season for the Charlotte Knights, and two things stand out as perfect.
One’s the weather, which features blue skies and brilliant sunshine taking the edge off the cool, crisp, early-fall air. The other is LaMichael Mitchell’s scorebook.
Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, he keeps his eye on the ball, making note of even the most minute of in-game developments. He uses three different colors of ink to keep score — mostly black, but red for lefties in the lineup and for strikeouts, and blue to fill in the diamonds to indicate runs scored. He makes notes about trivia related to not just the Knights but the opposing team, pointing out, for instance, a player who is making his Triple-A debut.
It’s possible that the only people at uptown’s Truist Field who are paying as much attention as LaMichael to what is going on during this particular game either work or play for the team — although, truth be told, it’s likely he’s actually paying even more.
And he’s been doing it all season long, adding to a binder that after today will contain a detailed record of every single one of the Knights’ 144 games in 2022.
No, he didn’t catch all of them in person, but yes, incredibly, he scored the away games and the home ones he missed by watching them either live or on demand via MiLB First Pitch, the official mobile app of Minor League Baseball.
“I actually keep it in a safe place,” the 38-year-old Charlotte native explains, when asked what will become of this binder, “so I can go back and look at what each player did during the season.”
The team, of course, is duly impressed.
“When he comes out to the game, he knows everything,” says Tommy Viola, who first met LaMichael not long after he was hired as vice president of communications for the Charlotte Knights in 2012. “He knows the batting averages, he knows who has the most home runs. ... I mean, he knows all the stats. It’s amazing.”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all of this, however, is that the Knights aren’t even LaMichael’s favorite Charlotte sports team.
Living with autism spectrum disorder
From a very young age, Eva Mitchell could sense that her son LaMichael (who she calls, simply, Michael) was developmentally different from her three older children.
“I had him tested when he was around 3 or 4, because he wouldn’t really talk to anybody,” she recalls. “Everybody was telling me, ‘No, he’s just withdrawn,’ or, ‘That’s his way of being shy.’ But, I mean, after you’ve had three kids, you know. So I took him, I had him tested ... and I was told that he was autistic” — but that he had “high-functioning autism,” meaning that despite his difficulties with social interactions he didn’t have any significant special needs.
In fact, LaMichael was evaluated as having an extraordinary level of intelligence for his age — and a photographic memory, to boot.
So, on the one hand, he continued to struggle socially when he was younger. For instance, Eva explains that when he did talk, “he was a repeater. If you said, ‘What’s your name?,’ he would say, ‘What’s your name?’ instead of telling you his name. On his very first day of school, his teacher said she will always remember him because she told him, ‘I want you to go to the board, and I want you to write your name.’ Michael went up to the blackboard, and he wrote ‘your name.’ She said she couldn’t do anything but laugh because he wrote exactly what she told him to.”
On the other hand ...
He was able to attend regular public schools, including Park Road Elementary, Northridge Middle, and Independence High.
For years, while other kids were out playing sports, LaMichael was in front of the TV watching them, soaking up information about teams and athletes’ statistics like a sponge. (The one thing Eva remembers him watching besides sports? “Jeopardy.”) But by the time he reached adolescence, “I started to adapt,” LaMichael says, “to being around normal people in life and at school.”
And by the time he graduated from Independence in 2003, he had built and maintained several friendships with classmates.
He also had a grade-point average of 4.0.
‘He’s able to convey energy and passion’
Though he did not go on to college, LaMichael did go on to his dream job of working at the home of the then-Charlotte Bobcats, his favorite local sports team since it was founded as the Hornets in 1988.
Eva says the opportunity arose in late 2005, after the owner of the bingo hall she frequented got to know LaMichael and became impressed by his knowledge of sports. The bingo hall owner had a connection with the NBA organization and was able to get him an interview for an usher position.
LaMichael apparently aced it, because two days later, he received a call from someone telling him he was hired.
Being closer to the action on a regular basis wound up fueling his love for the team, and he quickly evolved into a superfan. On nights when he wasn’t working, he’d show up at games and at fan events decked out from head to toe in Bobcats gear and colors.
