All-American Murder Page 7

  Hernandez had scored 10 out of 10 for focus, motivation, and mental quickness, 9 out of 10 for self-efficacy and receptiveness to coaching, and 7 out of 10 for dedication. “Hernandez sees himself as a football player above all else,” the report noted. “He will place a high priority on football and what it takes to be successful.” But in the category of “social maturity,” Aaron had scored an abysmal 1, and at the Combine, Aaron was finally forced to admit that the persistent rumors about his drug use were true.

  “He admits it,” an NFL executive who spoke with Hernandez told Breer. “He had multiple positive tests, so he either had issues or he’s dumb. One or two tests? Fine. But four, five, six? Come on, now you’ve got an addiction. He’s not a bad kid. He just has an issue.”

  Chapter 25

  Aaron’s drug use was not the only strike against his character.

  Scouts at the Combine traded rumors about gang activities Hernandez may have been involved in. According to Ian Rapoport, who covered the Patriots for the Boston Herald, Hernandez was “probably the most talented guy in the draft, but there were obvious questions going in. One was, is he in a gang? That was an obvious, legitimate concern. Did he have gang ties? What was his off-the-field life like? He definitely got into some trouble in Florida. And drug use was the other part of it. He failed a couple of drug tests in Florida. Florida said one. The Patriots said one. I was told it was four.”

  “He failed a ton of drug tests,” says Albert Breer. “But look, 75 percent of the NFL smokes weed. The big thing is, is the guy going to be able to pass a drug test when he’s in the pros?”

  Nevertheless, the scouts had to balance rumors they were hearing against Aaron’s undeniable abilities, his potential, and his willingness to take responsibility for at least some of his actions. At the time, the perception was that, under Urban Meyer’s tutelage, Aaron had begun to outgrow his destructive habits—although, in retrospect, it would look more like Urban Meyer had done an excellent job of managing Aaron’s worst impulses, and shielding him from those who encouraged those impulses.

  “The staff in Florida didn’t want him going home on the weekends,” Breer says. “They tried to convince him to stay during breaks. And there was a lot of uneasiness about home football weekends, because the guys from Bristol would come down for home games.

  “His dad had always insulated him from those people in Bristol. His dad had associated with them, I believe, and when his dad died, he was broken. The guys who were there for him were the gang guys. And that’s where the loyalty came in. Those guys had his back and it was important.

  “There are probably a dozen guys in every draft who have gang ties. It’s not uncommon. Sometimes it’s serious. Other times, it’s friends they’re loyal to and they can separate—compartmentalize. Aaron’s background wasn’t completely bizarre. But it was enough to knock him down in the draft.”

  Chapter 26

  Pro Day workouts were showcases for NFL scouts. Players drilled, ran, worked out, and stood stock still to be measured. For most, it was their last chance to show the scouts what they could do.

  In 2010, Pro Day in Gainesville took place on March 17. For Gators who thought they had a shot at the pros, the pressure was on.

  The draft was just one month away.

  Inside the Swamp, it felt like a cattle call. A hundred scouts swarmed around the stadium. Their stopwatches ticked like mosquitos. Their eyes scanned the field for breakout stars.

  Tim Tebow hoped to have a better showing than he had had at the Combine. Humbled by his performance there, he would not be taking anything for granted. “I don’t know if I necessarily dreamed of this process ever being like this,” he told the Florida Times-Union. “It’s a little bit of a roller coaster.”

  Tebow was not the only one feeling whiplash. Aaron Hernandez posted good numbers in the forty-yard dash: 4.56, 4.61. Better than the numbers that Oklahoma’s star tight end, Jermaine Gresham, had posted at the Combine. Hernandez beat Gresham in the speed drills and the bench press as well.

  But teams still had serious questions about Aaron’s character. Hernandez knew that he would have to get ahead of the scouts’ reservations.

  Growing up, Aaron had been a fan of Drew Bledsoe, the star quarterback for the New England Patriots. Now, he took his future into his hands. With the help of his agent, Hernandez wrote the Patriots’ director of player personnel, Nick Caserio, a personal letter:

  “I am writing in regards to some of the feedback I am receiving from my agents, Florida coaches, and other personnel,” Aaron wrote. “These sources have indicated that NFL teams have questions about my alleged use of marijuana.”

  Aaron had no problem with these questions, he told Caserio. But he did want to address them directly, and counter them with a simple proposition: If the New England Patriots would consent to draft him, he would consent to biweekly drug tests throughout his rookie season. Aaron offered to tie his 2010 earnings to these drug tests, and promised to reimburse the team “a pro-rata amount” for any tests that he failed.

  “If I fail a drug test,” Hernandez wrote, “I do not deserve a portion of that money.

  “I realize that this offer is somewhat unorthodox, but it is also the only way I could think of to let you know how serious I am about reaching my potential in the NFL.”

  In other words, Hernandez said, he was “literally putting my money where my mouth is,” by shouldering the financial burden himself.

  “Test me all you want during my rookie year,” Hernandez said in conclusion. “All of the results will be negative while I am having an overwhelmingly positive impact on the field.”

