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Surly Bevo

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That article didn't give me any sympathy for Hernandez and what he ultimately did, but what it reaffirms that amazes me is that professional sports can have millions of dollars tied up in one employee and they often don't pay any more attention to their troubles (and the troubles that may cause them) than your average bank.  How all the shit outlined in that article wasn't picked up on (or if it was more directly dealt with) is pathetic (and fuck you Urban Meyer)

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1 hour ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Slorch,

Just looking at the time stamps and scrolling through how long that story is, are you commenting on a story you haven't read?

I read it on ESPN before it was posted.

Any other reporting or clocking in I need to do for you,  Sir?

Sorry, I don't readily tolerate the excuse makers( not you) in life.  As a victim of serious child abuse/ neglect, I don't care what Hernandez' circumstances were before he killed someone, unless it can be proven to be self defense or defense of another. We all have choices to make after wicked things have happened to us.  He chose to be a shitbag.

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Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13596

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Sorry about your childhood, slorch. I wish there were more people who GAF and who were able to/acted on that Fuck that could stopped it/prevented it. I know from firsthand experience that can be a hard thing to do. I'll read the article when not multi-tasking but I have a hard believing it is trying to excuse AH's psychopathic behavior.

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4868

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3 hours ago, slorch said:

IDGAF.

We all have choices to make going forward from tragedy.  He chose to hurt/ kill others.  Fuck him.

 

well, not literally...

Completely missed the point.   Nobody is trying to make you feel bad for Aaron Hernandez. It’s simply painting a picture to show that abuse lingers and creates problems far beyond the time and place it occurs.   It’s eye-opening story that should bring more attention to childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and the wide web of pain it begins. 

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8 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Completely missed the point.   Nobody is trying to make you feel bad for Aaron Hernandez. It’s simply painting a picture to show that abuse lingers and creates problems far beyond the time and place it occurs.   It’s eye-opening story that should bring more attention to childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and the wide web of pain it begins. 

I didn't miss the point.  I dismissed it.

 

Fuck excuses.  be a gotdamned man and live your life.   Don't fuck with others.

 

It's simple, really... but we want to somehow enable this bullshit.

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hookem48

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1 hour ago, Your Mom said:

Completely missed the point.   Nobody is trying to make you feel bad for Aaron Hernandez. It’s simply painting a picture to show that abuse lingers and creates problems far beyond the time and place it occurs.   It’s eye-opening story that should bring more attention to childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and the wide web of pain it begins. 

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Gatorubet

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1 hour ago, slorch said:

I didn't miss the point.  I dismissed it.

 

Fuck excuses.  be a gotdamned man and live your life.   Don't fuck with others.

 

It's simple, really... but we want to somehow enable this bullshit.

Fuck you.  What a simplistic sorry fuck of a human  being you are.   If you do not see the way abuse takes "choice" away from kids who are literally molded as personalities  by the abuse, then you are too stupid to express an opinion.     According to the article, Hernandez had brain trauma that was so bad it could not even be explained by playing football.   A lifetime of getting the shit beaten out of you as a kid does explain it however.    So you are telling him to "just man up and power through that organic brain damage."  

Hernandez was a broken, despicable human being.  But the "why" and "how" of it is far too complex a story for some simplistic fuck-wit "I dismissed it" opinion.     

 

 

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Brothahorn

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I'm with Slorch on the 'who gives a shit" team. What's the purpose of this study?

Whatever his terrible upbringing, he had made it. Once you get out, you can't go back. He had the means to get the help that so many never get. Yet he chose to be a fake ass tough guy and fuck it up.

And I say that as someone who the emotional and therapy receipts to back up my opinion.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, slorch said:

I read it on ESPN before it was posted.

Any other reporting or clocking in I need to do for you,  Sir?

Sorry, I don't readily tolerate the excuse makers( not you) in life.  As a victim of serious child abuse/ neglect, I don't care what Hernandez' circumstances were before he killed someone, unless it can be proven to be self defense or defense of another. We all have choices to make after wicked things have happened to us.  He chose to be a shitbag.

I haven’t read it and won’t. Slorch is right. IDGAF either. 

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Your Mom

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Jesus people. The point of the story is that each instance of abuse has many victims far down the line. Nobody is excusing Aaron. The abuse anyone suffers has implications far beyond that one persons life. It’s not an excuse or a justification for anything and nobody in the thread said I’d should be  

Your dismissive attitude toward abuse is far more enabling than the guy who wrote the article and the people who see something significant in it. 

