Two Takes on Aaron Hernandez
Here are two very good reads about former Florida tight end Aaron Hernandez from Rivals and Yahoo! Sports.
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Farrell: The Aaron Hernandez I once knew leaves me with pure sadness
I woke up this morning to a slew of text messages with a bit of a startle. Yes, my phone goes off all the time, but not like this.
The first one said, “Aaron Hernandez committed suicide in prison last night.”
Stunned, I looked at a few of the rest and the same message was being conveyed in different ways. Aaron Hernandez, former football great and convicted murderer was now dead. And the only emotion I felt was sadness, pure sadness.
How can I be sad for a man who was in prison for life without parole for one murder and was recently acquitted for two more than many feel he still committed? I’m sad for the prospect that I once knew, before his father died and everything changed, before he went off to Florida and became a different person and before he ruined so many lives, including his own. I’m sad for what could have been and sad that the only memories I have of such a person are good ones. Simply put, I’m sad for the 16- and 17-year old kid I got to know who went down as wrong a path as you can go.
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Wetzel: In last days, Hernandez exhibited slightest change
Across his second murder trial, across what would be the final days of his life before his prison cell suicide Wednesday, there was the slightest change in Aaron Hernandez. It was a behind-the-scenes betrayal of his public face, one that stared down homicide cases and life sentences with a care-free attitude and a hauntingly happy smile.
Hernandez began to talk more. Talk to whomever was around him – lawyers and court officers and courthouse workers and the few confidants who dared not show their face. He’d always been an engaged defendant and had always been a defiant presence, but this was a bit different. Maybe it was four years penned up. Maybe it was the realization that this, sitting inside a courtroom, was the most contact from the outside he’d ever again get. Maybe it was a sign of what was to come, years and years, decades and decades of emptiness and regret.
So Hernandez began to talk, especially about the world that was barreling along without him. Not much, but something. From the weather to the NFL news to how his old college teammate Tim Tebow was attempting a baseball career to the traffic on the highways to and from prison. He was open to small talk.