August 14, 2018 • 51 mins
Adam Stanco’s in-depth interview with North Carolina Central head coach LeVelle Moton. They discuss Moton’s remarkable childhood, including how he overcame abandonment by his father and why a youth shooting competition changed his life forever. He explains his unlikely journey from being a junior varsity coach to one of the most coveted college coaches in the country. Moton also reveals how he utilized a simple leadership approach to transform the NCCU program into a mid-major powerhouse.
Find out more at 40YearCoach.com and follow us on Twitter...
Adam Stanco: @naismithlives
40 Year Coach Podcast: @40YearCoach
LeVelle Moton: @LeVelleMoton
Sydney Smith: @SydGSmitty
Find out more at 40YearCoach.com and follow us on Twitter...
Adam Stanco: @naismithlives
40 Year Coach Podcast: @40YearCoach
LeVelle Moton: @LeVelleMoton
Sydney Smith: @SydGSmitty
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
This is the forty Year Coach Podcast. I'm Adam Stago. I am so
excited to talk to today's guests.So much to get to you know,
we talked to a lot of coacheson the forty Year Coach Podcast and some
are bigger names that have been inthe national spotlight for a while. This
(00:37):
coach isn't just one of the bestunder the radar coaches in the country,
but quite honestly one of the bestcoaches in the country. For twenty one
seasons as a head coach at NorthCarolina Central, three NCAA tournament appearances,
and as a player. When heplayed as a star at North Carolina Central,
he had his number fifteen Jersey retired. His name. Him is Lavelle
(01:00):
Moten. You may have seen himduring his is NCAA tournament time or just
during the MEAC tournament. He's gottena lot of attention because of how exciting
he is, because of the teamsthat he's put together. But he's got
an incredible story to tell and I'mexcited to welcome into the forty Year Coach
Podcast Coach Lavelle Moten, coach,thanks for joining me, man, Thank
(01:23):
you so much. I appreciate youhaving me. Yeah, of course,
of course, there's so much toget Tom. I sometimes like starting out,
just what do you think makes agreat basketball coach? Oh? That
somewhat of a loaded question because youknow, um, you know, externally,
(01:44):
people believe it's the exit and oath, and although that does have his
place in a significant place and intodetermining greatness, I just think it's relationships.
I think it is understanding, numberone, who you are as a
coach, establishing some non negotiables,but understanding the young man that you're coaching
(02:07):
on a day to day basis,and then once you understand them, just
the ability to get something out ofthem that they don't necessarily believe they have
within them. And I think that'sthe beauty of coaching. I call it
squeezing all of the juice out ofthe orange. You know, some of
these kids come here, they believethat they're qualified and they're ready to go
(02:30):
to their next future endeavors, anda lot of times that's professional basketball.
But you break them down and thenyou build them back up, and you
soon realize that you know, theyhad so much work to do, so
much to understand, not only aboutthe game, but just in life.
And I think that's what constitutes agreat coach in my humble opinion. Well,
(02:52):
you talk about squeezing all the juiceout of the orange, and I
know in doing research for this discussionand looking at clips speeches, that you
would given things that you talk aboutdaily. Um, it took other people
squeezing the juice, you know,for you as as you were coming up.
(03:14):
And I want to go back fora moment and your early life.
Born in Boston, nineteen seventy four, Um, and saw that your your
father left when you were when youwere four. Um, how much do
you remember about that time in yourin your life? You know, I
remember that day exactly. You know. I always tell people never underestimate the
recollection of a child. Um.You know I remember the night um,
(03:38):
prior to his leaving. I rememberhim, Um, you know, walking
in our room, or I meanand my older brother and I and you
know, we were having this thingat our home called the Red Party where
um, you know, everyone wouldcome over and treat it like a nightclub
and you know they would you know, take the money at the door and
(03:59):
whoever whoever was in need of supportof their rent at that time they took
the money and just gave it tothat person. So we had all these
hosts of rent parties, and youknow, he asked everyone specifically, what
did we want from here? Whatdid we want from there? And I
said he was going to make arun to the store. He never came
back, and you know, probablya month later was going to be my
(04:20):
fifth birthday, and he put ahe knocked on the door and had a
bike on the porch, and itwas a note that said happy birthday,
Puffy, and I knew it wasfrom him because that was my nickname,
and you know, he called methat, and it was also a gift
for my mom because we shared thesame birthday. And I just remember taking
that bike in and p bowing thatI was never going to ride it because
(04:45):
if I rode that bike, Iwould be accepting him walking out my life.
And I was five. So Istill have that bike in the storage
actually, and it's never been touched, but it's just been somewhat of a
collective artifact to serve as a asa reminder that, you know, number
one, I didn't ever want tofeel this feeling again. You know,
(05:06):
from five years old, I've neverreally honestly healed from that. So life
has been somewhat cathartic. You knowwhen when I utilized basketball because it helped
me get over that pain, andit had actually helped me become a better
father, and I vowed to mykids that I'll never do that to them.
(05:28):
So you know, it has itsplace, and you know it's something
that I have actually absolutely no regretsabout to is that. You know in
your Jersey retirement speech it was heartbreakingas you described yourself as as a broken
kid. I know you also mentionedthe date April first, nineteen to eighty
(05:50):
four. Can you tell me whythat date is memorable to you? Yeah,
you know we were you know,the apartment in the neighborhood in which
we lived. You know, thiswas pretty I know I'm dating myself,
but this was pre answer machines.This was pre cell phones. It was
(06:11):
just one land line in the houseand it was only two ways that phone
was gonna stop ringing if it didring, and that was either you answered
it or the person on another linehung up. But that phone was ringing
forty five times until one of thetwo occurred. And this specific day,
you know, the phone was ringingand I was the designated phone answer in
(06:31):
my home. I was their baby, so you know, I always had
the tough task or whatever. SoI answered the phone and it was my
mom's best friend on the phone,and I noticed that her voice was unusual.
It wasn't the traditional voice of hers. And I called my mom to
the phone and I'm standing there andI'm ear dropping and listening to that conversation,
(06:59):
and all I'm hearing is my momresponded by saying like what, No,
stop, don't tell me that.And then my mom covers the phone
and says, Puffy, I needyou to run and tell your grandmother that
Marvin Gayas died. And my grandmotherlived two blocks up, in one block
over, so I was also notonly the phone answer, but the human
email person as well. So Iran and I related the news to my
(07:25):
grandmother. I just remember busted inmy grandmother's home and she's like, what's
wrong with you? What's wrong withyou? And I was ten years old
at the time, and I said, Mom told me to tell you that
Marvin gay had died. She saidwhat, So she ran to a TV.
You know, it was all modest, it was the housing projects.
Man, No one had cable,so we only had three channels, ABC,
(07:45):
CBS, and NBC, and youknow, on a good day,
Fox would come in. It's youknow, if the antenna was acting rank.
But she set me down and CBSwas doing a breaking news story on
it at that particular time, Ithink was Dan Rather someone and they were
celebrating the life of Marvin Gay andas they went to break, they had
(08:05):
a moment of silence and his picturejust flashed up onto the screen and my
grandmother looked at me and she pulledme closer to her and she said,
you see that right there, Shesaid, his birthday that doesn't matter,
his death date, that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that
dash that's in between, because that'show people will remember you. That's the
(08:28):
impact that you've made on this world. And you want to make sure your
dash has respect and integrity attached toit. And at ten years old,
it was the best life lesson,or one of the best life lessons I've
ever heard in my life. AndI've tried to live my life that way
by making sure you know that Godforbid, but making sure when I leave
(08:50):
this earth and you know, myname has a legacy and some integrity in
a name that my kids can beproud of, in a name that will
ring veils for forever. And youknow that's what I've been working to attempt
to do. You're describing your yourearly life, and I appreciate you sharing
that. Um it sounds like andyou hear this so many times from people
(09:16):
that are trying to rise up fromfrom rough situations in childhood, that that
you you have a support system,and sometimes it doesn't come into focus until
until you know you're much You're mucholder, and as as started to piece
together the stories of your early beginnings, your mother Hattie moving you away from
(09:37):
Raleigh to get away from from thecrack epidemic in Boston. Um. You
described your older brother Earl. Yousaid you wanted to be like him.
Um. But and of course yourgrandmother as well, obviously a very wise
woman. Um. You described therelationship with I mean I read about the
(09:58):
relationship with your your coach at theRally Boys and Girls Club, Ron Williams,
who's also you know, coach PJ. Tucker John Wall. Um.
What kind of impact did Ron Williamsfirst have on your life? You know
it was huge. Um. Youappreciate it. You appreciate it at the
(10:20):
time, but you're a kid,so you don't have the wherewithal to fully
understand it. I understand and appreciateit even more now that I'm a grown
man, because he sacrificed so manythings. You know, as I entered,
you know, when we when wemoved to Raleigh, UM, my
(10:41):
mother wanted us to do something constructivewith our time because, as you mentioned,
it was the crack epidemic and wewere latch key kids, meaning um,
she was at work. So betweeniurs of three and six, we
were on our own, my olderbrother and I UM and oftentimes when we
walked out of our namehood every everyday it was a matter of life and
(11:03):
death because I don't think fullihood.You know, it's really difficult to paint
the complete picture of the crack epidemic, but every decision and every move you
made, what's going to be amatter of life and death. In the
wrong move, your life was goingto be over, whether it was literally
like literally, UM, And tokind of paint the picture even even more
(11:26):
for you, my house and projectin Boston Orchard Park. I don't know
if you guys seen the movie inNew Jack City. But the movie New
Jack City was based on our houseand projects, so that's that's the circumstances
in the carnage that we were involvedin. So she wanted us to do
something constructive with our time. Soshe had us joined the Boys Club.