People with influence took notice. In 2007, someone in charge of team promotion slapped a photo of LaMichael in full team regalia on billboards hyping the Bobcats in multiple parts of town. (In the order of memorable fan moments for him, that’s No. 1. Also up there is Michael Jordan signing a hat for him at a Bobcats game during the 2012-13 season.)
As for the job with the team, from his point of view, he says, “it’s been one of the best experiences ever.”
From the team’s point of view — well, this may explain, in general terms, how he’s managed over the course of nearly 17 years to amass a pile of “employee of the month” awards as a greeter and in other “guest-experience” roles:
“I really believe that he just embodies everything that we love our fans to be,” says Donna Julian, executive vice president of the Charlotte Hornets and general manager of Spectrum Center. “To really be committed and love the team — really love, love the team, like he does. So as an employee and as a superfan, he’s able to convey that energy and that passion and make sure that our guests have a great time. That’s just who he is.”
Or, here’s a more specific reason: In addition to basketball games, he also works many of the non-sports events that get booked into the arena, and in March, Julian said, she ran into him in the lobby while he was working the Bad Bunny concert.
“Obviously, that’s a Latino show. Anyway I was just checking in with him and he said, ‘Yeah, you know, I’ve been working on my Spanish a little bit because I want everybody to feel welcome when they come in here.’ I’ve gotta tell you, I almost cried. It’s that kind of dedication and caring that he has that makes him this incredible being. He’s just unbelievable. Really, I mean, I almost cried.
“I was like, Oh my God, that’s so wonderful. And thoughtful.”
The Hornets aren’t the only team that treats LaMichael with this kind of reverence, either.
During its 2021, the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers minor-league baseball team invited LaMichael to help call a game as part of its radio broadcast.
Meanwhile, Viola, the Knights communications VP, says he will sometimes personally send the lineup to LaMichael in advance so he can get his scorecard ready. Oftentimes Viola has given LaMichael access to the press box, where he can get copies of box scores or game notes, and the Knights on occasion even have taken “radio calls” that LaMichael has posted on social media during games and replayed them during their live broadcasts.
“It’s just a joy to see,” Viola says. “To see someone so excited and enthused about Charlotte sports.”
‘I’m proud of him. I am very proud of him’
To be clear, LaMichael still doesn’t have any significant special needs as an adult.
He works his areas of the arena without assistance, and he commutes to and from Spectrum Center — and to Truist Field for Knights games, and to pretty much anywhere else he wants to go — on his own, using public transportation. He continues to reside at his parents’ home in the Belmont neighborhood by choice, not because he’s unable to live independently.
In many ways, LaMichael’s bedroom is a shrine to the teams and athletes he idolizes, from the posters, pennants and calendars on his walls to the shelves that hold sports-themed Bobbleheads and autographed baseballs to the Hornets and Knights jerseys stitched with his last name and the number one (both gifts from the teams).
But as conversation-starters go, it’s the collection of keepsakes his mother has all over the living room that wins out.
There’s the framed clipping from a 2008 issue of a local alt-weekly newspaper that identified him as a superfan of Charlotte’s NBA team, for one thing. The cover of Charlotte’s Yellow Pages from the same year, featuring a photo of him kissing a woman on the cheek at a Charlotte Checkers hockey game, for two.
Then, for three, four, five, six, seven and eight: the assortment of certificates that he’s been recognized with for his outstanding service over the years as a greeter and usher at the uptown arena.
And lest you think LaMichael isn’t well-rounded enough — that he’s maybe a bit too hyper-focused on sports — he recently bought himself a trumpet with his arena income and has been teaching himself how to play; and on Wednesdays, if it doesn’t conflict with work, he takes the bus to meet friends for trivia night at a bar near UNC Charlotte.
“I mean, I’m just proud of the fact that he’s 38 years old, he doesn’t have to depend on anyone for anything,” Eva says. “... Michael has proved himself to be quite an adult. A very well-mannered, well-thinking adult.
“I’m proud of him. I am very proud of him.”
It seems like LaMichael is, too.
“I have been living with autism for over 30 years,” he says, “and it hasn’t stopped me from being who I am.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
