LeVelle Moton learned of life, basketball at Lane Street park. Now it will bear his name.
Growing up, Lane Street Mini Park in Southeast Raleigh was sort of a sanctuary for N.C. Central basketball coach LeVelle Moton.
His mom, Hattie McDougald, didn’t see it that way at first. While a young Moton wanted to head to the park to work on his basketball skills, his mother wanted him to avoid it because of all the extracurricular activities that went on there.
“It was so much violence happening every day she feared me being hurt,” Moton told the N&O in a phone call on Tuesday. “She never wanted me to go up there.”
The park and the surrounding area was a haven for drug activity and high crime. It was not the place his mother wanted her son socializing, with so many distractions that could steer him in the wrong direction. But Moton was persistent. Each day, basketball in hand, he made his way to the park, as his mother eventually became convinced that something good might come out of it.
“It got to a point that she was like, ‘this kid loves basketball so much he’s willing to put it all on the line to go there,’” Moton recalled.
On Tuesday, Moton was recognized for his dedication to basketball and the Lane Street Mini Park when the Raleigh City Council voted to rename the park “LeVelle Moton Park” in a unanimous 8-0 decision. The motion was made by District C Raleigh City Council member Corey Branch.
Moton was in Georgia with his team when he got the news.
“It’s crazy,” Moton said. “Normally when people name parks after you they are just naming it because you donated some money or it’s some politics behind it, but this is park is different. It’s where I grew up. It’s my park. I’ve seen so much happen at that park. I could write a movie on just that park.”
Crack was sold ‘ten yards away’ from basketball
Lane Street Mini Park is located four blocks away from the governor’s mansion in downtown Raleigh. Moton attended nearby Enloe High School, before taking his game to Durham, where he became a star for N.C. Central.
As a child, Moton recalls spending every day at the park playing basketball and avoiding pitfalls that could have sent his life in an entirely different direction. But it wasn’t just a court. In fact, he referred to it as a “multipurpose athletic facility” where you could play hoops one minute, football outside the gates the next, all while putting the spin moves on temptations.
“When I was growing up it was where they were selling crack on the block,” Moton said. “Ten yards away you had the dope boys selling crack and inside the gate you had a basketball game going on, that’s just what it was. That made it extremely dangerous. That was my mom’s biggest fear.”
But Moton never stayed away and he still doesn’t. Whenever he is in Raleigh he drives by the park. When he returned to the United States after serving as an assistant coach in the World Championships with the USA U19 team, it was the first stop he made with his gold medal in his hand. He wondered aloud how a kid from there could make it to the other side of the world representing his country.
“Although it was a tough neighborhood with its challenges,” Moton said. “It built our character. If you can make it from here you can make it from anywhere in this world.”
Growing up, Moton admitted he had problems with his name. People had a hard time spelling it, pronouncing it, generally a “weird name” to others. Raised by McDougald without a father in the picture, all Moton ever wanted was a legacy, something next to his name that carried some weight, had some merit.
“This park allows that to happen,” Moton said. “My son can say something about his father that I couldn’t say about mine. For me it’s about breaking a generational curse from my father and the last name of Moton.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 7:05 PM.