(11:50):
And at the time, I remembershe took us up there and they said
it was going to be seven fiftyto join, and she said, I
don't have one hundred and fifty dollarsand they said, no, no,
it's gonna be seven dollars and fiftycent for the year. And she was
like, oh, okay, Soshe she allowed us to join, and
(12:11):
you know, you learned everything,and you know, one of the beauties
about the Boys Club was that wewere interacting with so many different races,
and you know, it was morelike a melting pot of of young men,
you know that was trying to accomplishand approach the same goal. And
it was the first time we reallyhad the opportunity to interact with different races
outside of black people because where wewere from, we didn't trust anyone of
(12:35):
any opposite race because of our circumstancesin particular, So you know, I'm
playing sports and you know, Ibecome pretty decent at it. And then
here's this guy who's the program directornamed Ron Wims, and he takes a
liking to me for some reason.But he's so he's so tough on me.
(12:58):
He's so hard on me. Sohe becomes my basketball coach, and
I can't do anything right, youknow, and if you're scared to throw
the ball away, you know,he just really intimidated you. And then
in football season, he was myfootball coach. So it's the same thing.
In baseball, it was the samething. In soccer, it was
the same thing. And back thenwe played everything whatever was in season.
That's the sport that we pretty muchplayed. And he did this year after
(13:22):
year after year after year. AsI'm ten years old, I walked into
the boys club one day and Ientered this competition called the Pepsi hot Shot.
And you know, my friends arerunning up to me saying, you
know, you have to do thiscompetition. And I really didn't want to
do the competition, but they said, well, whoever wins gets a two
lead to Pepsi. So I enteredthe competition just for that reason alone.
(13:46):
I was just wanted to take atwo lead to PEPSI home and my friends,
a bunch of ten year olds aretrying to explain to me the rules
and regulations of the game, andyou know, it's becoming more and more
confusing. Iron just walk up andsay, look, man, you got
a minute just at every spot youpossibly can to make as many as you
can. And he simplified it inlayman's terms, just like that. And
I did it. And after Ifinished, you know, people ran and
(14:09):
picked me up and said I brokea record. So little did I know,
I was leaving Raleigh and I hadto go to Charlotte didn't following the
weekend to shoot for the state event. So I'd go to Charlotte and I
won the state event, and thenI had to go to Atlanta the following
week and shoot in the Southeast regionat Georgia Tech. And I did that,
and I defeated a hundred kids inthat event, and I defeated the
(14:30):
guy that was the reigning champion forlike three previous years. A little that
I know. Once I wanted theSoutheast regions, I got an opportunity to
go to DC and meet Ronald Reaganand shoot a halftime of the then bullets
and the Bulls game. And thiswas Michael Jordan's rookie year eighty four eighty
five, something like that. AndRon took me on that trip, and
(14:54):
it was my first time out ofthe housing projects. It was the first
time seeing DC. Everything that Ihad scene or heard about in the history
book, I was now witnessing firsthand. So it was more like a vision
board for this young kid to letmyself know I could get out of the
projects. And from that moment hejust stayed. I mean, he was
(15:15):
just adamant about, you know,pushing me, pushing me and pushing me,
and I guess squeezed and all thejuice out of my orange and I
definitely appreciate it. And from thatmoment on, I never had a father,
so he became my father figure.And he took me home every night
from the boys club because he knewI had to cross over three other housing
projects and at the time, itwas a lot of murders going on and
(15:35):
it was kind of territorial, andso he would take me home all the
time. And then it got tothe point we became so close he would
take me on dates with him.So I was the third wheel as he's
sitting here with the woman that he'strying to get to knowe and he would
always introduce me as, this ismy son, this is my son,
this is my son. And despiteall of these years at him, like
(15:56):
the one thing he never told me. He never told me I was good.
You know, basketball is the sportI'm most known for, but baseball
was the sport I was the bestat. You know, I was an
All Star. I was batting probablysix hundred, seven hundred, you know
at the time, you know,it was Baseball was natural to me.
It was really easy. I wasquarterback in football. That was natural.
(16:17):
That was really easy. Basketball itwas the sport I probably had to work
at the most. But he nevertold me I was good. So my
fight became whatever I do in life, I'm just seeking his affirmation. You
know, he needs to validate thefact that I'm good because he never told
anyone they were good. And I'mfifteen years old. I'm playing in this
Rally Police Department summer league and ourbest player at the time it's hurt and
(16:42):
we're playing in a sixteen year olddivision and he's the championship ninety. He
told me, he said, look, I need you to take over tonight.
And I ended up having a prettygood game. I scored forty eight
points. I got MVP, youknow, And it was a jubilant moment
to say the league. And he'staken me home that night, and as
(17:03):
he pulls up in my driveway todrop me off, before I get out
the car, he says, andI'll never forget it was June nineteenth and
nineteen eighty six, so I'm I'ma stickler for dates. He said.
I've coached a lot of young menat this boys club, but you're the
best basketball player I've ever coached,and I want you to keep your head
(17:26):
on straight and if you do,you have a bright future and you have
an opportunity to make something of yourself. And from that point, me hearing
that because I had never heard theworriors I love you from a man.
I had never heard any kind ofvalidation from a man, and it's what
I was fighting for. I gravitatedto him because I embraced the tough love.
(17:51):
And once he told me that myconfidence sword in all facets of life,
I was able to go back toschool and now and talk to girls
and feel good about myself. Becausebefore that, I was just so insecure
and it's clearly wanted to define themoments and everlasting moments of my life.
When you're impacted in that way,UM, how much of that? And
(18:12):
and we've got so much more ofyour your story to tell, But just
now to fast forward a moment tomodern day, how much of those conversations,
that kind of impact that you haveon that he had on one individual's
life and then you, you know, expand that exponentially, you know,
to the rest of the attendees atthis boys and Girls club. Um,
(18:34):
to be a father figure. Howmuch how much of that resonates today when
you are are are coaching these theseyoung men at NC Central. That's that's
that's a thousand percent of it forme. Um. You know, I
(18:55):
would like to say I didn't choosecoaching. Coaching. Coaching shows me and
I listened to other coaches talk,and you know, I think it's three
hundred and fifty Division one coaches inthe world. And when I listened to
others, or speak with others,or just hang out with others and have
casual conversation, at some point intheir life, they all aspired to be
(19:18):
a coach. And I'm somewhat ofa novelty or anomaly because I never decided
to be a basketball coach. Andeven when I began, the inception of
my career was really a middle schoolAnd people don't notice, but I turned
down an eighty five thousand dollars assistantcoaching job at Delaware State with my former
coach to take a middle school coachingjob at westman Brook Middle School, making
(19:42):
two hundred dollars a month only forthree months, and I was in so
that that total six hundred dollars ayear. And that's almost like taking a
leap of faith. That well,that is taking a leap of faith.
But the reason I did it,I just wanted to get in, get
into the business and help kids thatlook like me, that had the same
situations as me growing up, whereI knew I could make a difference in
(20:07):
their lives the way my grassroot coachesmade a difference in my life. And
from that point I just had thefortune of of, you know, performing
pretty well on the middle school level, and I moved up to high school
and then I moved up to college, and to this day, that's the
approach that I take. You know, I never wanted to come back to
college, to be completely honest withyou, and I turned down those Carolina
(20:30):
Central three times probably, you know, while I was a high school coach,
and many people don't know that becauseI didn't. I cared too much
about kids. And in this business, as tough as this may sound,
it's difficult to care about kids becauseit's a business. It's a business before
anything else. It's a business.The NCAA made eight billion dollars last year
(20:52):
or something that this is a business. That's that's what it is. And
anytime money is involved, you knowthe business is going to be in the
forefront. And I had a difficulttime separating the business from the personal because
I really cared about the kids.So what I do now, I still
care about the kids, but Istill let them know that it is a
business for their own sake because it'sa scholarship in ball and I'm recruiting you
(21:17):
because you can play basketball. AndI think the one thing that I've done
that I've learned from you know,my mother, my grandmother, and you
know all of my coaches that surroundedme when I was a kid, and
my wives counsel. I've always beentruthful and I think that's the only thing
that you can do with these kids. Not only in these kids, with
these kids, but any facet ofrelationship that you involved in, whether it's
(21:41):
your wife or your children, oryour basketball team, or you know your
bass or you know your best friend, whoever. Everyone respects the truth.
It may not feel good at thattime, but I tell people what they
need to hear instead of what theywant to hear, and at the end
of the day, they'll always respectme for that. And you know for
(22:03):
that, you know, I thinkwe've been successful. Absolutely, absolutely.
Um. Yeah, It's it's alwaysinteresting to hear how how people are able
to balance that care for you know, their their players, their guys,
and also and also manage the businessside. When you were a player,
you graduate from end Low High Schoolin Raleigh in nineteen ninety two. You
(22:27):
end up as the CAP five playerthat year. Obviously talk about scoring forty
eight points is a fifteen year old. Obviously the potential was there and it
was starting to show. As youmentioned. You go to North Carolina Central
junior year over twenty three points agame, school record for three pointers made.
Senior year, your CIA player theyear m a wonderful career at North
(22:52):
Carolina Central as you were as youwere leaving school, and you go on
to play professionally in Indonesian and Israel. But if you were leaving school,
what were your your future aspirations atthat point? Just to get my mother
out the projects, because we werestill in the projects. You know,
it was getting worse, and Iknew it was going to get worse before
(23:15):
it got better. And I sacrificedmy social life while I was in school
to get my mother out the projects. You know, it's it's really difficult
for me at home coming down becauseyou know, people come back and they
speak, and I feel bad becauseI don't know their names, you know.
And the reason I don't know theirnames is because I didn't do a
(23:37):
whole lot of fun activities that collegestudents should normally do when they're in school,
because I sacrificed that to be inthe gym and work and improved so
I could take care of my mother. And that's just what it was.
So the first day, you know, I left school, I was ready
to leave school, but because Iwas preparing myself for that moment, and
(24:02):
it was a vow that I hadmade to myself ever since I was probably
seven eight years old, that Iwas going to take care of my mother
playing this game one day and insteadof allowing her to leave a paycheck to
paycheck, because I didn't think therewas a single individual on the face of
the earth that worked harder than mymother. So I knew I was going
to have to step in and be, you know, the patriarch that provide
(24:22):
it of my family and probably firstgeneration success of what society deemed us a
successful according to that standard. SoI remember going to supersionist camp first,
and I had a great camp,and I was there with my mentor,
(24:44):
Nate McMillan, who grew up downthe street from me, and I had
a great camp, and I reallyproved that I could play at the NBA
level and score because once again,the NBA was easy to me because it
was one on one basketball. Sothat's I grew up doing that my entire
life. Unfortunately, it didn't workout. So I went overseas, and
you know, my first my firststep was in Indonesia, and I really
(25:10):
didn't want to go because the flightwas twenty seven hours like it was,
it was ridiculous, and they atthe time, the difference was thirteen hours.
