SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : A SOFTER JOB

For 23 years, Don Porter of Oklahoma City has worked toward getting softball into the Olympics.

As a federation official from the United States, he has attended more Olympic conventions and meetings than he can remember and talked with thousands of Olympic officials.

But now, as president of the International Softball Federation--a group representing 75 countries--and with women’s softball accepted at medal status for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, things should be easy and his time here as a fully credentialed international official quiet and

relaxed.

“No need anymore to be out there running down people in restaurants and bars,” Porter said. “Nice to finally reach that status.”

It would also be nice, for Porter’s sake, if the president of the International Softball Federation would be accorded accreditation high enough to get into the main press center.

A reporter had to vouch for him there recently, just so he could get in.

This is the first of a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant, all Times-Mirror newspapers.