CIAA Hall of Fame induction means ‘everything’ to NCCUs Levelle Moton
It didn’t seem real to LeVelle Moton until he saw his face on the marquee outside of the Spectrum Center in downtown Charlotte. That’s when it sunk in for the North Carolina Central coach.
Someone sent the 45 year-old Moton the picture this week as the CIAA celebrates its 75th conference tournament and, like every year, honors its latest Hall of Fame class. That class included Moton, a former guard for the Eagles, who terrorized the conference during his playing days (1992-96) and was brought back to be inducted into the John B. McLendon Hall of Fame class of 2020.
Moton is part of a five-member class that includes the 1983 Virginia Union women’s basketball team, former Livingstone guard Antonio Davis, Virginia Union guard A.J. English and longtime official Leslie Speight.
Moments before the event started Moton sat at a table with Hall of Famer Bill Hayes, the former NCCU coach who had a hand in hiring Moton. Moments later Saint Augustine’s athletic director George Williams, another CIAA Hall of Fame member, joined the group. Moton grew up four blocks from SAU and has known Williams for decades. As the legends talked, Moton sat in silence, soaking it all up like a sponge. Less than an hour later, he would join the icons of the conference in the same Hall of Fame.
“I lean on them and rely on them so much,” Moton said. “I call them all the time. Those guys, anything that you’ve been through as a man, as a coach, as a person, they’ve been through it 10 times over. They serve as, not only mentors, but father figures to me.”
The father figures looked down like proud parents as Moton, dressed in gray suit with a maroon tie, NCCU colors, took the stage. Never one to shy away from the big moment, Moton, who was joined at the event by his family, friends and members of the NCCU athletic department, said it didn’t hit him that he was in the Hall of Fame until he sat down on a white sofa on the stage. For almost 10 minutes Moton talked about his life — everything from his upbringing in Raleigh, to signing with NCCU without having stepped foot on campus — much to the delight of the crowd.
They laughed as he joked about his nickname during his playing days ‘Poetry In Motion’ and hung on his every word as he told the story of beating the odds to make it out of a rough neighborhood in Southeast Raleigh. Moton verbally committed to Michigan State coming out of Enloe High School, then the coach at the time called and told him he planned on retiring in the near future.
Greg Jackson, the coach at NCCU at the time, knew a friend of the family, set up a home meeting with Moton and his mom, and the rest is history.
By the time he left Durham, Moton was the program’s third all-time leading scorer with 1,714 points. He is first in 3-pointers made (213), third in free throws (363), fifth in assists (278), eighth in field goals (569) and ninth in steals (110).
In 1996 Moton was named the CIAA Player of the Year. That season he averaged 21.3 points per game. As a player, Moton was a NCAA Division II All-American Honorable Mention selection twice and was a two-time All-CIAA First Team selection.
Of course, Moton wasn’t the only honoree Friday morning.
In 1983 the Panthers went 27-2 and became the first CIAA team to win the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
Davis, now the women’s coach at Elizabeth City State University, was one of the best shooters in college basketball during his time playing for the Blue Bears. For his career he shot 56 percent from the field, 53 percent from 3 and 94 percent from the foul line, the only known player to finish his career with 50/50/90 shooting percentages, which has not been done since in college basketball. While on stage he talked about almost burning the house down, shooting balled up pieces of paper into a lamp.
English scored 2,396 points for the Panthers from 1986-1990 and won a national championship at VUU. A state player of the year as a prep star in Delaware, English recalled his first visit to Virginia Union. After taking trips to some big time Division I programs like Villanova and Temple, English told the crowd at the Charlotte Convention Center he had never seen that kind of talent before like what he saw during his visit to Richmond.
English was drafted by the Washington Bullets in the second round (37th overall) of the 1990 NBA draft. He played in the NBA until 1993.
Speight started officiating in the CIAA in 1983 and stayed with the conference until 2004, calling more than 500 college football and basketball games.
Moton returned to coach his alma mater in 2007 as an assistant and was named head coach in 2009. Since then Moton has led the Eagles to the NCAA Tournament four times, including the last three seasons. Under Moton, NCCU has won three MEAC regular season championships. NC Central joined the CIAA in 1928 and left in 1970, only to return 10 years later. The Eagles left the CIAA again in 2007 to move to Division I.
Upon hearing about his selection to the Class of 2020, some of Moton’s former players talk about the impact he had in their lives, away from the basketball court.
“He’s the most influential coach I’ve ever had,” former Eagles’ guard Larry McKnight said. “He knows exactly what to do to bring the best out of you and he demands nothing less. Playing for him helped me grow as a player and as a person.”
Former forward Kyle Benton added: “He is more of a father figure in the lessons he taught. Even when he jokes around, which is quite often, there are still important messages in those jokes. He gave his teams insight on not only what it means to be a young man but how to thrive as a young black man in this society.”
The Eagles have three games remaining in the regular season, starting with a game at South Carolina State tomorrow. Shortly after the Hall of Fame ceremony, the team bus was scheduled to swing through Charlotte to pick up Moton. Since his season is still in full swing, Moton hadn’t had time to fully process what this means. It all hit like a ton of bricks once he got under the lights Friday morning.
“That dream has now become a reality,” Moton said. “It was phenomenal to say the least.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 1:40 PM with the headline "CIAA Hall of Fame induction means ‘everything’ to NCCUs Levelle Moton."
