Black Completes Comeback

IN SIX YEARS, Michael Black has evolved from a young offender to a college senior on track to graduate. The Cougar running back is enjoying the final days of his college career.

PULLMAN - Michael Black wants to savor his final days as a Washington State running back.

He also wants to enjoy his final months in Pullman like many college seniors who have the bulk of their classes completed. As he closes in on a degree in communications and a minor in business, Black plans to take music courses in the spring to satisfy his passion for rhythm-and-blues piano.

Life is good for the man who gives the 11th-ranked Cougars (9-1) an added dimension to quarterback Ryan Leaf's air show.

"I want to enjoy what I have now before moving on because I know when I move on I'll have to look at it as a professional," said Black, who has gained 987 yards on 198 carries and scored 10 touchdowns this season.

Black has other reasons to celebrate a brief but successful WSU career that could culminate in a Rose Bowl appearance with a victory against rival Washington in Saturday's Apple Cup.

His circuitous path to Pullman began with promise unfulfilled but is ending with fulfilling promises.

Seeing him plow past would-be tacklers like a bowling ball, it is difficult to imagine Black sitting in a California Youth Authority prison cell going nowhere, as he was four years ago.

"I took the hard way around," said Black, second-team

all-Pac-10 last season. "I appreciate this more than people coming out of high school."

With convictions for auto theft and armed robbery, Black spent more time incarcerated than on the football field as a teenager growing up in Los Angeles. Then, after a record-setting junior-college career, he spent a year helping take care of his infant son before arriving in Pullman.

Despite the detour, Black, 23, never gave up on playing major college football and the possibility of becoming a pro. He never quit believing in himself even when others did.

"I did something wrong and had to pay for it, but in a sense, it woke me up," Black said. "It enabled me to really understand what life is about."

The learning process has continued on the Palouse. In a sterile classroom in the Albrook Hydraulics Laboratory, Black faced a quandary with 27 fellow students taking intercultural communications.

He participated in a lively debate on the best way to resolve racial tensions on campus, suggesting the art of compromise, but soon realized the solutions were as confounding as life itself.

He left class with more questions than answers, and craving more knowledge.

"I'm happy to be in college and where I'm at," he said. "Growing up in L.A., anything can happen to you. You can get shot and killed for no reason."

It happened to a close friend at Los Angeles' Dorsey High, where Black went to school when he wasn't in jail.

"He got shot 15 times sitting in his car with his cousin," Black recalled. "Gang members thought they were somebody else. The guy didn't even dress like a gang member."

Neither did Black, but his teenage actions led some to believe he had gang affiliations just the same.

In 1990, Black, then 16, was convicted of auto theft and sentenced to six months at Camp Kilpatrick, a Los Angeles County youth correctional facility. Kilpatrick was different from other county-maintained facilities because it fielded a football team that played small Southern California high schools.

Black's only practical organized football experience had been Pop Warner games, although he had made varsity as a freshman at Dorsey, a Los Angeles prep power. He never played because he rarely went to practice.

"I took football as a joke," Black said. "I took everything as a joke. I was good at everything but I didn't realize maybe this could take me to college or the pros."

The probation officers thought the discipline of football might help Black, and he certainly helped the Kilpatrick team, leading the Mustangs to the Freedom League co-championship. In one game, he gained 324 yards and scored six touchdowns in 16 carries.

Every time Black's story is retold in print, Kilpatrick probation officers display the articles prominently so the incarcerated will share a glimpse of hope.

Lee Stanley, a Los Angeles filmmaker whose documentary "Gridiron Game" followed Black's team seven years ago, said: "Every kid who is locked up just ran out of excuses if they sit down and see what happened to Michael Black."

Walking among cheerful, fresh-faced college students, thousands of miles in time and space from Camp Kilpatrick, Black is touched to hear probation officers use him as an example.

"I'm the only one from my team to make it," he said quietly.

The team's quarterback is dead. Another tailback is serving time for killing a mail carrier. Black knows the line between success and failure is fiber thin: "It's all about how much you want to achieve and believe in yourself," he said. "Take time out to ignore the L.A. stuff. Realize what you want to do. It might be a long road to get to your dreams, but you'll get there."

