COLUMN ONE : Standing by Their Olympian : Tonya Harding hasn’t always made it easy for Portland to love her. But some hometown fans remain true despite a media circus and the tangle of questions surrounding the assault on her rival.

What is a hometown to do with Tonya Harding?

Never has it been easy or particularly warm, this relationship between the hotheaded, gritty ice skater and the cool, placid Northwest.

And today . . . well, today Portlanders are bug-eyed at what has swept over their community, and a good many are asking: When is enough too much?

Harding’s tearful admission Thursday that she learned details of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan after it had occurred--and had withheld the information from authorities--is just the latest twist in a long, much twisted plot.

Despite that revelation, Harding is not without her vigorous hometown backers. “That poor girl needs support,” says Jan Hancock, who regularly watches Harding’s practice sessions at the local mall ice rink. “We live in a country where you are innocent until proven guilty.” Even if Harding is arrested, Hancock insists, “there is incredible good in her. I believe in her.”

Supporters, young skaters and retirees have rallied around Harding. Hundreds are drawn to her practices at the Clackamas Town Center. Hand-drawn banners declare fans’ loyalty to the 23-year-old skater and their collective thumbing of the nose at those who doubt. “We love you Tonya,” says one sign. “Deal With It America.”

Sympathetic counselors and Harding’s friends have tried to focus community understanding on the abuse and rootlessness in Harding’s background, which they say may explain some of her troubles.

Some people blame her woes on her volatile ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, 26, an unemployed warehouseman. He and three other men have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack in Detroit.

Guilt or innocence aside, many here seem to support Harding’s right to a fair hearing.

Others just throw up their hands in disbelief.

“Things look different here. That’s Oregon’s state motto,” one City Hall official says. “These days, things really look different.”

The Portland Oregonian has covered the Harding story with a vengeance, and by most accounts has done an unusually comprehensive job.

But Oregonian editors say they are surprised how few letters they have received in response, which is to say darned few. And most of those are not concerned with Harding or Kerrigan, but are “critical of the extensive coverage,” says Forum Editor Robert M. Landauer.

“They’re saying basically that her accusers are blowhards, people with the stature of slug bait--that’s the kind of language they’re using. They’re asking us to suspend judgment (on Harding) based on these people all trying to cut themselves a deal.”

Clearly overwhelmed county law enforcement officials seem to be proceeding with energy more fitting an assassination than a case of second-degree assault. This, despite Dist. Atty. Michael Schrunk’s own characterization that the crime was “committed by the Three Stooges.”

And the forces propelling this--The Biggest Little Case in the West--seem unstoppable.

Even before Thursday’s press conference, Harding had become Oregon’s dominant news figure, pushing sexual harassment claims against Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) onto the back pages and relegating a shocking triple murder to also-ran coverage.

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Because of this, the downtown area, the suburban Clackamas ice rink, the winding roads in the outlands have become something new and strange for this corner of the Northwest: A breathless news beat. Parking lots are dotted with TV satellite trucks. Masses of men and women with cameras and note pads shuffle down sidewalks from the FBI office to the courthouse to the jail, recording every move. There she goes! She’s walking into her house to get her overnight bag. She’s at a bingo hall. Where? Oops, never mind.

“So, we have some young skater who has problems with her husband and some other young skater gets bopped on the knee. That kind of stuff belongs on the human interest pages. But this ?” says businessman Ron Ennis, his voice rising.

“We might stand back and ask what kind of hyper-competition leads to this kind of hideous act. What kind of world are we creating? But that’s not what is going on. . . . There are important things we should be paying attention to. What is it about us that we want to read every scrap about this?”

No less than in any American city, residents say, there is serious crime in Portland--and a feeling that it is out of control. The Harding case has raised doubts about allocation of media attention and law enforcement resources.

In the midst of the Harding affair, three women were shot execution-style at a service station just a dozen miles away in suburban Gresham.

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“I empathize with Tonya and Nancy. But there are three people dead here,” says Lila Leathers, the station’s owner.

A legion of sheriff’s deputies, FBI agents and law enforcement authorities have been deployed in four states on the Harding case.

That makes Oregonian columnist Steve Duin wonder, “Is something out of balance?”--noting that the city has only six police officers investigating the murders.

In particular, residents criticize a trip last weekend by two prosecutors and two FBI agents who went to Los Angeles to brief the visiting Kerrigan.

“Something wrong with the telephone?” Duin demands. “Let’s remember this boondoggle when the county argues it doesn’t have the resources to keep our streets safe.”

Another Oregonian columnist, Dwight Jaynes, derides the trip as “a dream date in Los Angeles with Nancy Kerrigan. . . . Nothing they wouldn’t do for any of us in a second-degree assault case, right?”

Even the radio talk show hosts fear the story has been overblown.

“I’m trying to move people elsewhere. It does get a little stale, you know,” says KKEY morning host Al Emrichtt.

But not yet stale for Hollywood, the literary promoters and the others with promises of cash and glory. A spokeswoman for Harding’s attorney--yes, it has reached the point where Portland lawyers now have their own stand-ins--said the offers now number in the dozens. “We’re asking people to put them in writing and we’ll keep them in a file. Right now, we’re concentrating on the legal case,” the aide said.

