The Aaron Hernandez I once knew leaves me with pure sadness
Mike Farrell is the National Recruiting Director for Rivals.com, where he has worked since 1998. Farrell has scouted and reported on the top high school football players for nearly two decades. A Connecticut native, Farrell became well acquainted with former Bristol (Conn.) Central star Aaron Hernandez, who committed suicide in prison early Wednesday morning.
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 that 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.
I first became aware of Hernandez early in his high school career and talked to him about his commitment to UConn, where he would be joining his older brother, quarterback D.J. Hernandez, to take the Huskies to the next level. Aaron Hernandez was a superstar for Bristol (Conn.) Central and committed to UConn entering his junior season.
His father passed away in January of 2006 from complications during hernia surgery and many things changed. I was told by coaches at his school that it was his father’s wish that DJ and Aaron play college football together, but after his father passed, Aaron started to have second thoughts about UConn. In April of 2006 he changed his commitment to Florida and the rest, as they say, is history.
Would Hernandez have stayed out of trouble at UConn with his older brother around to mentor him? I have no idea and I’m not implying that his decision to attend Florida had anything to do with the path he went down. What I do know is that a happy, friendly and nice kid who was excited about his future as a potential in-state star at UConn was leaving his support group and headed to a national title chase at Florida in the SEC after losing the most important person in his life. But to me, he was still the same Aaron Hernandez I had gotten to know a little bit and on the surface nothing changed.
I was living in New Britain, Conn., during the time Hernandez was being recruited and I was doing TV at ESPN during the week in Bristol, so I saw Hernandez quite a bit. ESPN talked to me about Hernandez announcing his decision for Florida on ESPNews as we had done with many prospects previously and loved the idea of having a local athlete in studio. But since he was flipping from in-state UConn, we all agreed it wouldn’t be the best idea. It was already hard enough for him to de-commit from UConn and leave his brother, so announcing it on national television would have amplified the situation.
In addition to talking about that and recruiting, Hernandez and I talked a lot about football, but not much else. We talked about how he was utilized in his current offense and the plans Urban Meyer had for him in the Gators' offense. We talked about how sometimes he’d be bored against the competition in Connecticut and how he was looking forward to the US Army Bowl so he could compete against the best in the nation. As with every recruit, I try not to get too personal. We never once talked deeply about his dad aside from offering my condolences. It was a subject he clearly wanted to avoid and, honestly, so did I. My father was quite ill at the time.
From the outside, Hernandez was a good teammate at Central, at one point asking me to meet up with him so he could introduce a couple of his teammates that he felt had D-I potential. He was the star of the show but he wanted others to get attention as well. I saw him play against my old high school team in a massive mismatch and he had three touchdowns in the first half, shrugging his shoulders at me in the end zone a la Michael Jordan after the third.
YAHOO SPORTS: Prison spokesman says Hernandez did not appear suicidal
He was just too good for the competition in Connecticut, amassing 67 catches for 1,807 yards and 24 scores as a junior and following that with 62 catches for 1,346 yards and 16 scores in much more limited playing time as a senior. He played mostly wide receiver at 235 pounds and averaged more than 20 yards per catch. To me, he was a surefire five-star tight end and the best in the country, but Missouri’s Aron White finished ahead of him in the rankings. In November of 2006, I received this email from the person in charge of our rankings back then regarding my suggestion Hernandez was a five-star:
“I do not think Hernandez is in the same category as an elite tight end as others have been in the past. He’s a good player, no doubt, but tight ends ranked that high are freaks of nature (Vernon Davis, etc.), which he is not. We had him significantly higher than we had Jermaine Gresham a year ago. At Hernandez's absolute best, he'll be no better than David Thomas and Thomas went in the late 2nd or 3rd round.”
My response and final pitch in January said the following:
“Hernandez is going to be a very good tight end and an NFL first day pick in my mind.”
He was simply an amazing talent.
I saw Hernandez again all week at the US Army Bowl where he laughed and joked with teammates and seemingly had a great time. He was still the same affable, polite and funny kid I had met so many times over the last three years. I thought he would be an absolute star at Florida and never thought anything else. Never once in my mind did I wonder or worry about his off-field behavior. I saw zero red flags and am still stunned all these years later to hear about how he started to run with a bad crowd in Bristol after his dad died and see pictures of him flashing apparent gang symbols in old pictures. But with sociopaths, and that is what many consider the late Aaron Hernandez to be, duplicity is an art form.
The last time I saw Hernandez was following his freshman year at Florida about nine years ago. I was in Gainesville for Friday Night Lights and happened to run into him on the field before the event started. I was a bit surprised to see how many tattoos he had amassed in the short time he was in Gainesville, but aside from that, he looked like the same baby-faced kid I covered for years. We exchanged pleasantries as I often do with former recruits and that was that. By and large I don’t stay in contact with former recruits unless they continue the relationship and Hernandez did not, which is always fine with me.
He was certainly more physically mature and had a different effect about him than his high school days but he was still polite, interested in how things were back in Connecticut and always smiling. Little did I know that he had already turned down the wrong road.
I write this not as a tribute to Hernandez’s immense talent nor to suggest I knew him well, but mainly to express my sadness at how such promise turned into such tragedy for Hernandez, his family and his victims and their loved ones. It’s chilling to have any brush with a murderer and even more chilling to think about that person taking their own life. I choose to think of the good memories I have of Hernandez and the enjoyment I got out of covering his high school career and recruitment.
I like to think I never met Aaron Hernandez the murderer, prisoner or the person who decided to hang himself in his cell Wednesday morning. I knew him in a better time in his life, at least for a little while before his dad died, and for that I am grateful. But with that, my thoughts and prayers go out not only to his victims and their families, but to Aaron’s family as well.
This is a tragedy with only loss and heartbreak at its core.
MORE FARRELL: Three-Point Stance