By Lou Kilzer and Lynn Bartels
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers

Joe Stair heard Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold talk of getting revenge against athletes at Columbine High School.

But Stair, one of the founding members of the Trench Coat Mafia, said they always expressed it in terms of "getting into a rumble."

"Nothing like this," Stair said Thursday.

Members of the group insisted that they had no reason to suspect their two friends would turn to violence.

"We are all completely sick," said Kristen Thiebault. "We honestly did not think that anyone could do this that we know."

Stair said he last saw Harris and Klebold six months ago and had no reason to suspect they were up to anything.

But revenge turned to mass murder Tuesday.

The Trench Coat Mafia is a nickname for a group of students who hang around together at the high school.

Harris and Klebold have been linked to the group, but members insist they were just acquaintances. Neither is in a picture of the group that appeared in last year's yearbook.

Stair, who graduated in 1998, said the group formed about four years ago to protect its outcast members from harassment by "jocks."

The name was given to them by other students because of the long coats members wore. Instead of rejecting the name, he said, the group wore it like a badge of honor.

"Nobody really knew who we were," he said.

Said Thiebault: "We're computer geeks."

Stair said members were not "gothic" and not into Nazi symbols, although some members had checked out books on Adolf Hitler. They listened to music by German bands, "but so do a lot of people."

He said there were never more than 12 members.