‘I feel like Mikey got drafted to heaven.’ Basketball star killed on bike remembered

A crowd of at least 200 gathered at Charlotte’s Reedy Creek Park Sunday to honor Mikey Maddox, the local basketball star who was killed in a bike accident early Saturday morning.

Maddox, who played at Rocky River High School and at Vance High, was 18. He was hit by a car on Old Concord Road while riding his bicycle in northeast Charlotte about 1 a.m. Maddox was pronounced dead at the scene.

Maddox is the second local player to die in the past four months. In May, a player at Charlotte’s Liberty Heights School, James Hampton, collapsed and died while playing for Team United’s summer travel team at a tournament in Virginia.

On Sunday, Maddox’s mother, Tasha, spoke to the gathered crowd at Reedy Creek Park, before Sean “Diddy” Combs’ hit “I’ll Be Missing You” played and the crowd released balloons into the air.

“This made me feel so good ... music playing, everybody moving,” she said. “He would’ve been so excited and y’all know that. All he wanted to do was rap and play basketball.”

Just before the crowd was about to release the balloons, she added: “I want y’all to know that I feel like Mikey really got drafted to heaven. I feel like he’s playing on the all-star team right now, the starting point guard. ... He’s probably watching us right now.”

This story was originally published August 12, 2018 at 8:00 PM.