Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 18, 1994 TAG: 9401260021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ellen Goodman
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In this icy arena, where one slip makes all the difference, the toughest competition has always been between a skater and herself. It's been between the need to stay on the cutting edge and the need to retain a center of composure.
But violence hit this world of ice, sequins and elegance with the shocking impact of a metal bar against Nancy Kerrigan's leg. When she was hit, it was as if someone had taken deliberate aim at the eye of an artist, or the hand of a violinist. When she fell to the ground crying, ``Why me? Why, why, why?'' the question echoed across the country. ``I can't understand,'' she said. ``I don't know if anybody can understand.''
In some gruesome way, the first image of a hit-and-run assault by a stranger fit the scenario of violence that has become our most recurring nightmare. It seemed part of a world in which fame has become one person's goal and another person's target. A world of drive-by shootings, commuter-train massacres, and kidnappers who take girls from their bedrooms at night. A world in which the words ``random,'' ``senseless'' and ``violence'' have become one inseparable phrase.
So when the first arrests were made in this case, what I heard was a peculiar sigh of relief. The focus shifted from the image of a stranger to that of a hired hit man. The charge is that Kerrigan was not the target of some random hater, but of a rival ice queen's court.
The ``crazed maniac'' is said to be a man paid to knock off or at least knock out the competition for the gold medal. This is what passes for understandable? For sensible violence?
Kerrigan and Tonya Harding are a study in telegenic contrasts on and off the ice. The made-for-television producers in hot pursuit of this tale already know that.
Nancy is the taller, dark-haired, graceful daughter of a Massachusetts welder and mother who is legally blind. Her blue-collar family remortgaged their house to pay for her lessons. Now, with the made-for-endorsements image of a young Katharine Hepburn, she's signed on to sell watches, soup and sneakers.
Tonya is the short, blond, and powerful survivor of an Oregon family that put the ``dys'' before ``functional.'' This athlete picked up returnable bottles on the highway to help pay for lessons. She was also abused by her husband whom she divorced but then moved back in with.
If these young women are both competitive and driven, it's with different styles. Nancy is dignified and a touch shy. Tonya is tough, in-your-face, with a love of drag racing. Nancy is the classic image of the figure skater. Tonya, as Sports Illustrated put it, is ``Not Your Average Ice Queen.''
If these two ever end up skating for the United States at the Olympics, they'll be going for the gold of the human-interest events - sports, soap opera and Oprah rolled into one.
But whatever happens, rivalry doesn't answer the question that follows any act of violence: ``Why? why? why?'' Rivalry doesn't explain this any more fully than it explains the murderous mobs at soccer matches, the behavior of the Steffi Graf fan who attacked Monica Seles, or even the Texas mother who plotted to kill the mother of her daughter's competitor for cheerleader.
All it does answer is ``Why me?'' or rather, why Kerrigan and not me. The plot thickens, but more importantly, the scenery changes. The crime seems more distant from us. We feel safer.
Nancy Kerrigan isn't just anyone - isn't just any of us - on a commuter train or a city street. So the public mood shifts from fear to fascination.
If the police are right, this attack wasn't random. It was as focused as a metal bar on a skater's leg. But what an odd and anxious state we are in if this kind of violence ever starts to make sense.
\ The Boston Globe
by CNB