Athletes say stories exaggerated; others tell of harassment

By Randy Holtz
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Athletes and others at Columbine High School agree there's a rift among the jocks and other factions.

But they don't agree how much of a problem it is.

A former student says a genuine dislike long has existed. A father says his son was terrorized because he was Jewish. Dozens watched jocks pick on members of the Trench Coat Mafia.

But several students and the football coach insist the idea of a Columbine athletic aristocracy has been overblown since two seniors associated with the Trench Coat Mafia went on a killing rampage at the school.

"If they were targeting athletes, why did they go to the library? Why didn't they wait until after school and go to the gym or the locker room?" football coach Andy Lowry said.

"There's no explanation for this other than these were two sick kids who hated themselves and hated everyone else."

One of the gunmen's friends agreed.

"Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were my friends, and I'm telling you they were not targeting jocks," said senior Dustin Gorton. "When you really look at it, they were targeting everybody."

But witnesses to the shootings heard otherwise.

"They said, 'All jocks are dead. All jocks stand up. Any jock wearing a white baseball cap stand up!"' said sophomore Joshua Lapp, who was in the library.

Harris and Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 21 students before killing themselves.

Only eight of their victims were members of Columbine's athletic teams.

But the tragedy has intensified debate about whether Columbine coddled its jocks and whether the administration looked the other way as they picked on less popular kids.

Athletes don't think so.

"I'm sure there were some jocks who might have made fun of (the Trench Coat Mafia)," sophomore wrestler Jason Greer said.

"But I wouldn't say there was a real dislike for each other. Most of the people everybody calls jocks do a lot of other different things besides sports. It's not like every athlete looks at being a jock as his whole identity."

But former Columbine student Eric Quintana described a "jock elitism."

"The athletes rule this school," Quintana said. "When I was a sophomore, I was at Chatfield. There wasn't nearly as much animosity between cliques there. The athletes (at Columbine) feel they can do anything they want, say anything they want. I'm sure that was going through those guys' minds when they shot people."

Columbine parent Steve Greene complained to school officials that athletes at the school intimidated and physically abused his son, Jonathan, daily.

But Greene said his complaints were ignored because the school protects jocks.

Greene, who is Jewish, told the Intermountain Jewish news that many of the taunts were anti-Semitic.

Joe Stair, one of the original members of the Trench Coat Mafia, said the group formed about four years ago to protect its members from harassment by jocks.

Stair last talked to Harris and Klebold about six months ago. They joked about getting revenge against Columbine athletes but in terms of "getting into a rumble," not of shooting people.

Senior Adam Foss said that since the tragedy, the cliques seem to have disappeared.

"All the barriers are gone," he said. "People come up to you and throw their arms around you and tell you how they love you -- students you never even thought you could talk to before."

Staff writers Lynn Bartels, Manny Gonzales and Lou Kilzer contributed to this report.