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SameSame

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2 hours ago, slorch said:

I didn't miss the point.  I dismissed it.

 

Fuck excuses.  be a gotdamned man and live your life.   Don't fuck with others.

 

It's simple, really... but we want to somehow enable this bullshit.

Yeah fuck ptsd, that's not a real thing.  Tell'em Slorch, just a bunch of pussies.

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DeweyCox

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I have a lot of experience (20+ yrs) working with troubled kids and their parents (if they’re even in the picture). I’ve worked closely with RTCs (residential treatment centers), the court system, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many other resources whose collective goal is to help troubled children grow into capable adults. Most of the kids I’ve worked for have gut-wrenching histories. I have a perspective that most do not, because it’s just not something we like to get up close and personal with or discuss with any depth.

The formative years of life are so important for establishing order, trust, cognitive development, etc. It’s the foundation that we build upon for life. Some have a shitty foundation and will struggle their whole life.  Add in brain injury...well, good luck.

The movie Three Identical Strangers sheds some light on the nature/nurture topic. 

The fields of psychiatry/psychology have far more questions than answers.

Unfortunately, many of the kids I’ve worked for were simply medicated into stupor because natural methods were ineffective. We just don’t understand what we’re dealing with. Considering how closed off (untrusting) many troubled kids are, how could we know? 

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SameSame

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8 minutes ago, Vic Mackey said:

How do I read this without signing up for the Boston Globe?

Here it is

Sports agent Brian Murphy and one of his top young clients, Aaron Hernandez, had a lot to celebrate in the late summer of 2012. Murphy had just helped the star tight end secure a $41 million deal with the New England Patriots, and Hernandez had told a crowd of reporters that being a Patriot had purged him of his reckless ways.

But, as Murphy flew into Boston, to meet with Hernandez at his condo, he had another matter on his mind. A little thing, perhaps, but also a measure of how much his client had really changed.

A local Toyota car dealer had loaned Hernandez a silver SUV with the expectation of some free Patriots tickets and promotional appearances. But Hernandez, then 22, hadn’t done his part.

This was no way to build a reputation, Murphy told him. To earn respect you have to honor the deals you make.

“No, no,” responded Hernandez.

He reached into his closet and pulled out a rifle.

“I get my respect through weapons.”

Murphy told a grand jury later that he chose to interpret that encounter, never reported on before, as a joke.

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He now knows it was another warning sign missed. There had been so many and would be many more, missed or minimized by Hernandez’s friends, family, coaches, and associates as his star soared, then plummeted toward murder, prison, and suicide.

Infamy outran fame — in the end, it wasn’t close. What was so obvious about him — his athletic gifts, his outsized persona, his growing taste for violence — proved to be so much less important than what he’d kept hidden.

And he hid a lot. A Spotlight Team investigation found a man who lived a life of secrets — about his childhood, his football career, his sexuality, his drug habits, and his fascination with violence. On closer examination, much about him was not as it seemed or has been commonly reported.

New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in a game against Houston, six months before he was arrested in the death of Odin Lloyd. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

Much of his unraveling occurred in plain sight, but those who profited from his onfield heroics rarely troubled to look or care. In life, one of the National Football League’s star gladiators was not who he seemed to be; the elite athlete behind the dimples and the goofy grin was degenerating into a reckless thug. In death, Hernandez provides a damning example of the indifference big-time football often shows to the price some of its players pay.

For Hernandez, as for so many, the proof is now best seen on a microscope slide — his brain was ravaged by CTE, the devastating disease caused by hits to the head, of a severity never seen in someone so young.

This portrait of Hernandez was filled out by scores of interviews across the country and volumes of previously undisclosed information, including thousands of court and government records, and text messages, e-mails, and images that Hernandez sent and received.

Also by his own words and voice. Globe reporters obtained recordings of nearly 300 phone calls Hernandez made from jail over a six-month period while he awaited trial. His conversations with family, friends, and former teammates open a window on his life the public has never seen.

While behind bars, Hernandez spoke on the phone frequently to family and friends, often reflecting on the highs and lows of his past. He is shown at a a bail hearing in June 2013. (Ted Fitzgerald/Pool)

Those calls reveal many things, some of them appalling, some bizarre, some pathetic. He tried to understand what had become of his life but couldn’t. But he was clear that his football celebrity, and all that went with it, had meant very little in the end.

“You have to find inner peace to be happy. Nothing you do is gonna make you happy. Nothing you get is gonna make you happy,’’ Hernandez said on one jail call. “Just like me, like by having money … having everything in the world, I still was miserable. Know what I mean?”

