I sat stunned Friday as the story of the apparently inevitable arrest of O.J. Simpson in the slayings of his ex-wife and her male friend moved across the Associated Press wire.

In the days following Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman's brutal killing, circumstantial evidence against the NFL Hall of Famer continued to mount. Still I thought maybe he was set up. Maybe he had an air-tight alibi, or authorities would come through with new evidence that eliminated O.J. as a suspect.

No such luck. There it was. Orenthal James Simpson, the football legend, was being charged with two counts of murder. There was no bond. Prosecutors said they might seek the death penalty.

Say it ain't so, O.

When I was a kid, "the juice" was larger than life. I was a die-hard Green Bay Packer fan, so I rarely saw the Buffalo Bills play on TV. But there were the highlights, and if nothing else, O.J. Simpson was the highlight poster boy. There he was, his number 32 barely discernible amidst the swirling flurry of a Buffalo snow storm and would-be tacklers, gaining yardage where there were none to gain, breaking tackles that were unbreakable, and scoring touchdowns for a miserable team that usually managed to lose despite his exploits.

In my home town, the lot abutting Holy Cross Catholic Church and school was a field of dreams for aspiring gridiron heroes. Todd Baber always wore the Bills No. 32. After all, he was the fastest and most elusive ball carrier. I wore either Earl Campbell's No. 34 or Sam "The Bam" Cunningham's No. 39, because although I was a horse, I wouldn't dare fantasize that I possessed moves like O.J.

As is typical among great running backs on mediocre teams -- Gayle Sayers at Chicago, Campbell at Houston and Eric Dickerson at Indianapolis are three others -- Simpson's glory was short-lived. And yet there he is in the record books.

As a two-time all-American at USC, Simpson led the Trojans to the national championship in 1967. In 1968, he received the Heisman Trophy as college football's outstanding player. As a Buffalo Bill, Simpson led the NFL in rushing in 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1976. It was in 1973, though, when he defied credulity -- surpassing 2,000 yards in a single season. His record was bested, sort of, in 1984 by Dickerson, who gained 2,105 yards in 16 games to Simpson's 2,003 in 14.

Following his retirement in 1979, Simpson became a television sports commentator and a some-time actor. Most memorable were O.J.'s Hertz Rent-a-Car commercials, where he sprinted through an airport terminal, eluding baggage carts and leaping turnstiles with the same grace and flair he used to avoid tacklers on the gridiron. Those commercials now seem eerily prophetic.

Authorities allege Simpson killed his ex-wife and her friend only minutes before he caught a flight to Chicago. The 46-year-old Simpson has denied any involvement in the slayings. Maybe he is innocent. I hope that he is.

After all, Simpson seems a man on top. He's seems a successful and beloved celebrity. He seems so level headed. He seems so easy going and incapable of the violence unleashed on his ex-wife and Goldman. And yet what we see as O.J. Simpson really is nothing more than a media-created icon. All we know about O.J. is O.J. the celebrity. We don't know O.J. the man.

That's the trouble with hero worship. Our heroes are men and women, fallen and fallible creatures of God. And when our heroes are sports stars, actors or musicians, all we see is the image, and when they fall, all that remains are memories of that image.

It's time we seek new heroes. But instead of looking for them on TV or in the sports pages, we should look around. When my hero my mom fails, I barely notice, because "love covers a multitude of sins." It's the same with my dad, my brothers and my sister. When my wife lets me down, I'm slow to take offense. She has been gentle with me in my failings, and she has earned my gentleness in hers.

No one in the Eastlick family is a shining star like O.J. Simpson. They're more like slowly burning candles. If their flame is doused, all it takes is a loving hand to ignite the fire. But who can relight a glorious star suddenly snuffed out? Where once it blazed now there is only cold emptiness.

~Jay Eastlick is night editor at the Southeast Missourian.