Making Important Gains : Prep football: Michael Black is using his sentence at Camp Kilpatrick to develop as a running back--and as a responsible person.

The Camp Kilpatrick football coach likes to tell his players that sports are a microcosm of life, that teamwork begets success. . . . about the importance of structure, execution and playing by the rules.

The coach also says the world is like a series of trap plays, wherein suckers go for the easy bait and only the real dummies bite the second time around. If they get a second chance.

“Sports are indicative of society,” says Coach Sean Porter, an L. A. County probation officer. “Whether it’s drugs or whatever you see wrong out there, it shows up eventually in sports.”

At age 16, Michael Black is living proof that Porter isn’t spouting platitudes, although Black has the sequence a little backward.

Last spring, Black was a restless student at Dorsey High. Soon thereafter, he found himself in hot water with the law. In May, he was sentenced to the youth correctional institution at Camp Kilpatrick, located in the hills east of Malibu (Because Black is a minor, the nature of his crime is not being divulged.)

Six months later, after a three-year layoff from football, he is setting school rushing records and trying to turn his life around.

Black, a junior tailback, rushed for 324 yards in 16 carries and scored six touchdowns to lead Camp Kilpatrick to a 48-8 victory over St. John’s last week at Beaumont High. Yet there was no postgame dance, no hugs from adoring fans, no yelps from cheerleaders.

After the game, Black got on the team bus and thanked his linemen. A few hours later, the bus drove into a fenced compound and Black and his teammates settled into a long night’s sleep in a darkened dormitory.

Camp Kilpatrick is a county-maintained youth correctional facility for boys aged 13-18 that Porter says is often “the last stop before the California Youth Authority” for many of the interned. “Almost all the kids here have prior convictions,” Porter said. “Or if it was a first-time offense, it was pretty serious.”

Black (5-foot-10, 174 pounds) swears his was a last-time offense. From now on, when anybody asks about his offense, he wants only to discuss the 1,184 yards and 20 touchdowns that he has racked up, or about how his 324 yards is the most gained by an area Southern Section back this season.

His record? Let’s talk plural, please. He set two single-game school marks against St. John’s, for rushing yardage and touchdowns scored.

“This is my first and last place,” said Black, who is scheduled to be released in December. “I won’t be back.”

If life’s a trap play, then Black has pulled off a double reverse. In fact, if he hadn’t been incarcerated, he might not have started playing football again.

Black said he last played at the Pop Warner level when he was 13, as a defensive back and receiver. As a sophomore last year at Dorsey, he didn’t try out for the team. He plans to change that in 1991 after he re-registers at Dorsey next month.

His metamorphosis at Camp Kilpatrick has been dramatic, Porter said. At Dorsey, Black admitted that he was an academic underachiever.

“I got Cs, a few Ds and a couple of fails,” said Black, who has run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds. “I was lazy. I just wanted to watch TV and go outside.”

Now, he dreams of being outside. And next time, things will be different. Porter said that Black has been a B student since arriving at Camp Kilpatrick and seems to have his priorities in line. “If we do good in the dorm, then we do good in school,” Black said. “If we do good in school, then we take it to the field. But the football field is the last thing.”

Black’s emergence is only marginally more surprising than that of the team. In 1989, Camp Kilpatrick competed at the Southern Section eight-man level. This season, the Mustangs (6-3-1 overall) were moved to Division X and 11-man ball. After a so-so start, Camp Kilpatrick has gone 4-1 in its last five games to earn a Freedom League co-championship.

Camp Kilpatrick will play Rosamond in a first-round playoff game Friday night at 7:30 at Monroe High.

“I pick them and Western Christian to make it to the semis in that bracket,” said Village Christian Coach Mike Plaisance, whose team tied Camp Kilpatrick, 14-14, in a nonleague game seven weeks ago.

Considering the constraints involved in building the Mustang program, that is quite an endorsement. For instance, Porter says that Camp Kilpatrick has never had a returning player.

The average stay at the camp runs from six to nine months, whereupon players are sent back to school. Often, players don’t arrive until the season has started or leave before it ends.

“We have a kid here right now who might be better than Michael, but he got here late,” said Porter, who grew up in Thousand Oaks and played football at Crespi.

The team bloomed late too, and for good reason. Of the Mustangs’ first five opponents, four were ranked in the preseason top 10 in their divisions. Never mind that few of the Camp Kilpatrick players knew one another or had ever played at the high school level.

Furthermore, the Mustangs play no home games--there is no football facility at Camp Kilpatrick and the team practices on a softball field--and there are few fans to support the team on the road.

“I’m not sure many teams would want to come here to play, anyway,” Porter said.

Discipline is paramount. Players who violate even the smallest school rule are not allowed to play--a major penalty since those who are suspended remain behind at the compound. But the camp’s hard-line stance seems effective.

“They all were good kids,” Plaisance said. “You’d expect them to be undisciplined, but that wasn’t the case. I really enjoyed talking to them after the game.”

Talking and counseling are practically full-time jobs. Sometimes, teaching the game is the least important of Porter’s priorities.

“The dynamics are strange,” Porter said. “The kids don’t trust each other, then they have to learn to confide and depend on each other.

“As they grow together, they mature and grow as individuals. . . . We’re not here to build a football team, we’re here to instill character and build young men’s lives.”

The odds are in the players’ favor. Porter said the Camp Kilpatrick recidivism rate--the number of those who again run afoul of the law upon their release--is approximately 70%. The rate for those involved in the Mustang athletic program has been halved to 35%, he said.

Black has seen how the other half lives and says he wants no part of it. An older brother is in county jail and facing a lengthy prison term.

“He won’t be coming home for a long, long time,” Black said. “My mom said he might get life.”

Black promises that his homecoming will be for good, although for the moment, he is one happy camper.

“It’s been a good experience,” he said. “If I hadn’t come here, I don’t know what would have happened. Since I’ve been here, lots of good things have happened.

“I keep telling myself that I know my way out--sports.”