But I would just remember saying tomyself, like, how many times
did my mother walked out of thisdoor with her not feeling good? And
if you only do things when ondays that you feel good, you're not
going to accomplish a lot, youknow. So I made that commitment and
(25:32):
sacrifice because she made the commitment andsacrifice to me, And with my first
check, I gave it to herand I said, what kind of home
did you? I said, whatkind of home do you want? And
the answer that she told me,it's still it still baffles me to this
day. And she said, Ijust went a home with grass, And
it just froze me, and itjust made me think that this woman had
(25:57):
worked her entire life to take ifher family can do the best that she
possibly can with working two and threejobs, and on her day of reward,
she just told me she just wenther home where it's some grass outside,
because she had been surrounded by concreteand the projects her entire life.
(26:19):
And that is kind of fitting anda microcosm of our life and our upbringing,
you know, because the surroundings havealways been tough in infirm in brutal,
and I just wanted to soften itup a little bit, and we
moved, and she won't move outthe house to this day. You know.
(26:41):
I asked her like two or threeyears ago, like, mana,
come on, let's move. Nope, I don't want to move anymore.
She's she's found her modest home andshe loves it. And it has plenty
of backyard where you know, nowmy grand my kids, her grandkids can
just run over there and playing theyard, and she can sit on the
porch and watch him. And that'sall she ever wanted out of life,
So she suppressed her own ones justso mine could be fulfilled. And I'll
(27:03):
always love a respective for that.That's incredible. That's an incredible story.
Yet, and good you. Propsto you for being able to pull that
off. And as you go,you play professionally overseas, obviously good experiences
there. But then how did itactually happen then that you go from professional
(27:26):
basketball player to middle school coach.I'm a firm believer that, you know,
my steps have been ordered by God, and it's my job just to
work as hard as I possibly canand everything will fall into place. And
you don't understand it as you're takingthose steps, but as you elevate and
(27:52):
evolve and look back down the stairs, you understand how he was setting you
up. And I guess what I'msaying is there were relationships of human beings
that that that I've encountered along theway has. It's so difficult to explain.
I'm playing overseas and I'm kind ofgetting tired of it, because now
(28:15):
you know, the seasons is teneleven months long. If you make the
playoffs, you come home for maybeforty days thirty five days, and now
you gotta head right back. Ididn't even feel like a US citizen.
I felt more like a foreigner.And I'm at a summer league at Saint
Augustin's that it was a huge summerleague at the time, and one of
(28:37):
my mentors saying, man, howmany more years you want to play?
And I said, O don't know, and he said, man, it's
a coaching job at West Mebbrook ifyou're interested. He said, man,
call this number. And I gotthe number with no intentions of calling.
But as I'm driving home, Isay, man, let me let me
try this out. I called thenumber and the lady that's doing the hiring.
(29:00):
It's my seventh grade teacher who wasmy favorite teacher of all time.
And I did not even I didn'tknow it. And she said, are
you serious, like you would beinterested in coaching here? And I said
yeah, and she said, well, come over on Monday. I come
over on Monday and she showed methe school and I was already familiar with
the school, and she said,there's so many kids here that remind me
(29:22):
of you when you were at thatage, and she said you would be
great. And once she said that, you know, it kind of stuck
with me and kind of permeated throughand I said, you know what,
I think I want to try.So at the same time, I had
an offer from Delaware State to bethe assistant coach for eighty five thousand dollars
a year, and I chose theWest Millbrook job. So it was my
(29:47):
assistant principal, Cilia Seldon, whowas my seventh grade teacher, my favorite
teacher, one of my favorite teachersof all time, her and Kate Evans,
and they hired me at West Millbrook. And I think in return,
in hindsight, I'm thinking they kindof pulled the fast on on on me
because after two weeks on the job, they said, you know what,
(30:08):
they caught me in the office.They said, these kids absolutely love you.
How about you be interested in teaching. And I'm saying, nah,
I'm not going to teach. Idon't know how to teach it. She
said, no, you love it, and you know, she talked me
into that, and I went backand I got my teacher certification, and
you know, the rest is history. Before we get even to you coaching
(30:30):
it at the college level, you'rea head coach. And I don't care
whether it's you know, in theMEAC or in high school or wherever you're
now coaching middle schoolers, but you'rea head coach. And so what are
some of the things you learned earlyon in that job? You know,
(30:53):
the best the best advice I've learnedearly on is it actually came from my
mom. And you know, itwasn't going as I thought it should go.
And I went home one day andI was complaining to her and she
said, she said, it's notthose kids fault, it's your fault.
(31:15):
And I was like, what youmean. She said, you're coaching those
kids as if they're you coach thosekids as if they're them, they said,
And it made all the sense inthe world. She said, Those
kids don't play the same game.Don't play the game for the same reason
that you played the game for.You played because it was a matter of
(31:37):
life and death for you, itwas a savior. For them, it's
middle school. It's just leisure tothem. It's something that they want to
do. So you're trying to pushthem to become who and what you wanted
it to be for you, andthey don't want to go that way.
And that's where the disconnectors coming from. And it was the best advice I've
(31:57):
ever learned in my life, andI've taken it in the coaching industry with
me now because even at this level, the perception is they played a game
for the same reason I played it, And it's one of the the casualties
of being a former player and aplayer that had a decent resume that was
decent. You know, at thegame, you expect them to work the
(32:20):
way you work. You expect themto play as hard as you played.
You expect the game to mean tothem what it meant to you, and
that's not necessarily the case. SoI've learned to approach it and allow to
have them my perspective on it,but still coach them for what they're trying
(32:40):
to accomplish and not what I'm tryingto accomplish. And that made it much
easier, especially at the middle schoollevel. I love it. I love
it. You move on to highschool coaching. You're extremely successful at Anderson
High School fifty nine and twenty fiverecord back to back CAP seven championships.
(33:01):
You end up as an assistant inNorth Carolina Central in two thousand and seven
and then March twenty fifteen, thousandand nine. For a man who appreciates
dates, what do you recollect aboutthe day that you were named head coach
at North Carolina Central. I rememberthe call and I didn't think I had
(33:23):
a possibility of getting the job,and you know, our staff had just
got let go when I was anassistant, and I called my high school
principal and I said, can Ihave my whole job back? And my
wife said, why don't you applyfor the head coaching job here? I
said, I'm not. They're notgoing to hire me. I have them
(33:43):
to ze road coaching experience and thenmaking a transition into Division one and you
know, as I was, Iwas hearing the names of others, you
know, who was who resumes wasfar longer than mine and more accomplished in
my who were head coaches that previousyou know, locations, et cetera,
(34:04):
and settlement. And I just didn'tfeel like I had a chance. And
my wife said, well, youyou're a man of faith, like you
gotta believe and you got to speakthat into existence and you got to try,
and you'll never know unless you try. So I went and I thought
they were giving me an interview justfor sympathy, just because of them.
(34:25):
You know, you're alarm. WillOkay, we'll give you an interview and
then we'll kindly say thank you,but no thank you, don't call us,
we'll call you. And I rememberwalking into the interview and not one
question did they ask me about basketball. It was just all about leadership and
it was all about management, andit was all about delegation and you know,
(34:45):
CEO type of things. And Ithought I knocked the interview out the
park. And a couple of dayslater, I remember doctor Nam's calling.
He said, Lavelle, how wouldyou like to be my next coach at
North Carolina? Centri and my kneesgot week and I was standing and I
had to sit down because I waslike, I would love to And you
(35:08):
know, with that press conference,I remember because my daughter was born on
March to twelfth, so it wasthirteen days. The press conference was actually
thirteen days after her birth, youknow, so I was on cloud nine
because I was celebrating the birth ofmy first child and also my first head
coaching job, so you know,it was it was God's blessings. And
(35:29):
I remember at the press conference,you know, I told them, and
I also told the interview team thatyou know, they were to hire me.
You know, I was. Iwas kind of going in there like
Muhammad Ali and just predicting what roundI was going to knock someone out in
because I had knocked anyone out,so I was just you know, making
(35:50):
all the predictions. And I said, if you hired me, I said,
we'll win a MEAC championship in fiveyears, we'll be the ACC school
and we'll go to the final four. And everyone laughed because at the time
we had only won three two gamesto previous year and it was going to
be an uphill climb, you know, in terms of this transformation to Division
(36:12):
one. But I'm proud to saywe've checked two of those two out of
three of those boxes, and youknow, we have one more to check
off. So it was an incredibleday for myself and my family. It's
pretty remarkable, and as you mentioned, it wasn't easy though. I mean,
people look at the success now andthey see now you talk about a
resume, I mean, you've builtsome impressive resume. But that first year
(36:36):
seven and twenty two, and thenthe improvement fifteen and fifteen, the next
year seventeen and fifteen as your firstyear competing in the Mediac tournament, I
think you were fifth seed that year. It's and then twenty two and nine
with a fifteen one conference rector,twenty eight and six, fifteen and one
conference rector. Did you go tothe NCAA Tournament reaches second round? How
(37:01):
did you turn this program around?Well? I think, um, you
know, and it's it's so manyit's kind of a loaded question because it
really wasn't about me. The firstthing that you have to do that you
(37:21):
have to get basketball players into yourprogram that can play. UM, any
coach will tell you that. Idon't I don't care how great of a
coach they think they are, howstrategic, how great they are with exers
and those. I tell people allthe time, you give me Chris Paul
and you take RuPaul, and we'llsee who win this game with all the
exers. Like that's that's It's justthat simple. So it's not the Exers
(37:45):
and those, it's the Jimmis andJones. But what we had to do
was establish a culture. That wasthe first thing. And we were gonna
live by truth, and we weregonna live it well, we were gonna
tell it and we were gonna takeit. And I needed a staff that
could make these guys better, umthat I wanted to work with on a
(38:07):
day to day basis, that exhibitedthe passion and energy to develop these young
men both on the floor and offthe floor. And we were going to
be sticklers of time. We weregoing to have extreme discipline. You know,
everything was going to start fifteen minutesprior to If you were on time,
then you were late. Those arethe things that I just basically ran
(38:29):
my program the way helped my grandmotherand my mother ran their homes. And
that's exactly what I did. Andyou know, I we established some core
beliefs and you know, we don'tcompromise any of those things, and we
still hold those standards true to whowe are. Um, I tell you
(38:49):
this, And it was one thingI knew I had to establish. I
remember going to these companies and seeingthe mission statements, you know, these
Fortune five hundred companies, and seeingthe mission statements on the wall, and
I would hear people within it inthe company complained, whether it was a
school system or you know, whetherit was a Fortune five hundred company.