  

Like father, like son

The misery of Aaron Hernandez was, for almost all of his short life, obscured by the myths and secrets of Aaron Hernandez. It was a pattern that went back to his earliest days, to the foundation stories of his childhood, to three key relationships in his life that were nothing like what they seemed.

First comes his father, Dennis, nicknamed The King. In Bristol, Conn., people trying to fathom Aaron’s epic fall said that he never got over the loss of this larger-than-life patriarch. The school janitor who dreamed of athletic greatness for his sons died abruptly after a routine hernia surgery at age 49.

Dennis Hernandez in his 1975 yearbook at Bristol Central High, the same school that his two sons would attend. (Bristol Public Library)

Aaron had adored his dad and lost his way when he was gone, the story goes. Maybe that’s why this good boy went bad.

It was a myth and behind it lay misery, the Spotlight Team review found.

Aaron and his older brother were often beaten and brutalized by their dad. Aaron didn’t cry at his father’s funeral, and people took note. He kept it all inside.

Maybe that’s what he couldn’t get over.

His only sibling, Jonathan Hernandez, now 32, told the Globe that he and Aaron lived in constant fear of their father’s beatings, which were so severe and routine that Jonathan once threatened to call authorities rather than keep it a private family matter.

Jonathan Hernandez, brother of the late Aaron Hernandez and a former quarterback at UConn. (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)

“I picked up the phone once to call, to seek help,” the brother said in his first interview on the subject. “And his response was, ‘Call them.’ And he handed me the phone, and he said, ‘I’m going to beat you even harder, you and your brother, and they’re going to have to pull me off of you when they knock down the door.’”

The beatings inside their Greystone Avenue home were often about the tiniest of transgressions, and sometimes related to the father’s drinking. But there was a special fury when The King felt his two sons were not trying hard enough in school or sports, said Jonathan, whose upcoming memoir, “The Truth about Aaron,” is due out later this month. Sometimes the boys couldn’t see any cause for the beatings at all — a kind of impulsive lashing out that Aaron would also manifest in the years to come.

Outside the family home, the image of Dennis Hernandez was quite otherwise. In the traditional working-class city of Bristol, some 18 miles west of Hartford, he was generally regarded as a local success story. He was the scrappy kid who grew up in a family with Puerto Rican roots. People knew he had had his share of run-ins with the law, but they saw him pull himself together as a teenager and become a Bristol Central High football star and a football scholarship recipient at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Terri Valentine in her 1977 Bristol Central yearbook photos. (Bristol Public Library)

Dennis married Terri Valentine, also a graduate of Bristol Central, and they settled into jobs with the public schools — she was a secretary and he worked as a custodian. They seemed to have much to be admired, even envied, in this sports-crazy town that became home to the headquarters of ESPN. Above all, they had two good-looking, athletic sons who broke records under the bright lights of Muzzy Field.

First to shine was Jonathan, then known as DJ, who would follow his father’s footsteps and get a football scholarship to UConn.

He’d done so well, but at a price.

In his interview with the Globe, Jonathan wept several times recalling painful parts of his childhood that no one had discussed for decades. He recalled a Fisher Price game table at their home in which one of two long sticks was frequently missing: His father used it in his assaults.

Only later in life — and with some counseling help — has he been able to better cope with his past.

“You realize … that’s not how other families do it. You’re just like wow, you don’t have to hide at home if you get a C? Like really?”

He said he and his brother were raised believing that seeking psychological help for problems was a sign of weakness.

Some outside the family did get a hint of the harshness inside the Hernandez home.

Jeff Morgan, a former assistant football coach at Bristol Central, remembers Dennis as an old-fashioned disciplinarian, but one time he wondered if Dennis took it too far with Aaron.

Jeff Morgan, the ex-assistant high school football coach at Bristol Central, knew Dennis Hernandez as a strict father who would be obeyed. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

“I know one time (Aaron) went to a senior dance as a freshman. I guess he was drinking before he went to the dance, and they threw him out of the dance at the school. Then, the next time we saw him, he looked like I guess his father did discipline him some.’’

When asked how he knew that, Morgan responded, “He had a black eye. I’m assuming that’s where that came from.’’

Dennis Hernandez also once brought his rough ways to the football sidelines, where he was often on hand to cheer his boys on.

When Aaron was just 8, he had a youth tackle football coach named Tim SanSoucie, whose son was Aaron’s age and would later become a high school quarterback throwing touchdowns to Aaron. Aaron’s father made it known he didn’t think much of SanSoucie’s coaching decisions. After a heated exchange of words, Aaron’s father got physical.

