Coping With the Confusion : Despite Media Mob, Kerrigan and Family Seem to Be in Control of the Situation

Early Thursday morning, the front door to the Kerrigan family’s modest home opened, bringing the dozens of reporters at the end of the snowy driveway to attention.

But instead of a comment on the attack that left daughter Nancy, 24, unable to defend her U.S. figure skating title in Detroit last week, what was offered were a platter of muffins and bagels and copious cups of good, hot coffee.

“We thought you guys could use this,” said Nancy’s older brother, Mike.

That’s the kind of family Nancy Kerrigan comes from.

Her father, Dan, is a welder who worked two jobs for years to pay for figure skating lessons for his only daughter. Nancy’s mother, Brenda, is legally blind. She often sits inches from a special TV to watch the blurred image of her daughter on ice.

In recent days, with the house under virtual siege by reporters from around the world, her brothers, Mike and Mark, have often served as the polite spokesmen for a family that is as confused as anyone else about why this 1994 Olympic gold medal hopeful was attacked.

Wrapped in a leather cheerleader’s jacket as she left for her daily physical therapy at a hospital not far from this working-class community north of Boston, Kerrigan herself waved serenely at reporters. But with questions flying at her, she simply smiled and said nothing.

Moments later, her father emerged.

“How’s she doing?” came the chorus from his driveway.

“Basically she’s doing good,” Dan Kerrigan said. “Physically, she’s doing wonderful.”

Kerrigan said his daughter, not surprisingly, was distracted by the crowd outside the house. Some neighbors agreed, grousing over their snow shovels that their local skating champion was being held prisoner by all the attention.

But Dan Kerrigan was confident that his daughter would soon be back on the ice. Nancy trains two hours away, on Cape Cod, where fellow skaters praise her persistence as wellas her grace and athletic prowess.

Outside the house, Dan Kerrigan stepped aside for yet another delivery of flowers and balloons. The family still has big hopes for Lillehammer, Norway, site of next month’s Winter Olympics, he indicated.

“She’s working her butt off to get back in line,” Dan Kerrigan said. Then he, too, smiled and waved.