(39:15):
Don't want to say anybody names,but you know I have a few of
mine. And the mission statement waslike three paragraphs long. And I said,
man, that that don't make system. You know, because the people
that's complaining, if I pulled anyoneto the side and ask them what's the
mission statement of this company, theywouldn't be able to tell me. So
(39:35):
therefore, how if we're all workingtowards one goal, how do we know
what goal we're working to if weall can't even identify the mission statement.
So it became, you know,the creative ways of a coach, and
I went back to lean on me. I don't know if you remember that
movie in the movie Morgan Freeman likehe he had to change the culture,
(40:01):
right. He had a culture thathe had to switch quick fast, in
a hurry. And he started,I didn't identifying kids, and he will
pull them to the side, andyou needed to know the school song on
the spot, and he will makeyou sing that song. And I said,
you know what, that's how we'regoing to be here. Not to
the extent of Morgan Freeman, butwe have to have a mission statement that
(40:23):
everyone can identify and everyone knows,and therefore they know what we're working towards.
So to this day, if youask any kid on my basketball team,
they will tell you all philosophy.As basketball is a game. Games
are meant to be fine. Ain'tno fun losing, so you might as
well win. That's all philosophy.It's simplistic, as juvenile, it's whatever.
(40:43):
But everyone knows, and everyone iscapable of identifying back, and we
all know what we're working towards.And I just think like simplicity is the
key. But I wanted everyone tounderstand, let's not try to win championships,
like we'll get it there. ButI'm a firm believer you can't win
a championship in March if you're notgoing to class in September. So we
(41:07):
hold everyone accountable, and I believethat we got to win every day.
And once you take care of everyday in the classroom, in the weight
room, and practice and work outin the dorms, if you're able to
win those days, then eventually youwin championships. But if you can't win
(41:27):
those days early on, nowhere inthe world would you ever win a championship
in March, because the same disciplinethat's required in August, September, October,
so on, and so forth.It's the same discipline that's required to
win a championship in March. Ilove it. I love it. There
was a tweet that you had onLebron James from back in May, and
(41:52):
we picked up some steam. ButI thought I appreciated it, and you
said a coach email me hoping tojoin my staff. I look at this
Twitter and he says Lebron is overrated. If you think lb who you going
to recruit? So right right,get you tell me about how how did
(42:14):
that tweet come about? Yeah?I actually left out you know, some
worries because of the one hundred andforty character or left thing you know.
So I was trying to squeeze thatentire premise of his email into the hundred
and forty characters. And not onlydid he say Lebron was overrated, he
said, you know, he wassome trash and you know, like he
(42:36):
didn't have a great opinion on Lebron. And I'm looking at his page and
I'm just thinking to myself, likewow. And I try to use my
Twitter as a platform to kind ofas information because information is vital. So
I have some information that others maynot have, and I try to share
it on my platform to help enhancetheir quality of life and their professional careers
(42:59):
or whether they want to go.And in this particular case, it was
more like, wow, you thinkLebron is trash look regard and I you
know, I know Lebron personally,and I knew this guy hadn't met him
personally, So I'm like, Ijust didn't understand it. Like you can't.
I don't care if you're a Clevelandfan, I don't care who you're
(43:19):
a fan of. If you area fan of basketball, you cannot look
at Lebron James and say he's trashlike anybody say, I don't like him.
I hate him. He killed mybest team, but whatever, I
don't but respect the man's basketball ability. And this guy just had absolutely zero
respect for the greatest player on Eartharguably. But you're trying to join my
staff. So I'm saying, whoare you going to go recruit for me?
(43:43):
If you think Lebron James is trash? I don't think we're getting anyone
better than that, you know,So I just I just had to inform
him, and you know, itwas a perfect platform and opportunity just let
younger coaches know. Like, youknow, we hear this thing about coach
are always looking at prospects Twitter pagesand social media accounts or whatever, but
(44:04):
we're also looking at potential coaching hiresas well. We're looking at your Twitter
in your social media account as well. So you know, I hope the
lesson was was was made, thepoint was made, and I hope it
was served as a value but learninglessons for not only that coach but others.
A lot of people saw that andand the story could have ended there.
(44:25):
My favorite part about the story isthat afterwards there were somewhere I saw
you were quoted. You said,Hey, just so people know, though
we don't have any open positions onour staff. Yeah, and that was
that was the other saying, like, you know, and for what is
worth, I have no availability,right, you know, but this guy
was just you know, saying,hey, coach, if anybody leave.
And I get those emails all thetime. I'm sure if I check my
(44:47):
email to day is at least fiveof them, you know, as I
get those all the time about someonewanting to you know, cultivate a relationship
and be the next guy on thestaff, and you know, et cetera,
et cetera. But you know,I didn't even have any of abilities,
and you know, that guy justcan't I can't explain any incredible Lastly,
(45:07):
lastly, coach, I know,you know you've had this tremendous success
um, but there are also thechallenges when you when you're playing the MEAC
and you talk about, you know, going to a final four and for
an HBCU. I mean, peoplewill say that that that's impossible, you
know that that you know, justeven going to the NCAA tournament, usually
(45:28):
putting that the first four game,which I think is a travesty. I
think for these schools that that earntheir way into the NCAA Tournament. I
think you should be in uh dayone when lights are on on on Thursday.
And I don't think that you couldbe participating necessarily in a playing game,
because I think those kids should getthat that opportunity and they've earned that
(45:50):
right. All that being said,I know there are a lot of schools
that would love to have you asas a head coach, you know,
at at a higher profile program,and you were quoted as saying I can't
mess with happiness. Now. Obviouslythat probably doesn't speak for for your entire
coaching career, but but for rightnow. Um so, why is it
that that you've decided to it rightat this moment at least stay where you're
(46:16):
at and continue to do what you'redoing. Um, you know the Well,
first of all, I love thisplace. Um you know, it's
it's home for me. Um.You know, my family's heid my mother's
said, you know so, andand I guess being from where I'm from,
(46:38):
like, loyalty is a it's ahuge word for me, Like it's
been, it's been something that isa high priority of mine in this place.
You know, I've always tried toremain as loyal as I possibly could
because they gave me my career,they believed in me when no one else
(46:58):
didn't. But that said, Ido on standard. It's a business.
Um. And as of recent youknow, the last interview I had was,
UM, I'm sure everyone knows it'sthe East Carolina thing and UM,
you know their situation at that particulartime, I just didn't feel like it
was best for me. UM.I think East Carolina's an outstanding university.
(47:22):
UM. I feel like, youknow, it's a potential gold mine.
UM. You know, but whenI was going through the interview process,
you know one thing I've always beenattracted to. It's it's stability, you
know, be and partly in largebecause I grew up without it. UM,
(47:43):
so I always sought it. Andyou know, they were having some
challenges with their program, but theydidn't have an athletic director and that concerned
me. UM. You know,So for me to make a make a
career move and put my family ina position to migrade and go elsewhere,
UM, I have no problem doingthat. But I did want to know
(48:05):
who I would be working for becauseI think that constitutes a good, that
constitutes a job right now and forfor anyone. It's you know, the
first thing people want to know iswho am I working for? Well,
I couldn't answer that question because theydidn't have a athletic direct at that time.
And the guy that was an interviewingme, M. Dave Hart,
who's incredible by the way, andI was hoping he would become the ad
(48:29):
there. He didn't have any interestin being the AD after he was doing
the basketball search. So just steppingout there without any stability and that security,
you know, I just don't thinkat this point in my career my
family deserved that. And it wasyou know, time and is everything.
(48:52):
And that's nothing against any university.It's just you know, the time and
was everything. So I'm sure there'llbe other opportunities. You know, they've
been other opportunities that we've been approachedand we respectfully decline because of you know,
some schools were just in the northeast. My wife don't want to go
(49:13):
back to the northeast, you know, sou and we speak about it as
a as a family all the time. And you know, another thing is
North Carolina kind of spoils you.You know, North Carolina is a great
place to raise a family. It'snot too fast, it's not too slow.
It's plenty of green, it's affordable, it's cheap, it's growing,
it's it's tremendous. You know,it's it's a college life. You know,
(49:36):
your mother's here. You have allthese things that come into place.
So um, it's almost like ifyou're going to leave holly Berry, you
gotta leave holly Berry for Beyonce.I guess if I could use that another
day, you know, so um, But you know, we've definitely been
fortunate and blessed to have other opportunitiespresented. And I'm sure, um,
(50:00):
you know, when the right onecome along, we'll know in our gut
will tell us as the same wayas told us about every other decision we've
ever made in my life. Well, Coach, I just want to say
that, Um. You know,I talked to a lot of coaches,
and a lot of a lot ofthem are very inspirational and have some unbelievable
(50:21):
insight. But I don't know thatI've ever spoken to a coach that's that's
been more inspirational, has had greaterinsight. And the already in that is
that you talk about, you know, as you were growing up that that
that that was missing from your life, and now I can just see how
many people you provided that for forfor others. So I just want to
thank you for jumping on the podcast, but more importantly just sharing your story
(50:44):
and um, you know inspire me, and I know that that you're going
to be inspiring so many others justlike you already have. And I just
really want to thank you for yourtime and and uh and and for all
you have to offer. Thank youso much. I really appreciate it,
man, I had I really enjoyedits same here, same here. So
Lavelle molten Uh guest on the fourtyYear Coach podcast again. You can learn
(51:07):
more about the four of Year CoachPodcast, as well as the rest of
our services by checking out four toyear Coach dot com. We're also on
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. OnTwitter, we're at forty year Coach.