“He promptly turned around and clocked me one across the face, broke my glasses off my face,” said SanSoucie in an interview in his son’s home in Las Vegas.

Police responded, but the matter was later resolved through small claims court when Aaron’s father was ordered to pay for the broken eyeglasses. That money was never paid.

These episodes never fundamentally changed the good-father image that people around Bristol had of Dennis — though there were murmured words of something ominous back in his college days. In retrospect, it looked like a harbinger of the trouble that would tempt and envelop Aaron.

Life along Main Street in downtown Bristol, located about 18 miles west of Hartford. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

Two days after UConn lost the final game of its 1977 football season, a police officer from Plainville, Conn., was killed in a bungled home burglary, and detectives ended up questioning Dennis.

He was a person of interest for a reason. The Globe uncovered a police affidavit that says Dennis Hernandez, while not involved in the cop killing, tried to help the burglars evade police. One of the burglars was a football teammate at UConn and Bristol Central.

Dennis, then a junior, was never charged in the case, but he was finished at UConn, where records show he was also on the brink of academic failure.

The turbulence of his personality — and past — was felt most by those who lived with him.

Much later, Aaron, in tapes of jailhouse phone calls obtained by the Globe, reflected on his father’s dark influence on the family. In one conversation, he described growing up in a household where there was “arguing 24/7” and where there was a lot to argue about.

The home on Greystone Avenue in Bristol, where Aaron Hernandez and his older brother grew up. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

Terri and Dennis went through many tough times as a couple. Records show that after they married in 1986, they got divorced in 1991 when Aaron was a toddler, and then remarried again in 1996 when Aaron was 6. Also in 1999, when Aaron was 9, the couple filed for bankruptcy, with credit card and other debts.

There were other troubles. When Aaron was 3, his father was arrested and charged with trying to buy cocaine from an undercover officer. His mother was also once arrested for being part of an underground sports gambling bookie operation, out of the family home, when Aaron was 11.

Aaron Hernandez as a young boy.

Aaron, in the jailhouse calls, recalled scenes of his father being tossed out by his mother — and then always allowed back.

“My mom went through a real lot with my father,” he said in another call. “But she just believes in — she loves someone, she just always sticks by them.”

Brutality was not the entire picture. Jonathan said his memories of childhood can be confusing, as the terrifying ones are mixed in with very warm, tender, and loving memories of his father. He recalled the family watching TV together on the couch, eating homemade brownies as a family, and playing sports in the yard. He recalled his father inventing makeshift games with paper bags and yarn for the boys to play.

He said his father helped the two of them at sports practice and games — and that he dearly wanted them to excel in life.

Still, abuse was one of his major motivational tools, though the beatings tapered and eventually stopped as the boys got older, Jonathan said.

Bristol Central receiver Aaron Hernandez, shown here in 2006, set high school football records in the state of Connecticut. (Bob MacDonnell/The Hartford Courant)

  

Teenage exploration

Aaron would mature into a football player of a skill and local renown his father never knew. But here, too, the gap between the local fable and the reality opens wide under scrutiny.

Hernandez looked like the image of one sort of young athlete on the field but off it, secretly, was another.

The lush green turf of Muzzy Field was where Hernandez could escape the stress of family strife. It was also a place where he could show off his genetic good fortune: uncanny athletic ability that included lightning-quick speed, nimble hands, and exceptional eye-hand coordination.

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In his elementary years, Hernandez was a skinny kid, but by high school he quickly became a man among boys, almost reaching his full height of 6 feet, 2 inches and filling out a sturdy muscular build. He wasn’t a motivated worker in his earlier years, but by high school he was practicing harder than anyone else. He seemed determined to be a star.

He also had his trademark dimpled smile, dark handsome looks, and an easygoing side, which drew many friends and admirers. Among them was Shayanna Jenkins, a female classmate whom he dated for a time in high school and who would years later become his fiancee.

By his junior year, he had become an exceptional pass receiver, particularly with Tim SanSoucie’s son, Dennis, as the quarterback. They were one of the most prolific passing tandems in the state — nine touchdown completions in the first four games. In Hernandez’s junior year, he caught 67 passes for a total of 1,807 yards, a Connecticut high school record.

Hernandez with his Bristol Central High football team in 2006. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

The two teenagers also shared a life outside football. Dennis SanSoucie told the Globe he and Hernandez smoked a lot of marijuana — before school, before practices, and after games. It would become the beginning of Hernandez’s lifelong relationship with getting high, even before big games.

