By LUT WILLIAMS BCSP Editor
North Carolina Central head men’s basketball coach LeVelle Moton, appearing on ESPN Radio’s Sunday Morning show, called out white head coaches of major college football and basketball programs for their silence following the suffocating death of George Floyd, who died while being pinned under the knee of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin earlier in the week.
The tragic and unnecessary death of Floyd, who was handcuffed, laying on the ground on his stomach and pleading for his life while telling Chauvin and other officers “I can’t breathe,” has set off major protests all over the country.
But according to Moton, the white coaches have been all but silent.
“I have a problem with [their silence] because it seems as if black lives matter to them whenever they can benefit from it or whenever they’re getting them first downs, catching an alley-oop or shooting a [3-pointer] or whatever,” Moton said in the interview. “When it’s time for humanity to speak up on behalf of the studentathlete, it’s silent. It’s crickets. And my problem is if the murdering of black Americans is too risky of an issue for you to stand up as a leader, then who are they really playing for?”
“That right there is the problem within America,” said Moton.
He added, “The reality is a lot of these coaches have been able to create generational wealth. Their grandkids’ kids are gonna be able to live a prosperous life because athletes who were the complexion of George Floyd were able to run a football, throw a football, shoot a basketball or whatever have you, so they have been able to benefit from athletes that look like George Floyd and many more. But whenever people [who are] the complexion of George Floyd are killed, assassinated, murdered in the street in broad daylight, they’re silent.”
That last question, to my mind, is at the heart of the issue from Moton’s perspective. What he is saying is that until these young athletes and their parents start to ask that question – “Who are they really playing for?” – real change, at least as it relates to power and the economics of college athletics, is going to be difficult if not impossible.
The Black College Sports Page just finished an extensive four-part series last week on HBCU NFL Draft History showing how talented African-American football players have been methodically and systematically drained from black colleges over the last 40-plus years after their heyday beginning in the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s.
When those players were denied access to the Alabamas, Clemsons, Georgia Tech’s and Mississippis of the world, Historically Black Colleges and Universties were their only option.
Once those larger programs and their ‘so-called’ legendary football coaches – like Alabama’s Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, Ohio State’s Woody Hayes, Notre Dame’s Ara Parseghian and Clemson’s Frank Howard – and head basketball coaches from the Dukes, Kentuckys, UCLAs and Floridas of the world – realized that recruiting black athletes was the key to their success on the fields and courts, the doors to admission opened.
And this happened despite the fact that the hirings of black head coaches at these programs were and are virtually non-existent. The players are good and talented enough to be recruited but the coaches who historically nurtured that talent are not good enough to lead those programs?
And this happened despite the fact that the hirings of black head coaches at these programs were and are virtually non-existent. The players are good and talented enough to be recruited but the coaches who historically nurtured that talent are not good enough to lead those programs?
Perhaps it takes something like the tragic death of our innocent brother George Floyd and other such tragedies for us to realize that systemic racism that seeps into every aspect of society from police action to collegiate sports is the real pandemic and real disease that plagues America and this world.
Moton went on to say, “I’m seeing (white) coaches on social media dance and do all these TikToks (a site online for short-form mobile videos), these latest TikTok dances to say ‘ahh, he’s cool’ (enough) to attract black athletes. And that’s the only reason they’re doing it. And they’re re-Tweeting their accomplishments. They’re saying, ‘our programs have generated the most All-Americans and blah, blah, blah.’ And every time they Tweet something, the majority of those players look like George Floyd – ninety-percent of them. Yet and still, when these young men are being killed in the middle of broad daylight, no one has anything to say and there’s silence. They just wait until time passes and they pick back up. And I just have a major problem with that.
“. . . It’s the guys that’s pretending to say they love and care for us that’s not speaking up on our behalf. That’s the danger.
“. . . But when you can’t see that and the unknown, that’s disguising themselves as ‘1-2-3 Family’ when they break huddles and disguising themselves as father figures, then that’s my main problem right there, and that’s what we have to eliminate.”
” North Carolina Central Head Men’s Basketball Coach LeVelle Moton