Lessons to be learned from Hernandez
Yesterday, a young life was taken in a Massachusetts court room. This isn’t an obituary, though it could be considered as one because it involves two human beings who are or will no longer be with us.
But first, let’s rewind a little to over three years ago when former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez nearly helped lead his team to a perfect season and a victory in Super Bowl 46 before Eli Manning and David Tyree’s helmet catch spoiled his and the Patriot’s parade.
At the age of 22, Hernandez not only caught a touchdown, but led the team in receptions on the world’s greatest stage, which just goes to show what a bright future he had in professional football.
The Patriots sure did believe that this would be the case, as later that summer, they locked up Hernandez long-term when he signed a five-year, $40 million contract.
Fast forward three years later, and Hernandez is, indeed, locked up; that’s for sure. Except, it’s behind bars, where he will regrettably spend the rest of his life.
The former Patriots star, who once milked a lucrative pro-football contract, was slapped in the face by reality on Wednesday when his fate was revealed by jurors.
After more than 30 hours of deliberating, the jury found Hernandez guilty of the first-degree murder of one-time friend Odin Lloyd and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
At the age of just 25, Hernandez’s life is basically over. He was convicted of taking another human being’s life, and the price he will pay is his very own.
Now that justice has been served, he will almost certainly never see the football field, where he once made a living, ever again.
That is unless some type of Longest Yard underground prison football league exists, but I think Bert Reynolds already knew that he was pushing it in the 2005 remake of the film.
The closest Hernandez will ever get to football again will be the sounds of game days at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, which he would likely be able to hear from the yard of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Cedar Junction at Walpole if he’s still serving his sentence there when the 2015 season starts.
The maximum security prison where Hernandez will begin his sentence is ironically only a few miles and a short drive away from the stadium.
Without a doubt, there’s a tremendous lesson to be learned from what has transpired with Hernandez, especially for student athletes.
If there’s one thing to learn, it’s to surround oneself with solid, capable people.
That may have been difficult for Hernandez, who as a member of the Florida Gators football team from 2007 to 2009, was surrounded with players who had been in trouble with the law.
According to a New York Times piece from 2013, the 2008 Gators team that would go on to win the BCS National Championship under the direction of former head coach Urban Meyer listed a roster of 121 players, 41 of which had been arrested at some point during or after college.
I’m not implying that there is a direct correlation between this substantial number of arrested players and the trouble Hernandez got himself into; I mean, Tim Tebow and Cam Newton were also members of that team. But, it just goes to show the importance of hanging out with the right people starting at an early age.
Circling back home, not all USC players have been perfect citizens with the law either, though the numbers are significantly less.
In January 2013, former redshirt freshman tight end Junior Pomee was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, though they were later dismissed by a judge. He was dismissed from the team by then-head coach Lane Kiffin.
About a year later, former Trojans wide receiver Victor Blackwell was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, and most recently in January, redshirt freshman linebacker Don Hill was arrested for DUI in Idaho.
I understand that sometimes, things happen, especially as college students, and in no way, shape or form am I comparing any of these athletes for the morally unacceptable actions that Hernandez was convicted of committing.
It would be such a shame, however, to see any student athlete throw away all of their talent and everything they have worked to accomplish because the sad truth is that a lot of very gifted people do get caught up with the wrong crowd and end up perpetrating actions that are out of their normal character.
There’s always the argument that something of this magnitude would never happen to me, but the thing is, anyone could have been in the shoes of either Hernandez or Lloyd.
Would you have ever expected to see OJ Simpson, a former Heisman trophy winner, or Ryan Leaf, a former No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, behind bars? It’s really hard to see someone you once looked up to be handcuffed and taken away by authorities, but that’s reality of our justice systems and it teaches us all, athletes or not, that there are consequences for our actions.
For Hernandez, however, it’s a timeout that he almost surely won’t be able to escape from.
At a time, he had the world at his fingertips with an extremely promising future, but instead of visiting the White House with the 2015 Super Bowl champion Patriots and seeing fans wear jerseys with his name on the back, it looks like he will be signing autographs behind bars as inmate number W106228 for the rest of his life.
Darian Nourian is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism. He is also the sports editor of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Persian Persuasion,” runs Thursdays.