Word: idolator
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...though, he was an idol returning home. As a freshman comping for the Crimson in the fall of 1975, I had been amazed by this massive man. He had seemed almost supernatural in his athletic abilities as a football and track-and-field competitor, yet he was always humble, always polite, always willing to talk at length to an ill-informed reporter (like me, for example...
...next morning, Ohio State fired its fallen idol. Kelton Dansler, one of the coach's top linebackers, later tried to find the right words for what had happened. Loyally, he called Woody Hayes a "great man," but then he said of his coach: "He pushed a little too hard and tried to hang on a little too long." That was summing it all up as kindly as possible...
Jones followed in the dubious tradition of megalomaniacal American religious leaders. The obvious parallel lies between Jones and his self-declared idol, Father Divine. Sun Myung Moon also comes to mind; but somehow the connection to more mainstream evangelists--the Billy Grahams and Oral Roberts of the world--does not seem so far off. We recoil from the terrible spectacle of California cults gone berserk, but manage to forget their antecedents, presumably because the more conventional, if hardly more genuine, religious-business organizations don't break the laws of propriety in such flamboyant ways...
...sense, Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr were like Tunney and Dempsey: they transformed and lifted their sport. When Hull began to play for the Chicago Black Hawks as an 18-year-old left-winger, the National Hockey League gained not only a new idol, the Golden Jet, but also a new scoring weapon, the slapshot. At his best, Hull could skate at nearly 30 m.p.h., and his shot whistled at 118 m.p.h., sometimes knocking the glove off the goaltender's hand...
ONLY AFTERWARDS did the tour members' mood change. Most seemed relieved to have seen the grave, to know where their idol lay. He had sung to them when the world was fresh and bright, and he had kept singing when the greyness of middle-age rose all around, but finally he was silent, and they were left to face the future without the reassurance of his music. After visiting the grave most of the women visited Elvis shops, as though Elvis ash trays and posters and glasses would fill the void. They came away with armfuls of souvenirs...