Mid-century football’s ‘Golden Boy’ Paul Hornung dead at 84



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He later invested in real estate and other business ventures, became a popular figure in Miller Lite beer commercials, and broadcast college and professional football. He caused a sensation in a March 2004 interview with a Detroit radio station when he said Notre Dame needed to relax its academic standards to “attract the black athlete.” A spokesperson for Notre-Dame called the remark “insulting”. Although Hornung has expressed regret for the comment, he has interrupted broadcasts of his alma mater’s games for Westwood One radio, saying “Our Lady doesn’t want me there.”

His wife and only immediate survivor, Angela (Cervilli) Hornung, also sued Riddell in 2016, citing the loss of Hornung’s company due to his disability. His first marriage, to Patricia Roeder, ended in divorce. He had no children from either marriage and no siblings.

In his autobiography, “Golden Boy” (2004, with William F. Reed), Hornung alternated accounts of his footballing exploits with accounts of his romantic conquests and his alcohol consumption.

He said his reputation as a playboy had caught the attention of endorsed gossip columnist Walter Winchell, who wrote in an early 1964 article: “Myrna Loy is rushed by Paul Hornung, the glamorous soccer boy. He keeps the Hollywood star away from his old Kentucky home for a long time.

Hornung told a reporter who inquired about the article that he had never even spoken to Ms Loy and that Winchell could have mistaken her for an aspiring actress named Myrna Ross, with whom he had a date. -you.

Hornung expressed few regrets about its nightlife.

“I’m sure during my playing years I wasn’t seen as a good role model for the youth of the country,” he wrote in his memoir. “But the way times have changed, I would look like an altar boy if I played today. I have never beat a woman, carried a gun or a knife, shot anyone, or been arrested for disturbing the peace. I never even experimented with drugs during the season.

“All I did, actually,” he continued, “was seek pleasure wherever I could find it. It was all tied together – the drink, the wife, the party, the travel, the game. And, of course, football made it all possible.

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