‘He left a legacy’: York community mourns long-time basketball coach, leader

More than 1,000 people filled the pews Saturday at West End Baptist Church to bury a man his family said helped many people in the York community.

Charles Latta, 67, who died after a car crash Tuesday, was an avid basketball fan who coached the Carolina Stompers Girls basketball team and the McConnells Bulldogs baseball team.

One of his seven children, Ivory Latta, was a York Comprehensive High School basketball standout and went on to play at the University of North Carolina and with the WBNA.

Charles Latta was buried in a blue casket with the UNC logo. His family sat in the front pews wearing all white.

During a song from the Mt. Do-Well Choir, family members stood up and sang along.

Pastor Rogerlene Sanders called Charles a giver.

“I know you are going to weep, I know you are going to cry, and I know your hearts are going to be heavy,” Sanders said. “But he left you a legacy.”

He said while Parkinson’s disease affected Charles’ body for more than a decade, God saw him standing tall.

“He looked like a weak man, but he was a strong man,” Sanders said. “Yes, he was an athlete, but he was God’s athlete first.”

His wife, Chenna, said her husband was a “magnet” for children who wanted to learn to play basketball and for others who had problems.

“Once they saw what he was doing with someone they knew, they wanted to get in line,” she said Thursday. “That’s powerful that one person could do what he did.”

He “could not be duplicated,” she said.

In addition to their children, the Lattas have nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

“There was nobody that has taken so much of their lives, of themselves and of their family and shared it like he did,” she said.

This story was originally published August 4, 2018 at 4:16 PM.