http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/07/01/inside-mind-aaron-hernandez/
And, just so we don’t start writing a story that accepts anything that sounds like a Hallmark card: Some of my questions for Aaron’s mother Terri would relate to whether Aaron’s dad really was such a positive influence on her son.
Here's a somewhat brief story about his Dad:
Aaron Hernandez grew up in the hills of Bristol, Conn., on a tidy tree-lined street called Greystone Avenue. His dad, Dennis, was a custodian (he briefly worked at ESPN in the early 1980s as a janitor and in the film library); his mom, Terri, a school secretary. In his younger days, Dennis Hernandez was a sports legend around Bristol. He lettered in football at UConn in 1976, and then decades later, his oldest son D.J., a quarterback, became a Husky, too. But neither of them was as accomplished as Aaron.
Bob Montgomery, a longtime sportswriter for the Bristol Press, said the younger Hernandez was the "pride and joy" of the suburban city of 60,000, the biggest star ever to come out of Bristol. Whenever Aaron would be named athlete of the week -- it happened often -- Dennis would accompany his son to the newspaper for the interview, beaming with love.
When Aaron was 16, his dad went into the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine hernia surgery. He died from complications resulting from the operation. He was 49. In multiple interviews with people close to Hernandez, all of them have pointed to that day, Jan. 6, 2006, as the moment that changed his life.
Hernandez became quieter, showed less emotion. He would zone out and brood. He had planned to go to UConn, then changed course and committed to Florida. John Hevesy, who became his position coach in Gainesville, said it was one of his toughest recruiting jobs because Hernandez was in the middle of dealing with his father's death. Ultimately, he wonders if Hernandez left his home state because he wanted to escape the memories and grief. He graduated from Bristol Central a semester early, shortly after his 17th birthday, and bolted for college.
Hevesy, who was Florida's offensive line and tight ends coach at the time, became sort of a surrogate father to Hernandez.
"I think he's still 17 years old at times," said Hevesy, now an assistant at Mississippi State. "You always hear of those people who never really mourned a death; they never cried. I think that's him. I can't remember him breaking down and saying, 'My dad died.' I don't think he ever had his dad help him finish growing up."
read more:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9440598/aaron-hernandez-odin-lloyd-connected-life-death
