NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL ATHLETICS

North Carolina Central basketball coach LeVelle Moton's dedication to community earned him his own statue in a Raleigh park.

LeVelle Moton and I have an understanding. He can never retire. Never. Ever. Not as long as I’m at The Tribune anyway.

Moton is too good for business. Retweet one of his many ingenious tweets, and we snag several followers. Post his basketball jersey retirement ceremony on our YouTube page, and it breaks our viewership record.

So when word came down last week that a sculpture in his likeness was going to be created and installed at Lane Street Mini-Park, soon to be called Moton Mini-Park, yours truly stopped everything to post it on our social media channels. And he didn’t disappoint.

It wasn’t all self-promotion, however. No one is more deserving.

Everyone knows Moton’s story by now. His mother moved the family to the Lane Street area when he and his brother were children. To say they were poor would be like saying sugar is sweet. But his mother and grandmother wouldn’t allow poverty as an excuse to fail.

He was a star high school player at Enloe High in Raleigh, and an even bigger star at North Carolina Central, where he is No. 3 on the program’s all-time scoring list. Since being named the Eagles head coach in 2009, NCCU has recorded just one losing season, four MEAC championships and five postseason appearances.

But what Moton has given back to the community is priceless: the VelleCares Foundation which salutes single mothers, back to school community day at the Raleigh Boys and Girls Club, and the recently announced Raleigh Raised Development Group. The company, founded by Moton, Terrell Midgett and Clarence Mann, is a new construction company specializing in commercial and residential properties.

“It was important for me to honor residents and family (mom, brother and grandmother) that helped me along the way as well,” Moton wrote in an email. …”It’s a surreal experience when members of that community request to take a picture with you in front of the signage. I lost so many friends along the way, due to death or incarceration from Lane Street. I’ll forever be grateful to God for keeping his hand on a broken kid and seeing him through.”

The city has put out a call for applications for the sculpture. (Would hate to try to fill those shoes.) Visit its website at raleigh-nc.org. Deadline to apply is Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. Three semifinalists will be chosen and given a $250 stipend to create a proposed sketch. The sculpture budget is $15,000.

Howard, Duke partner in Classic
Howard and Duke men’s basketball teams have partnered to co-host the Mako Medical Duke Classic next month. The four-team event will also honor Duke’s first black faculty surgeon, the late Dr. Onye E. Akwari.

Dr. Akwari’s legacy intertwines the two universities. He organized the first meeting of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons in 1989, and one of the participants was a doctor named LaSalle Leffall Jr., the chair of surgery at Howard.

“The connections for so many of us trace back to our time at Duke, and to those who invested in me not only as a player but as a person and as a man,” said Howard coach Kenneth Blakeney, who played under Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski in the early 1990s. “Dr. Akwari was one of those people who showed incredible kindness and support while serving as an exemplary model, scholar, administrator and African American male.”

Howard will play Bellarmine University on Dec. 6 and Elon on Dec. 8. More details to come.

Bonitta Best is sports editor at The Triangle Tribune in Durham.

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