Fallen Football Hero Moore Giving It All for Wayward Youths

Never in a million post patterns did Malcolm Moore envision himself calling a place like Camp Kilpatrick home.

Moore, former wide receiver at San Fernando High, USC and in the NFL, now makes his living working 56-hour shifts at the all-boys, Los Angeles County-maintained high school for juvenile offenders.

By day, Moore is an assistant football coach, lecturing on the finer points of burning a secondary. In the evening, he is a group supervisor--counseling, consoling, even cutting the hair of the camp’s 119 students, many of whom still hold firm allegiances to rival inner-city gangs.

The job has its lows. There are fights to be broken up and disciplinary measures to be taken. There are problems to be resolved and frustrations to be dealt with--sometimes Moore’s.

“Sometimes you look at some of these kids and you want to spank them,” Moore said. “You think, ‘All you need is a good . . . whupping and you’ll be all right.’ But you can’t do that. So you try to deal with them on a psychological level or some way other than physically, because that’s all they’ve ever been accustomed to: a knock upside the head and a kick out the door.”

Moore is learning to understand, and he is warming to his tasks each day. He smiles broadly when discussing his new career, then speaks slowly and thoughtfully.

“Right now,” Moore said, sitting on a bench after a practice on the campus in the mountains near Malibu, “I don’t think I’d want to be doing anything else.”

At 31, Moore knows what it’s like to have troubles. Over the past 13 years, he has gone from high school hero to college hero to frustrated professional athlete confronting a drug problem and a life in need of repair.

But like the Kilpatrick players laboring beneath the hot sun as their coaches bark commands, Moore is working to put his life back in order.

Last year, under a USC program that allows former athletes who did not graduate to come back to school under scholarship, Moore returned to the university to complete his education in public administration. He also recently completed a one-year stint in an outpatient drug-rehabilitation program because of a cocaine addiction.

And the daily routine at Kilpatrick has proved beneficial to Moore and his students.

“Malcolm shares his real-life experiences with the kids--his successes and failures,” Kilpatrick Coach Glen Bell said. “He has tremendous enthusiasm for the job and he’s very inspirational to the young men. The kids know he’s been there and has had the salary, and that things haven’t gone so well for him.”

Moore says he didn’t have it so tough growing up in San Fernando--he had a good family and a neighborhood that seemed like family.

Anthony Davis, who lived three doors away, and Charles White, who grew up around the corner, played football at San Fernando High and USC. Providing further influence, Moore’s brothers, Manfred and Kenney, had also gone the San Fernando-USC football route. Another brother, Anthony, wanted to go to USC but went to Cal State Long Beach.

As a youngster, Malcolm knew his way around the USC campus as well as any athlete. By the time he suited up for his senior year at San Fernando in 1978, he had grown to 6-foot-3 1/2 and weighed 225 pounds. He was bigger and faster than his brothers, and he was staring at a future as promising as a first-and-goal inside the five.

Other youths in the neighborhood hung out, took drugs and “passed the bottle around,” Moore said. But Moore never drank from their glass.

“None of my brothers were that way, and none of their friends were that way,” Moore said. “I looked at people in gangs and I really didn’t want to be around that type of person.”

In 1979 Moore, along with San Fernando teammates Anthony Gibson and Bob McClanahan, was offered a scholarship to USC. By 1981, Moore was playing regularly for the Trojans.

That season, he made the biggest catch of his career before a national television audience in a memorable game against Oklahoma at the Coliseum that the Trojans won with a last-minute drive. Moore’s grab over the middle gave USC a first down at the seven, and the Trojans passed for the winning touchdown on the next play.

The following year, Moore was academically ineligible, but he rebounded and played two more seasons. He finished his collegiate career with 37 receptions for 598 yards and two touchdowns.

Moore’s professional career, however, was not as bright.

In 1985, he left USC while still a senior to sign with the L.A. Express of the United States Football League. Moore earned a one-year salary of $100,000 but was out of a job when the league folded after the season.

Moore went to the San Diego Chargers as a free agent in 1986 but spent the season on injured reserve because of an injured knee. He was cut, then signed as a free agent with the Rams the next year, but he spent most of the strike-shortened 1987 season on the bench. Moore never caught a pass in an NFL game.

Off the field, Moore partied. His drug use escalated and he separated from his wife, Janet, and their two children.

Before the 1988 season, Moore was cut by the Rams and decided to retire, taking a job as a baggage handler for an airline. Soon afterward, through an employee-assistance program, he entered a drug-treatment program in Los Angeles.

“That was a period of my life when I felt I was really losing everything,” Moore said. “I had been making a lot of money and I wasn’t managing it right. I just got caught up in the party scene and it just kind of took me away. I was really frustrated that I wasn’t really as prosperous or as popular as I thought I should have been. Psychologically, it affected me for a while.”

Most devastating to Moore was acknowledging his problem to his parents, who were unaware that the youngest of their six children had even experimented with drugs.

“It really hurt him because he felt he let himself down, but most of all he had let us down,” Moore’s mother, Bennie, said. “After being in pro ball and he had such high hopes . . . all of a sudden there was nothing.”

While with San Diego, Moore befriended Paul Lowe, a former running back for the Chargers in the 1960s who devoted his free time to helping troubled youths. The idea interested Moore, more than ever with his playing days over.

He landed a job at Kilpatrick in 1990 and that season, with Moore as their special-teams coach, the Mustangs advanced to the Southern Section Division X final, in which they lost to Montclair Prep, 13-7.

“I didn’t think I would like coaching because it reminded me of playing football,” Moore said, “until I got involved with this program and realized that I’ve got something to give back. I want to motivate these kids because I had that in high school.”

The next year, because of a staff reduction, the county transferred Moore to Sylmar Juvenile Hall. He returned to Kilpatrick a month ago after Bell, an assistant in 1990, was named head coach.

“One of the first things I wanted to do was get Malcolm back here,” Bell said. “He was absent last year and I felt the spark was missing. He has a presence.

“He articulates very well the purpose of the program. He didn’t get involved in this program just to win games but to change lives.”

Moore began working at Kilpatrick while still undergoing drug therapy, and he has shared his experience with players.

“A lot of these kids are here because of drugs,” Moore said. “The guys on the football team, I sat them down and told them about me. When I break down those barriers, they can relate a little bit better to me.

“This place has been therapeutic for me. It helps me stay sober because I know I have to live a life in front of these kids.”

Today, Moore is reunited with his wife and is three classes shy of earning his diploma. From there, he plans to pursue a career as a county probation officer. But he has no plans to leave Kilpatrick.

“Most likely, I’ll stay right here,” he said. “This is home.”