THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Mentors Alone Give Ex-NBA Great Right Stuff to Coach

So Marques Johnson was an All-City Section basketball player at Crenshaw High, an All-American at UCLA and an NBA All-Star. All, all, all.

He is considered perhaps the best Los Angeles product of the past two decades, a legitimate superstar. He averaged 20.3 points in 10 NBA seasons.

But Roger Mears doesn’t work at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Jack Nicklaus doesn’t operate a driving range.

Who says Johnson knows anything about coaching basketball?

“When you play for Willie West, John Wooden and (former Milwaukee Bucks Coach) Don Nelson, coaches who are considered at the top of their profession, even an idiot can pick up something through osmosis,” said Johnson, a walk-on assistant at Montclair Prep. “So I hope I know something.”

Something, and then some--he also coaches the flag-football team of his second-oldest son, Josiah, a 9-year-old. “An end-around is a lot like a fast break,” Johnson said.

Basketball remains the reference point, however, and Johnson’s first love. The eldest of his four sons, Kris, is a starting forward at Montclair Prep. The former Bruin star began helping out at practices a year ago and this season was invited to sit alongside Mountie co-Coaches Bob Webb and Howard Abrams during games.

“He’s been here for every game and every practice,” Abrams said. “He’s your regular volunteer-type coach.”

Coach, maybe. Regular, hardly.

Johnson’s ties to Montclair Prep go back several years. When Johnson was a freshman at UCLA in 1973-74, the roster included future NBA stars Bill Walton and Keith (Jamaal) Wilkes. Webb was a senior on the team.

After Webb started coaching at Montclair Prep, he convinced Johnson in 1985 to help tutor Mountie center Todd Bowser, a 6-foot-7 tree trunk who later played at Cal State Northridge.

Even though Johnson competed for high stakes--in 1974-75 he played on Wooden’s final Bruin team, the school’s last to win an NCAA Division I title--he said that coaching has its special moments too.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “Kids are more receptive to instruction and constructive criticism. I still get excited, and to have a son playing makes it that much more interesting.”

Kris, a 6-4 sophomore and a two-year starter, has made his dad’s investment in coaching worthwhile. After leading the Mounties (6-1) to the championship of the Flintridge Prep tournament last week, Kris was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

The elder Johnson says he is committed to helping at Montclair Prep as long as his schedule permits. He currently is taking acting classes and will appear in a basketball comedy, “White Men Can’t Jump,” which stars Woody Harrelson and is scheduled for release early next year.

While playing for the Clippers, Johnson suffered a debilitating neck injury in a freak collision with teammate Benoit Benjamin on Nov. 20, 1986. He retired soon thereafter.

Yet, on rare occasions, Johnson enjoys banging bodies with the kids.

“I scrimmage with them once in a while,” he said with a laugh. “Just to show them that I did play this game.”

Stiff competition: A proposal under which Orange County would secede from the Southern Section and establish itself as an autonomous section is scheduled for a vote by the Southern Section General Council on Jan. 16.

If the Southern Section votes in the affirmative, the proposal will move to the state level, where passage is considered a foregone conclusion. The Southern Section controls two-thirds of the votes at the state level. If the plan moves ahead as expected, Orange County will establish itself as a separate section in approximately two years.

If Southern Section football coaches from the region were to be polled, it is a safe bet that most would approve of the plan. Of the 20 teams that played this weekend for Southern Section divisional titles, 11 are from Orange County.

Furthermore, in Divisions II, III, VI, VII and X, both finalists were from Orange County.

From the Valley? Zero.

Dogged: First-year Sylmar Coach Alan Shaw certainly wasn’t vexed, but he wasn’t thrilled, either. More than anything, he was worried about his team’s collective psyche.

Sylmar absorbed a 111-28 beating at the hands of North Hollywood on Thursday, but Shaw thinks he understands why North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller left many of his starters in for three quarters and why the Huskies continued to press despite a huge lead.

“He’s trying to build that killer instinct,” Shaw said of Miller. “He’s trying to get his players going and build the rankings.”

Sylmar (1-5) recorded its first victory of the season last week with a win over Canoga Park, then fell apart against the Huskies, ranked No. 2 in the region by The Times. Shaw, who played at Duke and as a professional in Europe, said he was not angry about the lopsided score.

“Here we are in a rebuilding year, and we were just getting on a roll when we went right into the meat grinder,” Shaw said. “I’ve been on both ends, on an undefeated team in high school and on the end of a blowout in Europe, so it doesn’t affect me that much.

“It’s the kids I worry about. It’s another tough step. They’re the ones who show up for school and everyone goes, ‘What?’ ”

Unmasked: Former Cleveland swingman Brandon Martin, who transferred to Washington last spring, was able to sneak by in his first few games with the Generals as a relative unknown. After tossing in baskets from everywhere in sight, Martin now is a marked man. “Now, I’m seeing all kinds of different defenses,” Martin said. “The box and one, all kinds of things.”

Small wonder. In his first five games, Martin averaged 34.8 points as the starting off-guard.

The 6-3 senior, who has signed a letter of intent with USC, scored a career-high 42 points against Manual Arts on Dec. 2 and 45 against Westchester three days later.

Football to futbol: He appeared menacing in football gear. Somehow, Alex Sawatzke (6-2, 230 pounds) does not seem quite as intimidating in a white soccer uniform.

In fact, Kennedy’s standout inside linebacker looked forlorn while playing for the school’s soccer team against San Fernando on Wednesday, just five days after the Golden Cougars had been eliminated by Banning in the City 4-A Division football semifinals.

Kennedy’s football coach, Bob Francola, spotted Sawatzke loitering at midfield--wearing a neat pair of white shorts and a white shirt--and laughed. Yet it seems that Sawatzke, the Northwest Valley Conference defensive player of the year, had an ulterior motive.

“I asked him if he was sure he wanted to play soccer after all that football,” Francola said. “And he said, ‘Coach, I want to knock down some more San Fernando guys.’ ”

Kennedy and San Fernando finished in a 2-2 tie.