Black didn't realize it when he left Camp Kilpatrick in 1991, but his road was going to get even longer. Although he claimed to understand the gravity of his criminal actions, he really didn't.

In retrospect, Kilpatrick counselors had been too easy on him because of his football abilities. "He was a special person and probably didn't get the full benefits of camp," said Sean Porter, a Kilpatrick probation officer who coached Black.

After leaving the correctional facility, Black did well in Dorsey's spring football drills and qualified in the 100 meters at the California prep track championships. Then he threw it away.

Instead of challenging tailback Sharmon Shah, now Karim Abdul-Jabbar of the Miami Dolphins, for the starting role at Dorsey, Black, then 17, was sentenced to three years in prison for participating in armed robberies in Burbank, Calif., the same week he ran in the state meet.

Wearing ski masks and gloves and carrying a .38 revolver and .22 semi-automatic pistol, Black and three buddies robbed three women within 40 minutes. They were caught when police stopped them for a malfunctioning headlight and found the guns and stolen property.

Black served 20 months in a Norwalk, Calif., youth authority prison, often a ticket to lifetime institutionalization.

"You can get trapped in the system," Black said. "End up going into a gang. When I got in there, it wasn't for me. I don't like to fight. I don't like . . . the racial riots going on. I don't like being told when to use the bathroom. I don't like being in my room. So that's where I realized freedom is the ultimate thing. I could not see myself being there for the rest of my life. I couldn't see myself going back home and getting in trouble again."

His mother, Elnora Barber, who lives in Arizona, said: "He told me, `Momma, I'll never go back again; I guarantee it.' "

While at Norwalk, he earned his high-school diploma and worked as a plumber.

When released, Black called Stanley, the filmmaker whose WINGS Foundation gives financial aid to troubled youth who want to attend college.

What had started as a seed at Kilpatrick became reality when he enrolled at West Los Angeles College in Culver City, not far from his home.

A quick, 6-foot running back, Black started immediately at West Los Angeles. In his first two seasons of serious football, he gained almost 4,000 yards and was West L.A.'s most valuable player as a sophomore.

Because of NCAA rules, he couldn't transfer to a Division I school until he earned an associate of arts degree. He didn't have enough units after two years, but he wasn't ready anyway.

He and then-girlfriend Makana Patton had a son, Cealin. Black's father wasn't around for him, so he wanted to be there for his son. He put football aside, got a job building scaffolds at Anheuser-Busch north of Los Angeles and went to night school.

"I needed to make sure bills got paid, we had food and clothes," he said.

It gave him an added year of maturity as he moved further away from his troubles. He and Patton, who lives in West Los Angeles, are no longer together, except when it involves Cealin, now 2 1/2.

Black says no matter what happens with his football career, he will be involved with Cealin's life: "Just the fact he is going to get taken care of and know who his father is, that's the main thing," he said.

Black figured he would earn a scholarship to attend USC because of local ties with his Kilpatrick and West Los Angeles coaches. But Trojan recruiters lost interest after checking his background. In the year off, other recruiters also gave up on him.

Cougar Coach Mike Price didn't. Price knew of the risks of signing a recruit with a criminal past, but saw growth and maturity after meeting Black, who chose WSU over Arizona and Texas.

In two seasons, Black has joined the ranks of elite Cougar backs by gaining 1,935 yards and scoring 18 touchdowns on 390 carries.

"I'd love to take credit for it," Price said. "But I didn't make Michael Black. He didn't come in here and say, `I wish it was warmer in the winter.' He didn't say, `There are no clubs to hang out at. There are no pro sports teams to go see.' He said, `This is what I need in my life right now.' "

Black expects to graduate in May, and you can bet his mother will be there to see the first member of her family get a diploma. "School is more important than going pro any day," she said.

Black knows what she means. After all the turns his life has taken, he counts on little. "It's scary because I'm so close to getting there," he said.

So close, after coming so far.