Dennis SanSoucie recalled the first day of junior year walking with Hernandez near the high school.

“We were baked,” said SanSoucie, who later joined the Marines.

For the first time publicly, SanSoucie also talked about a now-and-then sexual relationship he had with Aaron, which began in middle school and continued through high school.

“Me and him were very much into trying to hide what we were doing. We didn’t want people to know,” Dennis SanSoucie said in an interview.

Hernandez caught many touchdown passes from his high school quarterback, Dennis SanSoucie, shown here as they prepared for a junior prom event at Bristol Central. (SanSoucie family)

SanSoucie said he and Hernandez worked hard to keep their relationship a secret. In their traditional community of Bristol, where Dennis was bound for the military and Aaron for big-time football, it was not something they wanted people to know about.

For Aaron, it would not have played well at home, especially with his dad.

Dennis Hernandez had long had concerns that Aaron, as a boy, had a feminine way about him — the way he stood or used his hands, his brother said. He also remembered one of Aaron’s early ambitions that sent their father over the edge.

“I remember he wanted to be a cheerleader. My cousins were cheerleaders and amazing,” Jonathan said. “And I remember coming home and like my dad put an end to that really quick. And it was not OK. My dad made it clear that … he had his definition of a man.”

The home environment, in general, was deeply homophobic.

Discuss: To what extent, if any, do you think that Aaron’s childhood was a factor in who he grew into?

Join the discussion

‘Faggot’ was used all the time in our house,” Jonathan said. “All the time. Standing. Talking. Acting. Looking. It was the furthest thing my father wanted you to even look like in our household. This was not acceptable to him.”

Hearing this sort of harsh talk must have been hard for a teenager exploring his sexuality, though Aaron kept his thoughts to himself. He was also privately nursing another sort of sexual hurt.

Jonathan said that Aaron disclosed later in his adult life that he had been sexually molested as a young boy. Jonathan declined to say more to the Globe about this revelation. One of Aaron’s lawyers in his criminal case, George Leontire, also said Aaron had spoken to him of sexual abuse as a child. Neither the brother nor the lawyer was willing to identify the perpetrator.

Aaron’s sexual complexity was one of his closest secrets, one he hinted at only rarely. His high school quarterback friend was similarly circumspect, and for many years.

Photos from Dennis SanSoucie’s high school years with Hernandez and other friends. (SanSoucie family)

SanSoucie said he has finally come out in his late 20s to family and friends, after Hernandez’s suicide, despite the difficulty in doing so. He believes that Aaron would be proud of him — for that and his publicly acknowledging their past relationship.

“I really truly feel in my heart I got the thumbs-up from him,” he said.

  

“He didn’t get back up”

Before his father died during Aaron’s junior year, Aaron had informally accepted a football scholarship to UConn, which would have cemented the special UConn Huskies tradition in the Hernandez household. But Aaron’s outsized talents — and work ethic — captured the attention of college recruiters across the country. Soon, he was getting calls from such places as the University of Michigan, Notre Dame, Boston College, and the University of Florida.

Hernandez, in his junior year, would suffer his first significant concussion the following season. (Kathy Hanley/The Hartford Courant)

Aaron got a taste of the national media scene, too, as reporters peppered him about where he would take his top talent. At the time, he also began talking about his father in glowing terms, reinforcing the glossy image that many in Bristol saw of the supportive sports dad.

“I wish my dad was here now that more schools are coming. Notre Dame just came on recently and it really makes you think. It just makes me think more,” Hernandez said in a Hartford Courant article. “My dad would have been able to help me out even more. But I’m pretty sure he would have wanted me to go UConn. My family wants me to go to UConn and my heart’s at UConn.’’

But that commitment would waver as he began to be courted by the University of Florida and its legendary college coach Urban Meyer, known for his win-at-all-costs philosophy.

Outside the recruitment whirlwind, Aaron entered his senior year as a teenager searching for his identity — and a good time. He kept up decent grades, but also maintained a vibrant social life, which started to include a sizable amount of drinking, along with smoking pot. On the field, he continued to dazzle crowds with his knack for outmaneuvering defenders.

But in one game against Maloney High School of Meriden, he gave the crowd a scare when he was knocked down by a blindside hit to the head and lay motionless before a hushed crowd.

“I saw him get hit, and I saw him go down. And he didn’t get back up,” said Lorrie Belmonte, a registered nurse in Bristol who was in the stands. “And Aaron would always get back up. And then the coaches went out on the field and … he must have been totally out of it because they called … the ambulance [that] was standing by. And so the EMTs immediately came up on the field and got him and took him.’’