You follow me on Twitter Adam Stancoat Nasmith Lives In a special thanks to
Sydney Smith and as well as HR K and h We'll catch you next
(51:28):
time for su
This is the forty Year Coach Podcast. I'm Adam Stago. I am so
excited to talk to today's guests.So much to get to you know,
we talked to a lot of coacheson the forty Year Coach Podcast and some
are bigger names that have been inthe national spotlight for a while. This
(00:37):
coach isn't just one of the bestunder the radar coaches in the country,
but quite honestly one of the bestcoaches in the country. For twenty one
seasons as a head coach at NorthCarolina Central, three NCAA tournament appearances,
and as a player. When heplayed as a star at North Carolina Central,
he had his number fifteen Jersey retired. His name. Him is Lavelle
(01:00):
Moten. You may have seen himduring his is NCAA tournament time or just
during the MEAC tournament. He's gottena lot of attention because of how exciting
he is, because of the teamsthat he's put together. But he's got
an incredible story to tell and I'mexcited to welcome into the forty Year Coach
Podcast Coach Lavelle Moten, coach,thanks for joining me, man, Thank
(01:23):
you so much. I appreciate youhaving me. Yeah, of course,
of course, there's so much toget Tom. I sometimes like starting out,
just what do you think makes agreat basketball coach? Oh? That
somewhat of a loaded question because youknow, um, you know, externally,
(01:44):
people believe it's the exit and oath, and although that does have his
place in a significant place and intodetermining greatness, I just think it's relationships.
I think it is understanding, numberone, who you are as a
coach, establishing some non negotiables,but understanding the young man that you're coaching
(02:07):
on a day to day basis,and then once you understand them, just
the ability to get something out ofthem that they don't necessarily believe they have
within them. And I think that'sthe beauty of coaching. I call it
squeezing all of the juice out ofthe orange. You know, some of
these kids come here, they believethat they're qualified and they're ready to go
(02:30):
to their next future endeavors, anda lot of times that's professional basketball.
But you break them down and thenyou build them back up, and you
soon realize that you know, theyhad so much work to do, so
much to understand, not only aboutthe game, but just in life.
And I think that's what constitutes agreat coach in my humble opinion. Well,
(02:52):
you talk about squeezing all the juiceout of the orange, and I
know in doing research for this discussionand looking at clips speeches, that you
would given things that you talk aboutdaily. Um, it took other people
squeezing the juice, you know,for you as as you were coming up.
(03:14):
And I want to go back fora moment and your early life.
Born in Boston, nineteen seventy four, Um, and saw that your your
father left when you were when youwere four. Um, how much do
you remember about that time in yourin your life? You know, I
remember that day exactly. You know. I always tell people never underestimate the
recollection of a child. Um.You know I remember the night um,
(03:38):
prior to his leaving. I rememberhim, Um, you know, walking
in our room, or I meanand my older brother and I and you
know, we were having this thingat our home called the Red Party where
um, you know, everyone wouldcome over and treat it like a nightclub
and you know they would you know, take the money at the door and
(03:59):
whoever whoever was in need of supportof their rent at that time they took
the money and just gave it tothat person. So we had all these
hosts of rent parties, and youknow, he asked everyone specifically, what
did we want from here? Whatdid we want from there? And I
said he was going to make arun to the store. He never came
back, and you know, probablya month later was going to be my
(04:20):
fifth birthday, and he put ahe knocked on the door and had a
bike on the porch, and itwas a note that said happy birthday,
Puffy, and I knew it wasfrom him because that was my nickname,
and you know, he called methat, and it was also a gift
for my mom because we shared thesame birthday. And I just remember taking
that bike in and p bowing thatI was never going to ride it because
(04:45):
if I rode that bike, Iwould be accepting him walking out my life.
And I was five. So Istill have that bike in the storage
actually, and it's never been touched, but it's just been somewhat of a
collective artifact to serve as a asa reminder that, you know, number
one, I didn't ever want tofeel this feeling again. You know,
(05:06):
from five years old, I've neverreally honestly healed from that. So life
has been somewhat cathartic. You knowwhen when I utilized basketball because it helped
me get over that pain, andit had actually helped me become a better
father, and I vowed to mykids that I'll never do that to them.
(05:28):
So you know, it has itsplace, and you know it's something
that I have actually absolutely no regretsabout to is that. You know in
your Jersey retirement speech it was heartbreakingas you described yourself as as a broken
kid. I know you also mentionedthe date April first, nineteen to eighty
(05:50):
four. Can you tell me whythat date is memorable to you? Yeah,
you know we were you know,the apartment in the neighborhood in which
we lived. You know, thiswas pretty I know I'm dating myself,
but this was pre answer machines.This was pre cell phones. It was
(06:11):
just one land line in the houseand it was only two ways that phone
was gonna stop ringing if it didring, and that was either you answered
it or the person on another linehung up. But that phone was ringing
forty five times until one of thetwo occurred. And this specific day,
you know, the phone was ringingand I was the designated phone answer in
(06:31):
my home. I was their baby, so you know, I always had
the tough task or whatever. SoI answered the phone and it was my
mom's best friend on the phone,and I noticed that her voice was unusual.
It wasn't the traditional voice of hers. And I called my mom to
the phone and I'm standing there andI'm ear dropping and listening to that conversation,
(06:59):
and all I'm hearing is my momresponded by saying like what, No,
stop, don't tell me that.And then my mom covers the phone
and says, Puffy, I needyou to run and tell your grandmother that
Marvin Gayas died. And my grandmotherlived two blocks up, in one block
over, so I was also notonly the phone answer, but the human
email person as well. So Iran and I related the news to my
(07:25):
grandmother. I just remember busted inmy grandmother's home and she's like, what's
wrong with you? What's wrong withyou? And I was ten years old
at the time, and I said, Mom told me to tell you that
Marvin gay had died. She saidwhat, So she ran to a TV.
You know, it was all modest, it was the housing projects.
Man, No one had cable,so we only had three channels, ABC,
(07:45):
CBS, and NBC, and youknow, on a good day,
Fox would come in. It's youknow, if the antenna was acting rank.
But she set me down and CBSwas doing a breaking news story on
it at that particular time, Ithink was Dan Rather someone and they were
celebrating the life of Marvin Gay andas they went to break, they had
(08:05):
a moment of silence and his picturejust flashed up onto the screen and my
grandmother looked at me and she pulledme closer to her and she said,
you see that right there, Shesaid, his birthday that doesn't matter,
his death date, that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that
dash that's in between, because that'show people will remember you. That's the
(08:28):
impact that you've made on this world. And you want to make sure your
dash has respect and integrity attached toit. And at ten years old,
it was the best life lesson,or one of the best life lessons I've
ever heard in my life. AndI've tried to live my life that way
by making sure you know that Godforbid, but making sure when I leave
(08:50):
this earth and you know, myname has a legacy and some integrity in
a name that my kids can beproud of, in a name that will
ring veils for forever. And youknow that's what I've been working to attempt
to do. You're describing your yourearly life, and I appreciate you sharing
that. Um it sounds like andyou hear this so many times from people
(09:16):
that are trying to rise up fromfrom rough situations in childhood, that that
you you have a support system,and sometimes it doesn't come into focus until
until you know you're much You're mucholder, and as as started to piece
together the stories of your early beginnings, your mother Hattie moving you away from
(09:37):
Raleigh to get away from from thecrack epidemic in Boston. Um. You
described your older brother Earl. Yousaid you wanted to be like him.
Um. But and of course yourgrandmother as well, obviously a very wise
woman. Um. You described therelationship with I mean I read about the
(09:58):
relationship with your your coach at theRally Boys and Girls Club, Ron Williams,
who's also you know, coach PJ. Tucker John Wall. Um.
What kind of impact did Ron Williamsfirst have on your life? You know
it was huge. Um. Youappreciate it. You appreciate it at the
(10:20):
time, but you're a kid,so you don't have the wherewithal to fully
understand it. I understand and appreciateit even more now that I'm a grown
man, because he sacrificed so manythings. You know, as I entered,
you know, when we when wemoved to Raleigh, UM, my
(10:41):
mother wanted us to do something constructivewith our time because, as you mentioned,
it was the crack epidemic and wewere latch key kids, meaning um,
she was at work. So betweeniurs of three and six, we
were on our own, my olderbrother and I UM and oftentimes when we
walked out of our namehood every everyday it was a matter of life and
(11:03):
death because I don't think fullihood.You know, it's really difficult to paint
the complete picture of the crack epidemic, but every decision and every move you
made, what's going to be amatter of life and death. In the
wrong move, your life was goingto be over, whether it was literally
like literally, UM, And tokind of paint the picture even even more
(11:26):
for you, my house and projectin Boston Orchard Park. I don't know
if you guys seen the movie inNew Jack City. But the movie New
Jack City was based on our houseand projects, so that's that's the circumstances
in the carnage that we were involvedin. So she wanted us to do
something constructive with our time. Soshe had us joined the Boys Club.
(11:50):
And at the time, I remembershe took us up there and they said
it was going to be seven fiftyto join, and she said, I
don't have one hundred and fifty dollarsand they said, no, no,
it's gonna be seven dollars and fiftycent for the year. And she was
like, oh, okay, Soshe she allowed us to join, and
(12:11):
you know, you learned everything,and you know, one of the beauties
about the Boys Club was that wewere interacting with so many different races,
and you know, it was morelike a melting pot of of young men,
you know that was trying to accomplishand approach the same goal. And
it was the first time we reallyhad the opportunity to interact with different races
outside of black people because where wewere from, we didn't trust anyone of
(12:35):
any opposite race because of our circumstancesin particular, So you know, I'm
playing sports and you know, Ibecome pretty decent at it. And then
here's this guy who's the program directornamed Ron Wims, and he takes a
liking to me for some reason.But he's so he's so tough on me.