A local minister who provided a major break in the case was astonished by a tabloid TV show’s offer of $30,000 for an interview. And one “promoter” was able to grab media attention with the idea of a $5-million, winner-take-all skate-off between the two women after the Olympics.

There is no denying that the stories of both skaters are now stranger than fiction and, therefore, perfect for quick exploitation.

But what brought them to this point?

Harding began life as one of those rare youngsters who knew what she wanted from age 3. That’s when she started skating. She grew up, moving from house to house with her frequently married, waitress mother. She has been close to her father, particularly lately, but hardly knew her much older stepbrothers and stepsister.

Only through raw determination and the support--financial and otherwise--from people in Portland did Harding get her chance to bloom as a skater. She did it her own way, sometimes with a cigarette in her mouth. But don’t we all have a soft spot for a rebel?

From there, Portland has to pick from two Hardings.

Not so long ago, she was sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oregon and made the rounds of the chambers of commerce, toured the pediatric wards, appeared at the factories and skated in exhibitions around the state--just like favorite-daughter figure skaters are supposed to.

But there is also the jolting counter-image of the police arriving at the scene of a traffic altercation. There was Harding two years ago, standing in the street brandishing a baseball bat, furious because the woman in front of her did not turn right on a red light. Or how about the police reports over the years about her violent fights with Gillooly? These are now spiced with stories of Harding’s mother beating her with a hairbrush when her skating was unsatisfactory.

It is a rags-to-riches tale without a Hollywood finish.

“Harding has forced us to see exactly what many people’s rags are made of,” Nigel D. Wrangham, a counselor who treats abused women, said in an essay in the Oregonian. “It isn’t pretty. Abusive parental relationships, violent episodes and rootlessness. We prefer Cinderella, thank you. And Nancy Kerrigan will do.

“She’s a product of the worst of throwaway American culture, and it’s OK to hate her because you can’t be called a racist for it. . . . She has shown us that, in the real world, chaotic relationships often involve a good deal more than the latest update on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’ They involve fists, hair pulling, gunfire and restraining orders.”

That Harding has come this far despite such problems is enough for the cadre of fans, many wearing pink “We Believe in Tonya” buttons, who turn out daily to watch her practice and to sound off to the massed media.

On Thursday at the Clackamas rink, Hancock was holding fan club applications and selling buttons. “I used to walk the mall for exercise and would see Tonya practicing about 7:30 a.m. each morning,” she said. “She is an incredible skater. I’d spoken to her once and she was very nice to me.”

While Harding has had a love-hate relationship with her hometown, a continent away and worlds apart, New England has long considered Kerrigan its sweetheart. She was raised north of Boston in Stoneham, Mass., a town of white, steepled churches and small, single-family dwellings. If you happen to smash up your car, Stoneham is a great place to be. It abounds in body shops.

Kerrigan’s father is a welder. Her mother, who is legally blind, nonetheless diligently follows her daughter’s performances. Her two older brothers, both clean-cut and handsome, serve as family spokesmen. They are the kind of people who bring doughnuts and hot coffee to the horde of reporters massed in their driveway on a snowy morning.

Soon after she was attacked, the local weekly newspaper published a large drawing in lieu of an editorial. It showed Kerrigan skating with a heart drawn around her and the words, “We love you, Nancy.”

In Boston, the Harding-Kerrigan story also dominates the news. On TV these days, Kerrigan’s practice sessions precede even the sacrosanct weather reports in importance.

And while attempting objectivity, the local media have not been kind to Harding.

The Boston Herald dubbed Harding the “Pam Smart of the ice,” likening her to the New Hampshire schoolteacher who hired one of her students to kill her husband and asked the teen-ager not to get blood on the white leather furniture.

Times staff writers Randy Harvey in Los Angeles and Elizabeth Mehren in Boston and special correspondent Stuart Wasserman in Portland contributed to this story.

Standing by Their Skater

Loyal fans turn out daily to watch Tonya Harding practice. They also sound off in the Oregonian, though the letters to the editor are not unanimous in their praises.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

* “I am sickened by the innuendo and rumor about Tonya Harding. The “True Grit” she has shown in her life is the stuff books and movies couldn’t adequately convey. Tonya says she knew nothing about the alleged plot. I believe her.” --Virginia B. Moore

* “I am proud to be an Oregonian. I am proud that Tonya Harding is from our state and represents it so well. I am not proud of the way in which local and national news media have always portrayed her.” --Karen Hudson

* “Americans are guaranteed the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Tonya Harding should not be denied the pursuit of her happiness through competing in the Olympics, unless she has been found guilty of planning to keep Nancy Kerrigan from her pursuit of happiness.” --Janet Klecker

* “...as an ambassador of Oregon and perhaps the United States, (Harding) just doesn’t get it: what it truly means to be an ambassador. It’s not necessary to play the hardened, tough cookie--after all, this isn’t roller derby or drag racing.”

--Pauline Dugas Tait

Source: The Oregonian