  Hernandez must have known that, according to agreements the NFL Players Association had long since negotiated with the league, the Patriots would be prohibited from testing Aaron biweekly, or even bimonthly. Like all incoming NFL players, he would be tested yearly, on dates he would know about ahead of time.

  Hernandez knew that, in practice, it was absurdly easy to smoke weed—even on a daily basis—while playing for the NFL.

  But if Aaron’s letter amounted to little more than a goodwill gesture—a promise that could not, and would not, be enforced—it did speak to his willingness to at least address the rumors that swirled all around him.

  Signing the letter “Sincerely,” Hernandez sent it off to the executive, sat back, and hoped for the best.

  There was nothing more that Aaron could do now but wait.

  Chapter 27

  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell walked out onto the stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, looked up from his notes, and read out a name: “Sam Bradford.”

  It was Thursday, April 22. The start of the 2010 draft.

  Dozens of fans in the audience booed, but Bradford ignored them. The Oklahoma quarterback was thrilled. He hugged his family and waved at those who were cheering him on.

  Tim Tebow, who had defeated the QB every time they had faced off on the field, found himself clapping for Bradford as well. Then, he settled back in his seat and waited, nervously, to see if he would hear his own name.

  Twenty-four picks would go by before he did. But when Goodell looked up from his notes and said, “Tim Tebow,” the reaction was joyous: loud cheering, peppered just with a smattering of boos. Dozens of fans leapt to their feet for a standing ovation, and Tebow appeared to be overwhelmed.

  He was a Bronco now.

  Two Gators had been picked higher than Tebow: center Maurkice Pouncey (#18) had gone to the Steelers, and cornerback Joe Haden (#7) had been drafted by the Browns. On the following day, three more Gators made the second round: linebacker Brandon Spikes, who had recently served a half-game suspension for trying to gouge the eyes of a Georgia player, went to the Patriots (#62), as did outside linebacker Jermaine Cunningham (#53). Carlos Dunlap, a defensive end who had missed that year’s SEC Championship game as a result of a DUI arrest, was drafted by the Bengals (#54).

  In the draft’s third round, UF safety Major Wright found a ho
me with the Bears (#75).

  Aaron Hernandez had to wait until the last day of the draft—Saturday, April 24—to hear his own name read out loud: the New England Patriots had taken him as the 113th choice of the draft. The Boston Globe said the Pats were “getting what many considered to be a player with first-round talent for a fourth-round price tag.”

  For Aaron Hernandez, it was a slap in the face: At the very outset of his professional career, the NFL seemed to be treating him as damaged goods. One failed drug test had already come to light. Some recruiters claimed to have heard that Aaron had failed as many six. (According to Urban Meyer, Aaron had only failed two.) But the overall consensus was that the Patriots knew what they were doing. After all, quarterback Tom Brady had been a sixth-round draft pick—and he had worked out pretty well for the Pats.

  “Personally,” Aaron’s high school coach, Doug Pina, told the Hartford Courant, “I’ve always had concerns. He graduated when he was seventeen. He’d just lost his father. He was going away from home. He’s still a young man. He’s leaving college a little early. He’s still finding himself. With the right people around him, he keeps his head straight, he’ll do very well. He’s a good kid.”

  For his part, Aaron was gracious. “It’s obviously a dream come true,” Hernandez told reporters via conference call afterward. “I still can’t believe it’s real.”

  Six weeks later, on June 8, 2010, Hernandez got a Patriots jersey of his own, along with a check for $200,000. It was a lot less than second-round pick Rob Gronkowski, another tight end, had gotten from the Patriots. But it was more money than Aaron Hernandez had ever seen. It would have taken Aaron’s father, Dennis, years to earn that amount. And $200,000 was just a signing bonus—the tip of the iceberg, if Aaron could manage to keep all his demons at bay.

  Part Four

  Chapter 28

  Aaron’s mother ran, bleeding, out of the cottage on Greystone Avenue.

  It was June 29, 2010—one month before Aaron was due to report to his first Patriots training camp. Terri Hernandez’s husband of eighteen months, Jeffrey Cummings, had just slashed her face with a kitchen knife.

  Cummings, whose criminal record included arrests for assaulting women and children, had been drinking. He and Terri had argued, and he had shoved her to the floor.

  “What did I do?” Terri pleaded as she pulled herself up. “Why did you do that?”

  Terri went into the living room to sit down. Cummings disappeared into the kitchen.

  When he came back, he was holding a butcher knife—one with an eight-inch blade.

  Cummings held the knife to his wife’s throat. “What are you doing?” Terri whispered, afraid for her life.

  Dennis Hernandez had never acted like this.

  Cummings began to stab at a stand-up fan, putting the knife through one of the fan’s blades.

  Then he turned and started to stab the chair Terri was sitting in, nicking her face in the process. Blood flowed down Terri’s cheek and onto her arm as Cummings began to whirl around the room, smashing everything in front of him.

  “I don’t care if I go back to prison!” he yelled.

  Although he was on probation for assault, Cummings had failed nineteen drug tests that year. He had also failed to complete a court-mandated anger-management course.

  Somehow, Terri managed to run to the kitchen, out the side door, and over to a neighbor’s house, where she called 911.