(12:58):
He's so hard on me. Sohe becomes my basketball coach, and
I can't do anything right, youknow, and if you're scared to throw
the ball away, you know,he just really intimidated you. And then
in football season, he was myfootball coach. So it's the same thing.
In baseball, it was the samething. In soccer, it was
the same thing. And back thenwe played everything whatever was in season.
That's the sport that we pretty muchplayed. And he did this year after
(13:22):
year after year after year. AsI'm ten years old, I walked into
the boys club one day and Ientered this competition called the Pepsi hot Shot.
And you know, my friends arerunning up to me saying, you
know, you have to do thiscompetition. And I really didn't want to
do the competition, but they said, well, whoever wins gets a two
lead to Pepsi. So I enteredthe competition just for that reason alone.
(13:46):
I was just wanted to take atwo lead to PEPSI home and my friends,
a bunch of ten year olds aretrying to explain to me the rules
and regulations of the game, andyou know, it's becoming more and more
confusing. Iron just walk up andsay, look, man, you got
a minute just at every spot youpossibly can to make as many as you
can. And he simplified it inlayman's terms, just like that. And
I did it. And after Ifinished, you know, people ran and
(14:09):
picked me up and said I brokea record. So little did I know,
I was leaving Raleigh and I hadto go to Charlotte didn't following the
weekend to shoot for the state event. So I'd go to Charlotte and I
won the state event, and thenI had to go to Atlanta the following
week and shoot in the Southeast regionat Georgia Tech. And I did that,
and I defeated a hundred kids inthat event, and I defeated the
(14:30):
guy that was the reigning champion forlike three previous years. A little that
I know. Once I wanted theSoutheast regions, I got an opportunity to
go to DC and meet Ronald Reaganand shoot a halftime of the then bullets
and the Bulls game. And thiswas Michael Jordan's rookie year eighty four eighty
five, something like that. AndRon took me on that trip, and
(14:54):
it was my first time out ofthe housing projects. It was the first
time seeing DC. Everything that Ihad scene or heard about in the history
book, I was now witnessing firsthand. So it was more like a vision
board for this young kid to letmyself know I could get out of the
projects. And from that moment hejust stayed. I mean, he was
(15:15):
just adamant about, you know,pushing me, pushing me and pushing me,
and I guess squeezed and all thejuice out of my orange and I
definitely appreciate it. And from thatmoment on, I never had a father,
so he became my father figure.And he took me home every night
from the boys club because he knewI had to cross over three other housing
projects and at the time, itwas a lot of murders going on and
(15:35):
it was kind of territorial, andso he would take me home all the
time. And then it got tothe point we became so close he would
take me on dates with him.So I was the third wheel as he's
sitting here with the woman that he'strying to get to knowe and he would
always introduce me as, this ismy son, this is my son,
this is my son. And despiteall of these years at him, like
(15:56):
the one thing he never told me. He never told me I was good.
You know, basketball is the sportI'm most known for, but baseball
was the sport I was the bestat. You know, I was an
All Star. I was batting probablysix hundred, seven hundred, you know
at the time, you know,it was Baseball was natural to me.
It was really easy. I wasquarterback in football. That was natural.
(16:17):
That was really easy. Basketball itwas the sport I probably had to work
at the most. But he nevertold me I was good. So my
fight became whatever I do in life, I'm just seeking his affirmation. You
know, he needs to validate thefact that I'm good because he never told
anyone they were good. And I'mfifteen years old. I'm playing in this
Rally Police Department summer league and ourbest player at the time it's hurt and
(16:42):
we're playing in a sixteen year olddivision and he's the championship ninety. He
told me, he said, look, I need you to take over tonight.
And I ended up having a prettygood game. I scored forty eight
points. I got MVP, youknow, And it was a jubilant moment
to say the league. And he'staken me home that night, and as
(17:03):
he pulls up in my driveway todrop me off, before I get out
the car, he says, andI'll never forget it was June nineteenth and
nineteen eighty six, so I'm I'ma stickler for dates. He said.
I've coached a lot of young menat this boys club, but you're the
best basketball player I've ever coached,and I want you to keep your head
(17:26):
on straight and if you do,you have a bright future and you have
an opportunity to make something of yourself. And from that point, me hearing
that because I had never heard theworriors I love you from a man.
I had never heard any kind ofvalidation from a man, and it's what
I was fighting for. I gravitatedto him because I embraced the tough love.
(17:51):
And once he told me that myconfidence sword in all facets of life,
I was able to go back toschool and now and talk to girls
and feel good about myself. Becausebefore that, I was just so insecure
and it's clearly wanted to define themoments and everlasting moments of my life.
When you're impacted in that way,UM, how much of that? And
(18:12):
and we've got so much more ofyour your story to tell, But just
now to fast forward a moment tomodern day, how much of those conversations,
that kind of impact that you haveon that he had on one individual's
life and then you, you know, expand that exponentially, you know,
to the rest of the attendees atthis boys and Girls club. Um,
(18:34):
to be a father figure. Howmuch how much of that resonates today when
you are are are coaching these theseyoung men at NC Central. That's that's
that's a thousand percent of it forme. Um. You know, I
(18:55):
would like to say I didn't choosecoaching. Coaching. Coaching shows me and
I listened to other coaches talk,and you know, I think it's three
hundred and fifty Division one coaches inthe world. And when I listened to
others, or speak with others,or just hang out with others and have
casual conversation, at some point intheir life, they all aspired to be
(19:18):
a coach. And I'm somewhat ofa novelty or anomaly because I never decided
to be a basketball coach. Andeven when I began, the inception of
my career was really a middle schoolAnd people don't notice, but I turned
down an eighty five thousand dollars assistantcoaching job at Delaware State with my former
coach to take a middle school coachingjob at westman Brook Middle School, making
(19:42):
two hundred dollars a month only forthree months, and I was in so
that that total six hundred dollars ayear. And that's almost like taking a
leap of faith. That well,that is taking a leap of faith.
But the reason I did it,I just wanted to get in, get
into the business and help kids thatlook like me, that had the same
situations as me growing up, whereI knew I could make a difference in
(20:07):
their lives the way my grassroot coachesmade a difference in my life. And
from that point I just had thefortune of of, you know, performing
pretty well on the middle school level, and I moved up to high school
and then I moved up to college, and to this day, that's the
approach that I take. You know, I never wanted to come back to
college, to be completely honest withyou, and I turned down those Carolina
(20:30):
Central three times probably, you know, while I was a high school coach,
and many people don't know that becauseI didn't. I cared too much
about kids. And in this business, as tough as this may sound,
it's difficult to care about kids becauseit's a business. It's a business before
anything else. It's a business.The NCAA made eight billion dollars last year
(20:52):
or something that this is a business. That's that's what it is. And
anytime money is involved, you knowthe business is going to be in the
forefront. And I had a difficulttime separating the business from the personal because
I really cared about the kids.So what I do now, I still
care about the kids, but Istill let them know that it is a
business for their own sake because it'sa scholarship in ball and I'm recruiting you
(21:17):
because you can play basketball. AndI think the one thing that I've done
that I've learned from you know,my mother, my grandmother, and you
know all of my coaches that surroundedme when I was a kid, and
my wives counsel. I've always beentruthful and I think that's the only thing
that you can do with these kids. Not only in these kids, with
these kids, but any facet ofrelationship that you involved in, whether it's
(21:41):
your wife or your children, oryour basketball team, or you know your
bass or you know your best friend, whoever. Everyone respects the truth.
It may not feel good at thattime, but I tell people what they
need to hear instead of what theywant to hear, and at the end
of the day, they'll always respectme for that. And you know for
(22:03):
that, you know, I thinkwe've been successful. Absolutely, absolutely.
Um. Yeah, It's it's alwaysinteresting to hear how how people are able
to balance that care for you know, their their players, their guys,
and also and also manage the businessside. When you were a player,
you graduate from end Low High Schoolin Raleigh in nineteen ninety two. You
(22:27):
end up as the CAP five playerthat year. Obviously talk about scoring forty
eight points is a fifteen year old. Obviously the potential was there and it
was starting to show. As youmentioned. You go to North Carolina Central
junior year over twenty three points agame, school record for three pointers made.
Senior year, your CIA player theyear m a wonderful career at North
(22:52):
Carolina Central as you were as youwere leaving school, and you go on
to play professionally in Indonesian and Israel. But if you were leaving school,
what were your your future aspirations atthat point? Just to get my mother
out the projects, because we werestill in the projects. You know,
it was getting worse, and Iknew it was going to get worse before
(23:15):
it got better. And I sacrificedmy social life while I was in school
to get my mother out the projects. You know, it's it's really difficult
for me at home coming down becauseyou know, people come back and they
speak, and I feel bad becauseI don't know their names, you know.
And the reason I don't know theirnames is because I didn't do a
(23:37):
whole lot of fun activities that collegestudents should normally do when they're in school,
because I sacrificed that to be inthe gym and work and improved so
I could take care of my mother. And that's just what it was.
So the first day, you know, I left school, I was ready
to leave school, but because Iwas preparing myself for that moment, and
(24:02):
it was a vow that I hadmade to myself ever since I was probably
seven eight years old, that Iwas going to take care of my mother
playing this game one day and insteadof allowing her to leave a paycheck to
paycheck, because I didn't think therewas a single individual on the face of
the earth that worked harder than mymother. So I knew I was going
to have to step in and be, you know, the patriarch that provide
(24:22):
it of my family and probably firstgeneration success of what society deemed us a
successful according to that standard. SoI remember going to supersionist camp first,
and I had a great camp,and I was there with my mentor,
(24:44):
Nate McMillan, who grew up downthe street from me, and I had
a great camp, and I reallyproved that I could play at the NBA
level and score because once again,the NBA was easy to me because it
was one on one basketball. Sothat's I grew up doing that my entire
life. Unfortunately, it didn't workout. So I went overseas, and
you know, my first my firststep was in Indonesia, and I really
(25:10):
didn't want to go because the flightwas twenty seven hours like it was,
it was ridiculous, and they atthe time, the difference was thirteen hours.
