ECC Success Coach Turned His Life Around through Education

Montrell Staton, a success coach at Edgecombe Community College, left a troubled youth behind and pursued higher education to create a better life for him and his family. He completed a master’s degree in May and serves as a shining example to the students he advises at ECC.

When he looks at the students he mentors, Montrell Staton sees his past – and their future.

For two years, Staton, 34, has been a success coach in Edgecombe Community College’s Academic Success Center on the Tarboro campus. He works in its PAAMES program, which stands for “Providing African American Males the Edge to Succeed.”

“African American male students are at the bottom [statistically] when it comes to retention and graduation,” he explains. Staton is part of the solution, working with at-risk young men to help them along the often-rocky path of academic study.

At the beginning of each spring and fall semester, he gets a list of about 15-20 students he’ll be working with. “My job is to reach out to the students and build rapport with them, and let them know what resources they have available to them and how I will assist them throughout their journey here at Edgecombe,” he says.

“For instance, I’ll call a student and introduce myself to him and say, ‘Hey, this is Montrell, success coach over at Edgecombe. I’ll be working with you this semester,’ ” he says. “I’ll be checking in with you twice a month to make sure everything is going well in your classes, checking in with your instructor twice a month.”

The idea is “just to keep him on top of things, getting a copy of his syllabus, helping him keep track of tests and quizzes, stuff that has major weight as far as grades or GPA,” Staton says.

Born in Tarboro and raised in Rocky Mount, Staton’s interest in his young charges, and belief in the power of education to improve lives, is more than academic, it’s personal. His life was once at the same critical juncture they face, and he readily admits he almost squandered it.

“I was terrible growing up,” he says. “I was always in trouble, couldn’t stay in school.”

He attended Nash Central High School but fell into gang activity. “I was kicked out of Nash Central for inciting a riot” between rival gang factions, “Rocky Mount against Nash County,” he says. “We were all arrested and sent to jail. … After I got out, I ran into more trouble, more gang activity.”

Ultimately, he was wounded in a shooting during a gang dispute at the RM Wilson Gym in Rocky Mount.

He credits his turnaround in part to “strong black men” he met in academics and while enrolled in the ncIMPACT program for troubled teens, men who “helped guide me, steer me on the right path,” he says. “They would just pull me aside into the office and have conversations with me and just assure me that I was going to be something good, I was going to do something great, even though at the time I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t believe it.”

He began attending ECC in pursuit of a GED but admits his transformation wasn’t instantaneous. Earning it took him “seven or eight years,” he says.

“I was playing around,” Staton explains. “I would leave campus, I would go and hang out with the guys down the street, we would do stuff, everything we thought we were big enough to do.” He was temporarily booted from the program once after getting into “some trouble” on campus, he says, and at one point, left entirely “to join the workforce.”

One day, while he was at work at McDonald’s, his future wife dropped off a document she’d just gotten from the Health Department, informing him that she was pregnant with their first child (they now have three).

“I believe my first son was the reason I got on track,” he says. “That’s when I really got serious about education, and I knew I needed it to create a better lifestyle for myself, in order to create a better lifestyle for him.”

After earning his GED, Staton graduated from ECC with an associate degree in criminal justice. He then transferred to Fayetteville State, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, also in criminal justice, and then graduated from ECC’s Basic Law Enforcement Training program in 2021.

This past May, the onetime gang member, too long on a dead-end path, capped his inspirational climb by earning a master’s degree in sociology.

He got his position at ECC after being encouraged by a cousin who saw a job application online. “He thought it was something I should apply for,” Staton says. “My intention was to go into criminal justice and work with at-risk students … so when that didn’t work out, this fell right in line.”

He said he draws on his troubled past to build rapport. “I see glimpses of myself in some of the students I work with,” he says. “And I’m able to share those lived experiences with guys and let them know that ‘Hey man, I was once in your shoes and I did this or did that,’ and I try to give them advice, and hopefully they’ll take it and not have to go through the same barriers or obstacles that I faced.”

As rewarding as the work is, it comes with disappointments, he notes. Attrition is high. “Most times I start out with anywhere from 15 to 20 students and I end up with maybe five,” he says. “And they fade out for different reasons, transportation … I had a couple leave who were in car accidents and didn’t come back. Work life … different reasons.”

Those who remain often credit him for his work – and his persistence. He spoke of one student who “always tells me how thankful he is for me calling him and keeping him abreast of his assignments.”

However, on a few occasions, the student failed to respond to Staton’s texts, emails, and phone calls. When that happens, “I show up outside of his classroom,” Staton says. “And he comes out, and he’ll look up and his eyes get real big, and he’ll say ‘I knew you were coming.’ So I tell him, ‘Man, if you don’t respond back you’ll see me outside class.’ ”

Staton says he has his sights set on continuing to build his future, and others’, at ECC.

“I think this is where I might retire, in education,” he says. “Helping give back to the community, just helping guys like myself see that anything is possible, that the sky’s the limit, and whatever you set your mind to, you definitely can achieve – no matter what circumstances or obstacles are in your way.”

“I never saw myself getting this far,” he adds. “I always felt like I was meant to do something special, but I didn’t know what exactly, and just being back here where I started, being at ground zero, is just unbelievable. Being able to come back with the same population … and help them reach higher heights, that’s my path.”