Simpson touches down at TIA

His arrival is marked by a waves of autograph-seekers and media. He is in the area for an appearance on a Web site.

[Times photo: Lisa DeJong] O.J. Simpson signs autographs and answers questions as he makes his way through a crowd of people Wednesday after arriving at Tampa International Airport.

By ANGELA MOORE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 27, 2000

TAMPA -- A small mob stood ready at Tampa International Airport on Wednesday night as American Airlines Flight 1621 from New York taxied to Gate F78. A dozen men toted duffel bags full of sports memorabilia. Every television station in town had cameras there.

As O.J. Simpson emerged, the mob swarmed.

Jockeying for position with elbows and extended arms, the autograph hounds and the media fought to get in front of the man who became famous for playing football and infamous for being charged with and acquitted of two murders -- his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The man who used to hurdle luggage in car rental ads struggled to avoid being tripped.

Pens, pictures and helmets from the Buffalo Bills and the University of Southern California pressed in on Simpson from all sides. The former Heisman Trophy winner looked small in the crush. His bodyguard, only slightly larger in a black suit and royal-blue shirt, gruffly warned the crowd again and again to back up. Simpson kept smiling, signing and answering shouted questions.

"Are there any questions you won't answer?"

"I won't answer any questions about my kids."

"What did you think of Katie Couric?"

"She's excellent."

And then, from a voice amid the other business travelers, workers and tourists flowing through the airport, came another question.

"O.J.!" the voice shouted. "Why did you do it?"

Simpson's smile didn't waver. He ignored the question.

As Simpson moved through the terminal and onto the monorail, unsuspecting travelers found themselves shoved just a few feet from him. Some immediately started calling friends on their mobile phones. Most people stared and whispered to each other. Some rolled their eyes and stuck out their tongues when they heard who all the fuss was about.

"What's he here for?"

"Oh, some Internet thing."

Simpson is in Tampa for a live chat room session tonight on AskOJ.com, an Internet site owned and maintained by Entertainment Network Inc. the same company that set up the controversial Voyeur Dorm Web site.

For $9.95, visitors to the chat room can ask Simpson questions. Most questions are expected to center on the 1994 murders of Nicole Simpson and Goldman, and the long trial that followed.

"I'm ready to fight back a little bit," Simpson said Wednesday. "I'm tired of being the brunt of all these attacks."

The site is for profit, but Simpson has said he will not make any money. His share will go to charities, he says. But Tuesday, in an interview with Simpson, Katie Couric of NBC's Today show pointed out that Simpson has not arranged anything with the charities he said will benefit from the site. One charity released a statement saying that Simpson does not have approval to use its name.

The O.J. mob finally dissipated when airport police escorted Simpson and his two guards into a restricted part of the airport.

The autograph hounds headed back to their cars, grousing about the reporters and TV cameras who had gotten in their way as they sought Simpson's signature.

"Did you get it?" one of them asked a man in a Florida State football T-shirt carrying a Heisman Trophy poster.

"Yeah, but one of their microphones smudged it," he replied.

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