Barring Crime Connection, Harding Belongs on Team

Now, wait just a Tonya-picking minute here. I thought vigilantism went out with cattle rustling, Klan crackpots and Charles Bronson movies. For the people who pick America’s team to even contemplate removing figure skating’s Tonya Harding from her rightful place in the Olympics, before this woman has been convicted, charged or even stands accused of anything worse than guilt by association, violates everything for which America stands.

All she did was skate. That’s all we know. We don’t know that Harding had anything to do with the Nancy Kerrigan ambush. We only know that it might have been done by people she knows. Tonya didn’t touch her. Tonya didn’t drive the getaway car. Tonya didn’t hire the hit man. So far as we know. Understand? All she did was skate.

When the cops take her off in cuffs, we can talk. When a judge sends her up a river, we can talk. Until then, no, no, a thousand times no. Discharging a figure skater for something she has not necessarily done would be tantamount to blackballing someone 40 years ago as a Communist sympathizer because he happened to be acquainted with one, or like suggesting that Michael Jordan couldn’t have played basketball in Barcelona until we looked into that alleged gambling “problem” of his.

You think these examples extreme? I’ll give you extreme. Extreme is the eminent LeRoy Walker, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, saying of the Harding affair: “We have to make a decision without the consideration of whether or not her rights have been abridged.”

The hell we do.

Tonya Harding skated. I don’t care what her husband did, what her bodyguard did, what her bodyguard’s handpicked baton swinger did, what the assailant’s 74-year-old grandmother did or what the counterman from Nancy Kerrigan’s favorite Dunkin’ Donuts did, nor should anybody else, regarding the question of whether Harding herself should be permitted to wear the united skates of America. Not until she is convicted of foul play or confesses.

Pay close attention to the words of Claire Ferguson, head of the U.S. Figure Skating Assn., who says: “It’s a terrible thing to say she should be removed without us knowing what happened.” Amen, sister.

Yet the presumptuous Walker already is carrying on about Harding being a potentially disruptive presence next month in Norway, about his organization having an obligation “to protect the competitive environment,” which is a mouthful of gobbledygook, if ever one has been uttered. How about protecting Tonya Harding? How about her rights?

What exactly is it that Tonya Harding would disrupt? The opening ceremony? OK, don’t walk in them, Tonya. Jordan didn’t. Keep to your room, the way he did. The opening week of practices? OK, don’t come to them, Tonya. You came to your last Olympics a week late; do likewise this time.

Worried about all those nasty photographers and reporters disrupting everyone else’s practice? Say, here’s an idea. It’s called security. Lock them out. Olympic officials are very good at this, shielding famous athletes from the public, from the press and even, if necessary, from their teammates. Harding doesn’t have to dwell in the Athletes’ Village. All she has to do is skate.

Oh, no, though, said one Olympic official. Harding’s hopes of remaining an Olympian “look grim.” And oh, no, said another Olympic official. Harding’s rights must be weighed against “the welfare of the entire team.”

And oh, no, wrote Chicago sports columnist Jay Mariotti, Harding must not go. “Even if she isn’t linked to the conspiracy, she must not go to Lillehammer. . . . Whether or not she helped plan the vicious attack, Harding has become a dark figure in this sick bit of theater. Stigmatized beyond her control, she will create a circus atmosphere that will make it impossible for her, Kerrigan and other competitors to produce an Olympian performance.”

She will? She’ll disturb the bobsled, the downhill skiing and the luge? She’ll create more of a circus atmosphere at the Olympics than 12 of professional basketball’s most internationally adored players did? Apparently so, according to the Chicago writer, because Harding’s presence “will mar Kerrigan’s concentration, her inner peace. She deserves to have it, and assuming Harding is innocent in the plot, she still should respect Kerrigan’s pain and stay away from Europe.”

Assuming Harding is innocent, she should stay away. Hmmm.

Maybe it’s me. Tell me it’s me. I don’t understand this at all. I don’t understand why anyone would punish someone for being a suspect. I don’t understand where our Olympic officials get off saying this stuff, or anyone else. And then again, it’s a free country.

I’ll repeat that for those who missed it.

A free country.

Tonya Harding pleading guilty, being found guilty, this I would understand. When this day comes, one of you grab her ankles, another of you undo her laces and I will personally yank off her skates and hurl them into the nearest garbage can. But until this happens, Tonya Harding can compete for my country anytime.