But I would just remember saying tomyself, like, how many times
did my mother walked out of thisdoor with her not feeling good? And
if you only do things when ondays that you feel good, you're not
going to accomplish a lot, youknow. So I made that commitment and
(25:32):
sacrifice because she made the commitment andsacrifice to me, And with my first
check, I gave it to herand I said, what kind of home
did you? I said, whatkind of home do you want? And
the answer that she told me,it's still it still baffles me to this
day. And she said, Ijust went a home with grass, And
it just froze me, and itjust made me think that this woman had
(25:57):
worked her entire life to take ifher family can do the best that she
possibly can with working two and threejobs, and on her day of reward,
she just told me she just wenther home where it's some grass outside,
because she had been surrounded by concreteand the projects her entire life.
(26:19):
And that is kind of fitting anda microcosm of our life and our upbringing,
you know, because the surroundings havealways been tough in infirm in brutal,
and I just wanted to soften itup a little bit, and we
moved, and she won't move outthe house to this day. You know.
(26:41):
I asked her like two or threeyears ago, like, mana,
come on, let's move. Nope, I don't want to move anymore.
She's she's found her modest home andshe loves it. And it has plenty
of backyard where you know, nowmy grand my kids, her grandkids can
just run over there and playing theyard, and she can sit on the
porch and watch him. And that'sall she ever wanted out of life,
So she suppressed her own ones justso mine could be fulfilled. And I'll
(27:03):
always love a respective for that.That's incredible. That's an incredible story.
Yet, and good you. Propsto you for being able to pull that
off. And as you go,you play professionally overseas, obviously good experiences
there. But then how did itactually happen then that you go from professional
(27:26):
basketball player to middle school coach.I'm a firm believer that, you know,
my steps have been ordered by God, and it's my job just to
work as hard as I possibly canand everything will fall into place. And
you don't understand it as you're takingthose steps, but as you elevate and
(27:52):
evolve and look back down the stairs, you understand how he was setting you
up. And I guess what I'msaying is there were relationships of human beings
that that that I've encountered along theway has. It's so difficult to explain.
I'm playing overseas and I'm kind ofgetting tired of it, because now
(28:15):
you know, the seasons is teneleven months long. If you make the
playoffs, you come home for maybeforty days thirty five days, and now
you gotta head right back. Ididn't even feel like a US citizen.
I felt more like a foreigner.And I'm at a summer league at Saint
Augustin's that it was a huge summerleague at the time, and one of
(28:37):
my mentors saying, man, howmany more years you want to play?
And I said, O don't know, and he said, man, it's
a coaching job at West Mebbrook ifyou're interested. He said, man,
call this number. And I gotthe number with no intentions of calling.
But as I'm driving home, Isay, man, let me let me
try this out. I called thenumber and the lady that's doing the hiring.
(29:00):
It's my seventh grade teacher who wasmy favorite teacher of all time.
And I did not even I didn'tknow it. And she said, are
you serious, like you would beinterested in coaching here? And I said
yeah, and she said, well, come over on Monday. I come
over on Monday and she showed methe school and I was already familiar with
the school, and she said,there's so many kids here that remind me
(29:22):
of you when you were at thatage, and she said you would be
great. And once she said that, you know, it kind of stuck
with me and kind of permeated throughand I said, you know what,
I think I want to try.So at the same time, I had
an offer from Delaware State to bethe assistant coach for eighty five thousand dollars
a year, and I chose theWest Millbrook job. So it was my
(29:47):
assistant principal, Cilia Seldon, whowas my seventh grade teacher, my favorite
teacher, one of my favorite teachersof all time, her and Kate Evans,
and they hired me at West Millbrook. And I think in return,
in hindsight, I'm thinking they kindof pulled the fast on on on me
because after two weeks on the job, they said, you know what,
(30:08):
they caught me in the office.They said, these kids absolutely love you.
How about you be interested in teaching. And I'm saying, nah,
I'm not going to teach. Idon't know how to teach it. She
said, no, you love it, and you know, she talked me
into that, and I went backand I got my teacher certification, and
you know, the rest is history. Before we get even to you coaching
(30:30):
it at the college level, you'rea head coach. And I don't care
whether it's you know, in theMEAC or in high school or wherever you're
now coaching middle schoolers, but you'rea head coach. And so what are
some of the things you learned earlyon in that job? You know,
(30:53):
the best the best advice I've learnedearly on is it actually came from my
mom. And you know, itwasn't going as I thought it should go.
And I went home one day andI was complaining to her and she
said, she said, it's notthose kids fault, it's your fault.
(31:15):
And I was like, what youmean. She said, you're coaching those
kids as if they're you coach thosekids as if they're them, they said,
And it made all the sense inthe world. She said, Those
kids don't play the same game.Don't play the game for the same reason
that you played the game for.You played because it was a matter of
(31:37):
life and death for you, itwas a savior. For them, it's
middle school. It's just leisure tothem. It's something that they want to
do. So you're trying to pushthem to become who and what you wanted
it to be for you, andthey don't want to go that way.
And that's where the disconnectors coming from. And it was the best advice I've
(31:57):
ever learned in my life, andI've taken it in the coaching industry with
me now because even at this level, the perception is they played a game
for the same reason I played it, And it's one of the the casualties
of being a former player and aplayer that had a decent resume that was
decent. You know, at thegame, you expect them to work the
(32:20):
way you work. You expect themto play as hard as you played.
You expect the game to mean tothem what it meant to you, and
that's not necessarily the case. SoI've learned to approach it and allow to
have them my perspective on it,but still coach them for what they're trying
(32:40):
to accomplish and not what I'm tryingto accomplish. And that made it much
easier, especially at the middle schoollevel. I love it. I love
it. You move on to highschool coaching. You're extremely successful at Anderson
High School fifty nine and twenty fiverecord back to back CAP seven championships.
(33:01):
You end up as an assistant inNorth Carolina Central in two thousand and seven
and then March twenty fifteen, thousandand nine. For a man who appreciates
dates, what do you recollect aboutthe day that you were named head coach
at North Carolina Central. I rememberthe call and I didn't think I had
(33:23):
a possibility of getting the job,and you know, our staff had just
got let go when I was anassistant, and I called my high school
principal and I said, can Ihave my whole job back? And my
wife said, why don't you applyfor the head coaching job here? I
said, I'm not. They're notgoing to hire me. I have them
(33:43):
to ze road coaching experience and thenmaking a transition into Division one and you
know, as I was, Iwas hearing the names of others, you
know, who was who resumes wasfar longer than mine and more accomplished in
my who were head coaches that previousyou know, locations, et cetera,
(34:04):
and settlement. And I just didn'tfeel like I had a chance. And
my wife said, well, youyou're a man of faith, like you
gotta believe and you got to speakthat into existence and you got to try,
and you'll never know unless you try. So I went and I thought
they were giving me an interview justfor sympathy, just because of them.
(34:25):
You know, you're alarm. WillOkay, we'll give you an interview and
then we'll kindly say thank you,but no thank you, don't call us,
we'll call you. And I rememberwalking into the interview and not one
question did they ask me about basketball. It was just all about leadership and
it was all about management, andit was all about delegation and you know,
(34:45):
CEO type of things. And Ithought I knocked the interview out the
park. And a couple of dayslater, I remember doctor Nam's calling.
He said, Lavelle, how wouldyou like to be my next coach at
North Carolina? Centri and my kneesgot week and I was standing and I
had to sit down because I waslike, I would love to And you
(35:08):
know, with that press conference,I remember because my daughter was born on
March to twelfth, so it wasthirteen days. The press conference was actually
thirteen days after her birth, youknow, so I was on cloud nine
because I was celebrating the birth ofmy first child and also my first head
coaching job, so you know,it was it was God's blessings. And
(35:29):
I remember at the press conference,you know, I told them, and
I also told the interview team thatyou know, they were to hire me.
You know, I was. Iwas kind of going in there like
Muhammad Ali and just predicting what roundI was going to knock someone out in
because I had knocked anyone out,so I was just you know, making
(35:50):
all the predictions. And I said, if you hired me, I said,
we'll win a MEAC championship in fiveyears, we'll be the ACC school
and we'll go to the final four. And everyone laughed because at the time
we had only won three two gamesto previous year and it was going to
be an uphill climb, you know, in terms of this transformation to Division
(36:12):
one. But I'm proud to saywe've checked two of those two out of
three of those boxes, and youknow, we have one more to check
off. So it was an incredibleday for myself and my family. It's
pretty remarkable, and as you mentioned, it wasn't easy though. I mean,
people look at the success now andthey see now you talk about a
resume, I mean, you've builtsome impressive resume. But that first year
(36:36):
seven and twenty two, and thenthe improvement fifteen and fifteen, the next
year seventeen and fifteen as your firstyear competing in the Mediac tournament, I
think you were fifth seed that year. It's and then twenty two and nine
with a fifteen one conference rector,twenty eight and six, fifteen and one
conference rector. Did you go tothe NCAA Tournament reaches second round? How
(37:01):
did you turn this program around?Well? I think, um, you
know, and it's it's so manyit's kind of a loaded question because it
really wasn't about me. The firstthing that you have to do that you
(37:21):
have to get basketball players into yourprogram that can play. UM, any
coach will tell you that. Idon't I don't care how great of a
coach they think they are, howstrategic, how great they are with exers
and those. I tell people allthe time, you give me Chris Paul
and you take RuPaul, and we'llsee who win this game with all the
exers. Like that's that's It's justthat simple. So it's not the Exers
(37:45):
and those, it's the Jimmis andJones. But what we had to do
was establish a culture. That wasthe first thing. And we were gonna
live by truth, and we weregonna live it well, we were gonna
tell it and we were gonna takeit. And I needed a staff that
could make these guys better, umthat I wanted to work with on a
(38:07):
day to day basis, that exhibitedthe passion and energy to develop these young
men both on the floor and offthe floor. And we were going to
be sticklers of time. We weregoing to have extreme discipline. You know,
everything was going to start fifteen minutesprior to If you were on time,
then you were late. Those arethe things that I just basically ran
(38:29):
my program the way helped my grandmotherand my mother ran their homes. And
that's exactly what I did. Andyou know, I we established some core
beliefs and you know, we don'tcompromise any of those things, and we
still hold those standards true to whowe are. Um, I tell you
(38:49):
this, And it was one thingI knew I had to establish. I
remember going to these companies and seeingthe mission statements, you know, these
Fortune five hundred companies, and seeingthe mission statements on the wall, and
I would hear people within it inthe company complained, whether it was a
school system or you know, whetherit was a Fortune five hundred company.