This was 2006, and scientists were just beginning to establish a link between blows to the head in football and the disease now known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Soon, researchers would also begin to understand the damage of subconcussive injuries, which may not have immediate symptoms, but still cause profound damage. That research would affect not only professional players, but millions of children who play contact sports.

In the Boston area, young boys from the South End Titans “D” team participated in tackling practice drills. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff/File)

The pace of CTE research was accelerating, but there was so much that wasn’t known, and the NFL and youth football leagues were largely downplaying the health hazards for players of all ages.

Aaron’s concussion sidelined him for one game. Then he came back and finished out the season. He was named Connecticut’s Player of the Year.

  

“You’re gonna die without even knowing your son”

As Aaron was juggling college decisions, he was also painfully moving between two homes. He had become alienated and full of anger at his mother after his father’s death. It was a rift that would last for years, another betrayal for Aaron to try to make sense of, another well of misery.

Among Aaron’s relatives based in Bristol, he was closest to a cousin, Tanya Singleton, who was about 14 years older. She was like an older loving sister he never had — and someone he could totally trust.

After Aaron’s father died, he learned what seemed unimaginable: His mother was in a serious romantic relationship with Tanya’s husband, Jeff Cummings. It came as a shock to Aaron and Tanya — and over the years the two grew even closer through shared anguish. Tanya would divorce her husband and see him move in with Aaron’s mother.

Aaron was crushed and enraged, and his loyalty shifted even more to Tanya. He began spending long stretches at Tanya’s house on Lake Avenue, which was across from an athletic field where Aaron used to play youth football. It became like a second childhood home.

Amid the turmoil at home, Hernandez grew particularly close to his cousin, Tanya Singleton, and her Lake Avenue house in Bristol became a refuge and a place where he fell in with a tougher crowd. (Pool photo (left); John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

It was a warm, nurturing house that seemed to have an open door to anyone. It was also a house that drew in all kinds of stragglers and drifters, including many with long rap sheets.

It was a place where prosecutors say Aaron got needed solace but also acquired the swagger — and the street-wise mentality — of the wrong crowd.

In later years behind bars, Aaron would have phone calls with his mother in which it was clear he was trying to repair their ruptured relationship. The conversations could be tender, but also blunt — and often profane.

In one, Aaron suggested that she never helped fully treat his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a boy.

“Matter of fact, you’re the reason I never could pay attention in school and shit. You were supposed to get me my medication,” he said in a call in the fall of 2014.

“Yeah, I knocked you over the head with a frickin’ hammer. That was your medication,” she replied.

Later in that same conversation, his mother seemed to equate the effects of an ADHD medication with a dangerously addictive drug.

“That’s what Adderall is: B-L-O-W,” she spelled out over the phone.

The two went back and forth repeating those letters because Aaron couldn’t figure out what she was trying to spell, until his mother became frustrated and blurted out: “Cocaine, dipshit! That’s what Adderall’s like.”

Terri Hernandez (center) and Jeff Cummings sat in the Fall River courtroom during the murder trial for her son in 2015. (Steven Senne/Pool)

Aaron’s mother, Terri Hernandez, declined the Globe’s request for an interview.

In another of their jailhouse calls, Aaron lamented that he long felt he could never be fully open with her.

“There’s so many things I would love to talk to you [about], so you can know me as a person,” he told her. “But I never could tell you. And you’re gonna die without even knowing your son.”

Hernandez reflects on his NFL fame in a jail call

The strains of this relationship were apparent to many of Aaron’s closest friends and family, but not to the college recruiters and coaches assessing his rare ability as a football athlete. In wooing Aaron, they felt they needed his mom on their side — she was, after all, the only parent of this rising national star who tragically lost his father in high school.

It was their story, and publicly they would play their roles in it well.

Meyer, one of the nation’s top college coaches, traveled to Bristol. He visited Aaron’s childhood home and met with his mother.

There was another visit. Hernandez’s high school principal said he also met with Meyer. The Florida coach asked for something that took the principal by surprise.

Meyer wanted Hernandez at the University of Florida — and soon.Read part two of Gladiator, “Lost in the Swamp,” Sunday night

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Zavala

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21 minutes ago, DeweyCox said:

I have a lot of experience (20+ yrs) working with troubled kids and their parents (if they’re even in the picture). I’ve worked closely with RTCs (residential treatment centers), the court system, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many other resources whose collective goal is to help troubled children grow into capable adults. Most of the kids I’ve worked for have gut-wrenching histories. I have a perspective that most do not, because it’s just not something we like to get up close and personal with or discuss with any depth.

