Obsession With Sports Hurts Athletes

The most surprising thing about the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is not how her assailant smuggled a crowbar into Cobo Hall, or how he was able to sneak into the ice-level interview area, or how he was able to escape unimpeded and unidentified, although those definitely make the top five.

No, the biggest surprise is that people are still surprised when incidents of this sort happen, oblivious to the guerrilla warfare that has been escalating between big-name athletes and the public at large since the late 1980s.

Eight months before Kerrigan was clubbed across the kneecaps, Monica Seles, the best woman tennis player in the world, was stabbed in the back by a man in the stands.

Six months before that, Tonya Harding, an American skating rival of Kerrigan’s, canceled an appearance in Portland, her hometown, after the rink received an anonymous bomb threat.

And several weeks before that, an obsessive fan who had been harassing Katarina Witt with threatening letters was sentenced to 37 months in prison.

Kerrigan, Harding, Witt--and figure skating is supposed to be the most pristine of athletic endeavors.

Soon, the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. will be requiring a five-day waiting period for anyone wishing to form a fan club or attend a national championship.

The instant analysts will surmise it’s the sport: Isn’t figure skating, with its young, attractive, glamorous stars and high-glitz Hollywood atmosphere, a natural breeding ground for lunatic-fringe types?

Don’t Kerrigan and Witt delve in similar territory as Madonna and Luke Perry, where cults of personality spring up across the landscape like brush fires?

Yes, yes--and that’s besides the point.

What about tennis, the only professional sport that has seen its top player knifed, in mid-competition, in public view?

Or baseball, which recently witnessed the first-ever trade on behalf of a player’s personal safety--Mitch Williams from Philadelphia to Houston? Williams was the pitcher who served up the ninth-inning home run that cost Philadelphia the World Series, a human error that resulted in death threats and house eggings. Before the trade, several Phillies wondered, seriously, if Williams would be able to survive another season in Philadelphia.

What about basketball? Injuries didn’t drive Michael Jordan into retirement. Neither did old age. Jordan quit the game he was dominating on the floor because of what was happening off it. He wanted a life without back-door getaways, security-guarded strolls through the park and three room-service meals a day.

How about football, where Houston Oilers quarterback Warren Moon used to travel under an alias, borrowing names of Canadian Football League quarterbacks when he registered in hotels? Or hockey, where the Kings’ team bus is rocked and pelted by angry fans in Toronto after the Maple Leafs are eliminated in the Stanley Cup semifinals?

The problem is approaching epidemic scale. In Anaheim, Nolan Ryan, living legend, receives a death threat hours before he pitches his final game against the Angels. In New Jersey, Wayne Gretzky, living legend, is chased into an elevator by foaming-at-the-mouth autograph seekers. In any bar in the greater Phoenix area, Charles Barkley runs into drunken “You think you’re so tough” challenges, and you know Charles. He doesn’t run from anything.

Barkley isn’t alone. More and more athletes are beginning to return fire.

Why did Cleveland outfielder Albert Belle drill a bleacherite with a fastball? Because he was tired of the heckling.

Why did Darryl Strawberry, when asked about last year’s fires in Southern California, sneer “let it burn?” Because of his ongoing feud with Dodger fans.

Why did Portland Trail Blazer center Kevin Duckworth tell his girlfriend the other day, “Don’t be surprised if I bust some fan in the head. . . . I know I’d be suspended, but it might make my day?” Because he was fed up with being booed at home games.

And why did Vince Coleman lob a M-80 toward a group of fans standing in the Dodger Stadium parking lot? Just for kicks, Coleman says. In truth, Coleman’s idiotic prank was prompted by nothing so much as a simple contempt for fans in general. They’re a sub-species, right? Less than human. Let’s light this small explosive and heave it. Won’t harm anything or anyone of importance.

The war rages on, uncontained and uncontrolled, much like sports in the ‘90s.

Our emphasis on sports and winning and losing has fallen so out of whack that athletes and coaches now eclipse movie stars, rock musicians and maybe even presidents in the celebrity arena. In the past six months, Jordan lost his father and Bill Clinton his mother. Compare the attendant media publicity in both instances.

Jordan, in a landslide.

Name another industry that has 24-hour radio stations devoted solely to whipping up a public frenzy over hirings, firings, transactions and the results of daily business. Listen to XTRA after a Kings defeat--or KMPC, while you still can, the week after the Raiders lose.

You’d swear Art Shell was guilty of selling nuclear secrets to Iraq instead of the actual crime: calling a draw play on third and eight.

A hundred years ago, they’d have called it a posse or a lynch mob.

Today, it’s known as sports talk radio.

Last year, Seles was stabbed by a fan of her closest rival, Steffi Graf. Seles was ranked No. 1 at the time, Graf No. 2, and if Graf couldn’t do anything to change that fact, her most ardent admirer was going to take matters into his own hands.

Was Kerrigan attacked for a similar reason? By a Harding fan, or a Witt fan, who merely wanted an easier go for his favorite skater next month in Lillehammer?

Somewhere across the land, a talk-show host is blathering. He’s polling his faithful audience on the overs and unders of a possible Kerrigan comeback--three weeks or four?--and whether the Cobo Hall head of security’s head should roll.