(39:15):
Don't want to say anybody names,but you know I have a few of
mine. And the mission statement waslike three paragraphs long. And I said,
man, that that don't make system. You know, because the people
that's complaining, if I pulled anyoneto the side and ask them what's the
mission statement of this company, theywouldn't be able to tell me. So
(39:35):
therefore, how if we're all workingtowards one goal, how do we know
what goal we're working to if weall can't even identify the mission statement.
So it became, you know,the creative ways of a coach, and
I went back to lean on me. I don't know if you remember that
movie in the movie Morgan Freeman likehe he had to change the culture,
(40:01):
right. He had a culture thathe had to switch quick fast, in
a hurry. And he started,I didn't identifying kids, and he will
pull them to the side, andyou needed to know the school song on
the spot, and he will makeyou sing that song. And I said,
you know what, that's how we'regoing to be here. Not to
the extent of Morgan Freeman, butwe have to have a mission statement that
(40:23):
everyone can identify and everyone knows,and therefore they know what we're working towards.
So to this day, if youask any kid on my basketball team,
they will tell you all philosophy.As basketball is a game. Games
are meant to be fine. Ain'tno fun losing, so you might as
well win. That's all philosophy.It's simplistic, as juvenile, it's whatever.
(40:43):
But everyone knows, and everyone iscapable of identifying back, and we
all know what we're working towards.And I just think like simplicity is the
key. But I wanted everyone tounderstand, let's not try to win championships,
like we'll get it there. ButI'm a firm believer you can't win
a championship in March if you're notgoing to class in September. So we
(41:07):
hold everyone accountable, and I believethat we got to win every day.
And once you take care of everyday in the classroom, in the weight
room, and practice and work outin the dorms, if you're able to
win those days, then eventually youwin championships. But if you can't win
(41:27):
those days early on, nowhere inthe world would you ever win a championship
in March, because the same disciplinethat's required in August, September, October,
so on, and so forth.It's the same discipline that's required to
win a championship in March. Ilove it. I love it. There
was a tweet that you had onLebron James from back in May, and
(41:52):
we picked up some steam. ButI thought I appreciated it, and you
said a coach email me hoping tojoin my staff. I look at this
Twitter and he says Lebron is overrated. If you think lb who you going
to recruit? So right right,get you tell me about how how did
(42:14):
that tweet come about? Yeah?I actually left out you know, some
worries because of the one hundred andforty character or left thing you know.
So I was trying to squeeze thatentire premise of his email into the hundred
and forty characters. And not onlydid he say Lebron was overrated, he
said, you know, he wassome trash and you know, like he
(42:36):
didn't have a great opinion on Lebron. And I'm looking at his page and
I'm just thinking to myself, likewow. And I try to use my
Twitter as a platform to kind ofas information because information is vital. So
I have some information that others maynot have, and I try to share
it on my platform to help enhancetheir quality of life and their professional careers
(42:59):
or whether they want to go.And in this particular case, it was
more like, wow, you thinkLebron is trash look regard and I you
know, I know Lebron personally,and I knew this guy hadn't met him
personally, So I'm like, Ijust didn't understand it. Like you can't.
I don't care if you're a Clevelandfan, I don't care who you're
(43:19):
a fan of. If you area fan of basketball, you cannot look
at Lebron James and say he's trashlike anybody say, I don't like him.
I hate him. He killed mybest team, but whatever, I
don't but respect the man's basketball ability. And this guy just had absolutely zero
respect for the greatest player on Eartharguably. But you're trying to join my
staff. So I'm saying, whoare you going to go recruit for me?
(43:43):
If you think Lebron James is trash? I don't think we're getting anyone
better than that, you know,So I just I just had to inform
him, and you know, itwas a perfect platform and opportunity just let
younger coaches know. Like, youknow, we hear this thing about coach
are always looking at prospects Twitter pagesand social media accounts or whatever, but
(44:04):
we're also looking at potential coaching hiresas well. We're looking at your Twitter
in your social media account as well. So you know, I hope the
lesson was was was made, thepoint was made, and I hope it
was served as a value but learninglessons for not only that coach but others.
A lot of people saw that andand the story could have ended there.
(44:25):
My favorite part about the story isthat afterwards there were somewhere I saw
you were quoted. You said,Hey, just so people know, though
we don't have any open positions onour staff. Yeah, and that was
that was the other saying, like, you know, and for what is
worth, I have no availability,right, you know, but this guy
was just you know, saying,hey, coach, if anybody leave.
And I get those emails all thetime. I'm sure if I check my
(44:47):
email to day is at least fiveof them, you know, as I
get those all the time about someonewanting to you know, cultivate a relationship
and be the next guy on thestaff, and you know, et cetera,
et cetera. But you know,I didn't even have any of abilities,
and you know, that guy justcan't I can't explain any incredible Lastly,
(45:07):
lastly, coach, I know,you know you've had this tremendous success
um, but there are also thechallenges when you when you're playing the MEAC
and you talk about, you know, going to a final four and for
an HBCU. I mean, peoplewill say that that that's impossible, you
know that that you know, justeven going to the NCAA tournament, usually
(45:28):
putting that the first four game,which I think is a travesty. I
think for these schools that that earntheir way into the NCAA Tournament. I
think you should be in uh dayone when lights are on on on Thursday.
And I don't think that you couldbe participating necessarily in a playing game,
because I think those kids should getthat that opportunity and they've earned that
(45:50):
right. All that being said,I know there are a lot of schools
that would love to have you asas a head coach, you know,
at at a higher profile program,and you were quoted as saying I can't
mess with happiness. Now. Obviouslythat probably doesn't speak for for your entire
coaching career, but but for rightnow. Um so, why is it
that that you've decided to it rightat this moment at least stay where you're
(46:16):
at and continue to do what you'redoing. Um, you know the Well,
first of all, I love thisplace. Um you know, it's
it's home for me. Um.You know, my family's heid my mother's
said, you know so, andand I guess being from where I'm from,
(46:38):
like, loyalty is a it's ahuge word for me, Like it's
been, it's been something that isa high priority of mine in this place.
You know, I've always tried toremain as loyal as I possibly could
because they gave me my career,they believed in me when no one else
(46:58):
didn't. But that said, Ido on standard. It's a business.
Um. And as of recent youknow, the last interview I had was,
UM, I'm sure everyone knows it'sthe East Carolina thing and UM,
you know their situation at that particulartime, I just didn't feel like it
was best for me. UM.I think East Carolina's an outstanding university.
(47:22):
UM. I feel like, youknow, it's a potential gold mine.
UM. You know, but whenI was going through the interview process,
you know one thing I've always beenattracted to. It's it's stability, you
know, be and partly in largebecause I grew up without it. UM,
(47:43):
so I always sought it. Andyou know, they were having some
challenges with their program, but theydidn't have an athletic director and that concerned
me. UM. You know,So for me to make a make a
career move and put my family ina position to migrade and go elsewhere,
UM, I have no problem doingthat. But I did want to know
(48:05):
who I would be working for becauseI think that constitutes a good, that
constitutes a job right now and forfor anyone. It's you know, the
first thing people want to know iswho am I working for? Well,
I couldn't answer that question because theydidn't have a athletic direct at that time.
And the guy that was an interviewingme, M. Dave Hart,
who's incredible by the way, andI was hoping he would become the ad
(48:29):
there. He didn't have any interestin being the AD after he was doing
the basketball search. So just steppingout there without any stability and that security,
you know, I just don't thinkat this point in my career my
family deserved that. And it wasyou know, time and is everything.
(48:52):
And that's nothing against any university.It's just you know, the time and
was everything. So I'm sure there'llbe other opportunities. You know, they've
been other opportunities that we've been approachedand we respectfully decline because of you know,
some schools were just in the northeast. My wife don't want to go
(49:13):
back to the northeast, you know, sou and we speak about it as
a as a family all the time. And you know, another thing is
North Carolina kind of spoils you.You know, North Carolina is a great
place to raise a family. It'snot too fast, it's not too slow.
It's plenty of green, it's affordable, it's cheap, it's growing,
it's it's tremendous. You know,it's it's a college life. You know,
(49:36):
your mother's here. You have allthese things that come into place.
So um, it's almost like ifyou're going to leave holly Berry, you
gotta leave holly Berry for Beyonce.I guess if I could use that another
day, you know, so um, But you know, we've definitely been
fortunate and blessed to have other opportunitiespresented. And I'm sure, um,
(50:00):
you know, when the right onecome along, we'll know in our gut
will tell us as the same wayas told us about every other decision we've
ever made in my life. Well, Coach, I just want to say
that, Um. You know,I talked to a lot of coaches,
and a lot of a lot ofthem are very inspirational and have some unbelievable
(50:21):
insight. But I don't know thatI've ever spoken to a coach that's that's
been more inspirational, has had greaterinsight. And the already in that is
that you talk about, you know, as you were growing up that that
that that was missing from your life, and now I can just see how
many people you provided that for forfor others. So I just want to
thank you for jumping on the podcast, but more importantly just sharing your story
(50:44):
and um, you know inspire me, and I know that that you're going
to be inspiring so many others justlike you already have. And I just
really want to thank you for yourtime and and uh and and for all
you have to offer. Thank youso much. I really appreciate it,
man, I had I really enjoyedits same here, same here. So
Lavelle molten Uh guest on the fourtyYear Coach podcast again. You can learn
(51:07):
more about the four of Year CoachPodcast, as well as the rest of
our services by checking out four toyear Coach dot com. We're also on
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. OnTwitter, we're at forty year Coach.
You follow me on Twitter Adam Stancoat Nasmith Lives In a special thanks to
Sydney Smith and as well as HR K and h We'll catch you next
(51:28):
time for su
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