The formative years of life are so important for establishing order, trust, cognitive development, etc. It’s the foundation that we build upon for life. Some have a shitty foundation and will struggle their whole life.  Add in brain injury...well, good luck.

The movie Three Identical Strangers sheds some light on the nature/nurture topic. 

The fields of psychiatry/psychology have far more questions than answers.

Unfortunately, many of the kids I’ve worked for were simply medicated into stupor because natural methods were ineffective. We just don’t understand what we’re dealing with. Considering how closed off (untrusting) many troubled kids are, how could we know? 

How was it delt with before big pharma created a pill to sell for every condition? 

Pretty simple and obvious answer to helping those with a messed up past, works way better than the zombie pills.

✝️

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Helobious

Helobious 9503

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Zavala said:

How was it delt with before big pharma created a pill to sell for every condition? 

Pretty simple and obvious answer to helping those with a messed up past, works way better than the zombie pills.

✝️

My deepest struggle with suicidal thoughts came a couple years ago, when I was still a "believer". It amplified my feelings of shame, inadequacy, failure, and guilt 10-fold. And gee that "afterlife" we talk about sure sounds better than this shitty place. Letting go of my religious beliefs helped me to clear my head, open up my mind to rationality, and appreciate the short time I have on earth way more. Religion is not a solution for everyone, in the same way that medication isn't a solution for everyone either. 

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52-80

52-80 19277

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Posted
5 hours ago, slorch said:

I read it on ESPN before it was posted.

Any other reporting or clocking in I need to do for you,  Sir?

Sorry, I don't readily tolerate the excuse makers( not you) in life.  As a victim of serious child abuse/ neglect, I don't care what Hernandez' circumstances were before he killed someone, unless it can be proven to be self defense or defense of another. We all have choices to make after wicked things have happened to us.  He chose to be a shitbag.

You're not supposed to pardon his actions because of his trauma, but you might be able to sympathize with it some.

I don't get mad if a baby vomits on my shoulders...but it's more tolerable from them than a normal functioning adult. 

 

 

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SteelEER

SteelEER 117

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, slorch said:

IDGAF.

We all have choices to make going forward from tragedy.  He chose to hurt/ kill others.  Fuck him.

 

well, not literally...

All this. I feel awful for that circumstance but sublimating that into becoming a likely serial killer is bullshit. 

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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, slorch said:

I read it on ESPN before it was posted.

Any other reporting or clocking in I need to do for you,  Sir?

Sorry, I don't readily tolerate the excuse makers( not you) in life.  As a victim of serious child abuse/ neglect, I don't care what Hernandez' circumstances were before he killed someone, unless it can be proven to be self defense or defense of another. We all have choices to make after wicked things have happened to us.  He chose to be a shitbag.

oiré missing the point. no one is trying to make you feel sympathy for hernandez or to condone his actions. it's just more information on the story, and reinforcement of what we already know- kids who get abused often grow up to be violent criminals. 

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Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

oiré missing the point. no one is trying to make you feel sympathy for hernandez or to condone his actions. it's just more information on the story, and reinforcement of what we already know- kids who get abused often grow up to be violent criminals. 

Indeed

 

I am saying there’s an opportunity for each individual to break the chain. 

Society seems to act like dubious acts are inevitable. 

 

I call bullshit. 

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futureman

futureman 22565

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

aaron hernandez is no better than all those weak minded pussies with diabetes. be a man and produce your own insulin with your own pancreas like i do. jesus, it's not that hard. 

yeah, slorch is definitely missing the point, not you.  

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futureman

futureman 22565

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Fuck you.  What a simplistic sorry fuck of a human  being you are.   If you do not see the way abuse takes "choice" away from kids who are literally molded as personalities  by the abuse, then you are too stupid to express an opinion.     According to the article, Hernandez had brain trauma that was so bad it could not even be explained by playing football.   A lifetime of getting the shit beaten out of you as a kid does explain it however.    So you are telling him to "just man up and power through that organic brain damage."  

Hernandez was a broken, despicable human being.  But the "why" and "how" of it is far too complex a story for some simplistic fuck-wit "I dismissed it" opinion.     

 

 

this reads like a brisket* post.  

Edited by futureman
*unhinged brisket
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Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Fuck you.  What a simplistic sorry fuck of a human  being you are.   If you do not see the way abuse takes "choice" away from kids who are literally molded as personalities  by the abuse, then you are too stupid to express an opinion.     According to the article, Hernandez had brain trauma that was so bad it could not even be explained by playing football.   A lifetime of getting the shit beaten out of you as a kid does explain it however.    So you are telling him to "just man up and power through that organic brain damage."  

