John Mosley, men’s basketball coach at East Los Angeles College, inspires students in Alhambra (2024)

John Mosley appeared to have the attention of a couple of hundred students at Emery Park Elementary School (K-8) in Alhambra on Friday, March 4. The East Los Angeles College men’s basketball coach made sure of it, though.

“It’s not about the scoreboard,” Mosley said, standing on the stage in the school auditorium. “It’s about winning in life. And winning the position that you’re in right now.”

He challenged them.

“How many of you are winning right now where you’re sitting?” said Mosley, whose ELAC team was featured in the Netflix documentary series “Last Chance U: Basketball.”

He asked: “How many of you are sitting with good posture? How many of you are sitting with good energy and with good effort and focus and listening and concentrating and being engaged in the conversation and what’s really going on?

And again: “How many of you are winning right now? That’s what it’s all about. I share that with my student-athletes all the time.”

Mosley talked about winning the day, in several ways. Not just on the court, but also in the classroom and in life in general. He talked about winning in relationships, how if someone is bumped into while in the school lunch line, to win by being cool rather than hot about it.

“Instead of saying, ‘Shoot, stop it, move. What are you doing?’ Instead of screaming at them for bumping into your plate, maybe you win that moment and you say, ‘It’s OK, I understand, it was an accident,’ ” Mosley said. “Guess what? You just won that person.”

Core values, Mosley said. That’s what it’s all about.

He even talked about winning from the moment one gets up in the morning, starting with a proper brushing of the teeth with a toothbrush, not one’s finger sliding across the teeth.

That drew laughter, but his point was made.

He took things a step further.

“How many of you have built a relationship with someone that no one wants to talk to or be around or have a relationship with?” he said.

Hands were raised.

Mosley is in his 10th season at ELAC. He took a struggling program and turned it into a perennial playoff team, having coached the Huskies to eight consecutive postseason appearances before this season.

He entered this season having led ELAC to a record of 189-50. It is 25-4 this season to make that record 214-54, and on Saturday his team will play at West L.A. College for the right to advance to the Final Eight of the CCCAA (California Community College Athletic Association) state tournament.

His team was 29-1 and ranked No. 2 in the state in 2020, on its way to the Final Eight, but the tournament was canceled because of the onset of COVID-19.

He guided the Huskies to the 2014-15 state championship game, but they lost 50-47 to Saddleback College.

Mosley and the ELAC program became instantly famous when they were featured in eight episodes of the Netflix series, which debuted in March 2021.

His coaching style is intense, to be sure. In the first episode, he is upset that his players don’t seem to be doing what he wants during practice. His demonstrative way of getting his point across is met with raised eyebrows from one player. Another player can be heard saying, “He about to pass out.”

“I’m gonna coach you hard and I’m gonna be truthful and I’m gonna be honest,” Mosley says, during an interview in the episode. “That’s what kids are looking for.”

In another instance, he lets his players know he is more concerned with how they go about playing, rather than being perfect on the court.

“If you got motor and energy, I don’t care about no mistakes,” he shouts.

Mosley also noted that some thought he was crazy for taking the job at ELAC in the first place, even though he played there himself as a point guard — twice he was named All-Conference and he also made the All-State team as an honorable mention.

He previously was an assistant coach at Cal State Bakersfield and The Master’s College, where he also played for two years after playing at ELAC.

He said he got the job at ELAC after having been fired at CSUB, along with the rest of the staff.

He remembers people telling him not to take the job at ELAC. Typically, junior college teams are filled with players who might have academic issues preventing them from playing at a higher level, players who bounce-back from Division 1 programs — sometimes because of attitude problems — or perhaps they just aren’t good enough to play anywhere else.

“Man, East L.A. College, they said, ‘What are you doing, why are you taking that job? It’s the worst job in the state of California,’ ” he said, on the Netflix series. “And I didn’t see it that way. I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna be there, so it won’t be.’ “

It’s this kind of determination that makes Mosley just the type of individual who should be speaking to youngsters, who should be coaching in the junior college ranks.

“Our school is a community-driven school and myself and our educators here, we want to inspire our students,” said Emery Park principal Jeremy Infranca. “And we want to find inspiration out there and bring it to them. I personally watched the episodes of Last Chance U and I was in complete awe of Coach Mosley.”

Mosley is also a professor of kinesiology at ELAC.

“So in my conversations with him, he said, ‘I can come up, but I’ve gotta teach first,’ ” Infranca said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s in the middle of a state playoff run. Last night, he won. His team won, they’re in the Sweet 16 for the state playoffs. And he’s making time to come here with Netflix cameras watching his every move.’ I think it’s amazing.”

After he was done speaking, Mosley talked about where his spirit to mentor and motivate originated.

“I was fortunate enough, man, that my dad was kind of a little bit like that,” Mosley said.

“And then just the desire to help people. That part comes from, I believe, my faith, my relationship with God. Those two things, my dad and then my faith is where I got it from. I was fortunate enough to have good parents (his mom is Lana Mosley) who inspired me. And then I’m competitive. I love when I see people do well.”

School ASB president Michaela Aston was inspired by Coach Mosley’s dynamic 45-minute speech.

“I play rugby, soccer and track & field,” she said. “It was really helpful in realizing that, yeah, I’m not always going to win first place and be the best athlete out there. But as long as I’m giving my all and putting my heart out there, I’m going to be OK.”

When the rest of the 2020 playoffs were canceled because of the pandemic, Mosley had some words of wisdom for his players that are a reflection of his character, his core values.

“Everybody’s going through it, so it’s not just like us as a team,” he said, on Episode 8 of Last Chance U: Basketball. “So how you feeling, everybody’s feeling that way.”