Now, Black Is Running With Right Crowd

On Dorsey High’s wall of honor hangs his picture, along with those of Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Keyshawn Johnson and Lamont Warren.

But Michael Black never played a down of football for Dorsey.

He was going to, had even participated in spring ball and was running step for step with Abdul-Jabbar, who was then Sharmon Shah.

They were to report for fall practice in 1991, and there was to be more competition, with the winner playing tailback and the loser playing fullback for the Dons. But Abdul-Jabbar got the tailback job by default, parlayed it into an All-American career at UCLA and now is paid to run the football for the Miami Dolphins.

Black is a tailback at Washington State, where he will run the ball against UCLA on Saturday in Pullman, Wash.

He never got to that fall practice, which seems so long ago.

Black had grown up in a single-parent home near Century and Avalon boulevards, in South-Central Los Angeles, where peer pressure puts a premium on, among other things, expensive athletic shoes and the money to buy them.

Some acquaintances knew how to get the money.

On the night of June 6, 1991, a few days after he had run for the Dons in the State track meet, Black and three others set out for Burbank. Wearing ski masks and gloves and carrying two guns, they robbed one woman, then two others. When police stopped their 1981 blue Ford Escort on a freeway ramp because it had a burned-out headlight, they looked in the car and saw Black trying to push a gun under the back seat.

Closer inspection revealed a .38 revolver and .22 semiautomatic pistol, along with purses, money and credit cards belonging to the robbed women.

Black was sentenced to three years in jail, and he spent 20 months in the California Youth Authority facility at Norwalk as a two-time loser.

His first time had been spent at Camp Kilpatrick, where he learned about football and possibilities.

In Norwalk, at the institution officials call a “junior prison,” he learned about life and consequences.

“In Norwalk, it was real different,” Black says. “We had racial riots, gang fights, lock-downs. In a lock-down, you spent 22 hours a day in your room. A lot of people there, you know they’re going back. I decided then and there I wasn’t going back.

“Jail didn’t scare me, but it woke me up. When you are in a room 22 hours a day, you learn to appreciate being free.”

Whether there is rehabilitation in Norwalk is best left to sociologists. Black had already had a chance at Camp Kilpatrick and had blown it.

Kilpatrick is in Malibu, and inside its 14-foot fence are dormitories housing youths who are largely first offenders. Black was in for car theft, among other things, in 1990, and he was scared and carried an attitude.

“He wasn’t sure he wanted to do the football thing,” says Sean Porter, then the coach at Kilpatrick. “He was a nice person, and the physical nature of football wasn’t compatible with his personal demeanor. I remember him scraping his knee and crying like a baby.

“But he had talent, you could tell that. He hadn’t played organized football before, and he was looking for adult leadership.”

He rushed for 2,400 yards in that season at Kilpatrick, 1,100 of them over the final regular-season game and three playoff games.

Dorsey coaches knew Black would be released into the school’s student area and that they had something special coming.

“We thought we had him set up for Dorsey,” says Curt Amundson, who works with the football team and the kids at Kilpatrick. “But we might have made it too easy for him here. We treat them like a big family, and get involved with them and their families. Maybe it was just too easy for him here.”

Says Black: “It was good for me, but I still hadn’t learned.”

Norwalk taught him.

“I was 16, pretty young, and I paid my consequences,” he says of Camp Kilpatrick. “Then I was 20 [and just out of Norwalk], and it was way time to grow up. If I could succeed, I could beat the odds. Since I got out, I’ve never been in trouble. There’s a lot of temptation, but there’s been a challenge to see if I have it in me to take care of my responsibilities. I know what it’s like to go the other way.”

Many of the Dorsey coaches had joined the staff at West Los Angeles College, and they knew Black could play football.

“They remembered me from the glory days,” Black says. “They realized what I could do, and they realized how my life had changed. I realized I could go somewhere.”

Seasons of rushing for 1,563 yards (1993) and 840 yards (1994) brought that somewhere.

Recruiters from USC and Arizona came to call, and they delved into his background.

“The schools that were looking at me, most of them backed off,” Black says. “They talked to me and my family, they talked to coaches. They told them what kind of guy I was. And they talked to my probation officer. They knew I had had problems. I didn’t try to hide it.

“But some of them had had trouble with L.A. kids with records, and they didn’t want to take a chance.”

Black needed two classes to transfer anywhere, and he dropped out of football in 1995 to take those classes at West L.A.

Enter Mike Price, Washington State’s coach, who needed backfield help and needed it quickly.

“That particular year, we were looking across the nation for running backs in community colleges,” Price says. “We had a good conversation with him and it was just the right place for him at the right time in his life.

“We knew about his problems. I talked to him and said, ‘If you’re as good as I think you’re going to be, we need to make sure that we have every part of your background out in the open and I know everything that happened and how it happened and where it happened and where you’ve been and what you’ve done.’

“And he was very candid with me. . . . We were aboveboard, and he hasn’t shied away from anything and has been outstanding here in everything he’s done.”

Price offered a lifeline, and Black grabbed it.

“I was just looking for somebody to give me a chance to show what I could do as a player on the field and a person off the field as well,” he says. “Price talked to [West L.A. Coach Bob] Hager and to [Dorsey Coach Paul] Knox and visited my home. He asked me if I was going to be trouble and I told him no. He said he was taking a chance on me. He said he liked my attitude.

“For me, though, he wasn’t taking a chance because I knew where I had been and knew I wasn’t going back. We all take chances in life. Sometimes we get caught. Sometimes we don’t. I got caught.

“And I knew I had the talent.”

Price found that out quickly.

Black entered Washington State in January 1996 and immediately became a starter. He gained 948 yards in 182 carries last season, averaging 5.2 yards and scoring eight touchdowns.

And he found one of the advantages of Pullman is that it’s off the beaten track.

“It’s showed me that there’s more to the world than what L.A. has to offer,” he says. “It’s very peaceful, and unlike L.A., you don’t even have to lock up at night or look over your shoulder. That’s strange, not looking over your shoulder, because where I grew up in L.A., you learn to look over your shoulder all the time.

“I wouldn’t live in L.A. again. I might stay in L.A. County, if I’m successful enough, but I wouldn’t want to raise my son in L.A. And I might just live somewhere else, like Arizona.”

This summer was spent in Los Angeles, working out and running on the USC track, and it was spent with Cealin, Black’s 2-year-old son. He’s too young to know what his father has done.

But he will learn. “I’ll tell my son,” Black says. “He’ll have to know how it was and what I was and what I did. I’ll tell him, ‘Daddy isn’t a bad person, Daddy just made a mistake. I don’t blame anybody for anything. I blame myself.’ ”

And he paid the price, and tries to find a new life at Washington State.

NEXT UP FOR UCLA

WHO:

Washington State

WHERE:

at Pullman, Wash.

TIME:

12:30 p.m., Saturday

TV: Channel 7

RADIO: XTRA (1150)