Hernandez was a broken, despicable human being.  But the "why" and "how" of it is far too complex a story for some simplistic fuck-wit "I dismissed it" opinion.     

 

 

You’re right

I have no experience on the issue. 

Embrace your enabling horseshit. 

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Jhawk

Jhawk 1075

Posted
Posted

Have to land in the "Fuck you" camp on this one.  Child molestation is absolutely abhorrent and widely under reported, no doubt in my mind.  But there are plenty of people with far tougher lives than AH who don't go killing people and then kill themselves as a way out.

The guy was a class A fuckstain on society and there is probably just as much a case to be made that he was going to be that way regardless of his abuse.  He made millions of decisions since the first time and the last time he was abused.  All of them led to him murdering people.  He had every resource he needed, resources that others in the same position don't have, and he gave everyone the finger and decided he was good with killing people.

If he were still here today and he used his abuse as an excuse, and we were willing to have honest conversations about mental health, I would guess that a massive group of formerly abused people would step up and say "fuck you, you don't get to use what happened to all of us as an excuse and make all of us functional people look bad to our peers."  I know the point of the article isn't to make excuses for AH but it can certainly be construed that way.

Fuck him.  Fuck his abuser, but fuck him in particular.  He did what he did and no one made him do it but himself.  Man up and deal with it just like everyone else has to deal with their own issues.

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yaqdum

yaqdum 182

Posted
Posted

i don't know if there's anything more recent on this, but the last i heard the big story on hernandez was his brain damage.  far worse than his years of football should have generated.  my great suspicion is very early brain damage that started him on that slope long before most.

certainly the early molestation was a factor, but that guy may have been an urban meyer special all the way.  i have to wonder if he was a spring trap most of his life, with his father's shocking passage putting him over the edge.

assuming his brain damage was as bad as described, it's ridiculous to expect him to straighten himself out.  my wish is he had played college ball for a true human, but there aren't many in that game.  maybe a real person would have realized how dangerous he was and gotten him into treatment that maybe would have at least kept him from murdering people instead of covering for it.

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Doc Reeves

Doc Reeves 6434

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Posted

 

As despicable as his crimes were and even though I feel no remorse for his passing, I can’t help be feel desperately sad for the child he was. 

You don’t get CTE like he had just from football. You get that from your head being used as a punching bag by your closet gay dad since you were 5. 

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sushihorn

sushihorn 3233

Posted
Posted
On 10/14/2018 at 11:30 AM, Gatorubet said:

Fuck you.  What a simplistic sorry fuck of a human  being you are.   If you do not see the way abuse takes "choice" away from kids who are literally molded as personalities  by the abuse, then you are too stupid to express an opinion.     According to the article, Hernandez had brain trauma that was so bad it could not even be explained by playing football.   A lifetime of getting the shit beaten out of you as a kid does explain it however.    So you are telling him to "just man up and power through that organic brain damage."  

Hernandez was a broken, despicable human being.  But the "why" and "how" of it is far too complex a story for some simplistic fuck-wit "I dismissed it" opinion.    

Millions of people were molested as children.  All but a handful choose not to become murderers.  The abuse makes their life more difficult.  It does not remove their ability to make choices.

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yaqdum

yaqdum 182

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, sushihorn said:

choose not to become murderers

this is stupid talk.  you should be ashamed.

when i think of people like hernandez i remember the story of deacon jim miller, the wild west era murder-for-hire monster.  i bet his brain was a disaster like herndandez'.  in his case i suspect maybe a horse kicked him as a small child or maybe had a bad fall.  by the time he was eight he had murdered two of his grandparents for pissing him off.  there was clearly something seriously wrong with him, but, like hernandez, sub-human lifeforms found him useful and kept him in business.  only for miller, it was directly his madness that was useful, not something like blocking and catching passes.  miller was cold and professional.  no even matches for him.  blowing his mark off a horse from behind with a shotgun was his trademark.  we all grew up hearing of jesse james and the daltons and such.  we never heard about deacon jim miller because he was so despicable.  and so useful to the wealthy ranchers who kept him out of prison and away from hangman's nooses.

all of you who say aaron hernandez should have waked up some morning and said, "hey, you know, i really shouldn't be killing people," step into the nearest restroom and look into the mirror.  point at yourself and say stupid.  'cause that's what you are.

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