By Bill Hutchinson
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, April 22, 1999, 12:00 AM

LITTLETON, Colo. Eric Harris seemed like a nice suburban neighbor to Karen Good, helping retrieve her puppy after it wandered into his garage a few months back. But Harris, 18, unnerved classmates at Columbine High School by insisting on tossing bowling balls, shot-put style, down the alley. Dylan Klebold, 17, double-dated last week at the high school prom. He also scared classmates with sudden outbursts, like the time he started tackling girls during a gym class game of touch football last fall. “He called me a bitch and said I was a psycho,” said Tara Zobjeck, 16, a sophomore who asked him to stop. A day after the two self-styled members of the Trench Coat Mafia turned their high school into a killing field, Harris and Klebold were remembered as living in two worlds. To some friends and neighbors, they seemed like intelligent, if disaffected, teens who adopted an anti-social pose as a protest against their suburban surroundings. The pair dressed in black from head to toe wore steel-toed boots and spouted Nazi slogans but also discussed Taoism and Eastern philosophies. “I know those guys to be really good people,” said one pal named Nick, who wore black boots and a cap with crossed swords. “I just can’t believe they would do something like this.

” Sarah Nielson, a freshman at the school, described Harris as a straight-A student. Nick Baumgart, 17, a senior, had known Klebold since they were boy scouts together. He said he thought the Trench Coat Mafia was nothing more than a schoolyard clique and never suspected they would turn to violence. “He was just a really smart kid, a good kid, too,” Baumgart said. “He never expressed any anger or violence, he was just a really quiet kid.”

But Klebold, the son of a retired Army veteran, changed after Harris moved to Littleton about two years ago and the two became friends, some said. Klebold, who lived with his family in an upscale home surrounded by several acres of land, took to spending long hours in the basement and garage of Harris’ home. They played violent computer games like Doom and read up on hate screeds, classmates said. "Dylan was a follower, who was constantly looking for someone to lead,” Baumgart said. Along with their black coats and outfits, the two teens started spouting hatred for blacks, Hispanics and Jews. They shared a special hatred for athletes. During their murderous spree, one even shouted, “All jocks stand up!”

Sarah (Nielson) told "Larry King Live” that the school athletes frequently harassed them for their Gothic styles and that “they stood up for each other” when picked on. Both, however, followed sports. Klebold was a big fan of the Boston Red Sox, and Harris’ big brother plays baseball for Western State College in Gunnison, Colo. What some saw as individualism, others began to see as the tip of a scary iceberg. “Dylan said he hated the jocks, and how they could walk over people and thought they were tough,” said Andrew Beard, another classmate. A Web site that Harris apparently designed included depictions of death and vicious threats. And the two often talked about building fireworks and bombs. Klebold and Harris, whose father is a retired Air Force pilot, were arrested last year for breaking into a car. They completed their probation in January. But even after the mass killing, classmates couldn’t figure out what went wrong. “I can’t understand how someone could be so angry,” said James Concilio, 18.

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