  Jeffrey Cummings was in the backyard when the police arrived. The police ordered him to put his hands up—they didn’t know if he still had the knife.

  Cummings ignored them, and started to walk away.

  The cops screamed at him: “Stop!”

  When he finally did, Cummings said, “I didn’t do anything.”

  He would not say any more. But after putting him in a police cruiser, cops entered the cottage. There, in the kitchen sink, they found a butcher knife. There was blood on it, and the blade was bent.

  Chapter 29

  The troubles brewing back home in Bristol had shown up in Aaron’s face almost at the moment of his arrival at Gillette Stadium.

  Just a few days after the draft, Hernandez was trying to watch film and growing frustrated as he tried, and failed, to figure out how to use the machinery. When wide receiver Wes Welker walked past the film room, Hernandez asked for his help.

  “Figure it out yourself, rookie,” Welker said, jokingly.

  That was all that it had taken to set Aaron off. “Fuck you, Welker!” Aaron shouted. “I’ll fuck you up!”

  The incident did not do wonders for Aaron’s reputation. “That’s kind of what he was like,” Ian Rapoport, the sports journalist, remembers. “He was pretty edgy. Guys liked him, but he was edgy and liable to snap on the dime just like that. His temper was so incredibly strong.”

  But if Aaron had gotten off on the wrong foot, the Patriots’ head coach, Bill Belichick, was not the kind of guy who would hold it against him. Belichick’s friends in Foxborough called him “asshole”—and the coach considered this to be an improvement over other terms of endearment he’d earned: Punk. Jerk. Beli-cheat. When Belichick had worked for Bill Parcells in New York, Parcells had nicknamed him “Doom and Gloom.”

  Everyone agreed that Bill Belichick knew how to win football games. But not everyone felt that they had to like him.

  The coach had gotten off to a bad start with the Patriots. The only losing season Belichick had as their head coach had been his first leading the team, in 2000. He had ended that season 5–11—a dismal showing that he managed to turn around the next year on his way to winning the Patriots their first Super Bowl.

  They won it again two years later, and yet again the year after that, racking up three Super Bowl victories in four years.

  But in 2007—a year in which they lost the Super Bowl—the Patriots were given the largest fine in NFL history: $500,000 for ignoring a new rule about where cameras could be placed during games, and filming Jets’ signals from their own sidelines.

  “Spygate” was the first black mark on Belichick’s record.

  Aaron Hernandez would become the second.

  When Aaron Hernandez got to Foxborough, the team that Belichick had built was at the top of the NFL. Tom Brady, who had taken over for Aaron’s old hero, Drew Bledsoe, was still one of the NFL’s dominant quarterbacks—even though, at thirty-three, he was already old by NFL standards. (By way of contrast, Hernandez had just become the youngest active player in the league.) Belichick pushed his players, who were among the best who had ever played the game, to their limits. He pushed himself just as hard, working twenty-two hour days on occasion. The coach controlled every aspect of his players’ performance, right down to the exits they used to leave at the end of their workouts. All of them had to pass by his door, which was always open.

  But even a coach as controlling as Belichick was could not control everything. And, as Belichick would learn, Aaron Hernandez presented a special set of challenges. Aaron was mercurial, immature, full of himself, but also fragile in ways that made his actions impossible to predict.

  “In the locker room, he was sweet and charming,” Rapoport says. “Sweet is a weird way to describe a man, but that’s what he was—a sweet, endearing guy when he wanted to be. But the other part of it was that, emotionally, he was a wreck. It was not abnormal for him to burst into tears when he made a bad mistake. If he got humiliated in the meeting room, sometimes, he would cry. That’s not really normal behavior.”

  Over time, Rapoport and Hernandez developed a connection. “In the locker room, I would hang out by his locker a lot,” the reporter recalls. “He was always accessible. Never a great interview, because he was careful about what he said, but he and I got along. At one point, I shot a video for him—something his cousin was doing. He told me some stuff. We exchanged information, and he said, ‘Look, you’re my guy in the locker room. If I’m ever going to talk to anyone it’s going to be you.’ I said, ‘Cool, man. I respect you, too.’ And he
said, ‘But I just want to tell you, because I’m big on trust, if you ever fuck me over I’ll kill you.’

  “I kind of laughed, but he was not joking. I looked at a reporter buddy of mine who was standing there, eavesdropping. He gave me this weird look.

  “I said, ‘All right, all right. I’ll see you later, man.’ But later on, when Aaron got picked up, I got a text from that other reporter: ‘Remember that day in the locker room? I guess he was serious.’

  “I was like, ‘Yep. Yes, he was.’”

  Chapter 30

  Aaron was not as massive as the Patriots’ other rookie tight end, Rob Gronkowski. Gronk was 6′6″ and weighed twenty pounds more than Hernandez. At first, the big men eyed each other warily. Were they supposed to be competing against each other? Were they supposed to be friends?

  Aaron and Gronk “were both humble,” Aaron would tell the New York Times. They were both “very outgoing,” and “a little bit immature.”

  The tight ends wound up getting along.

  Aaron was physical, fast on his feet, and versatile in ways that allowed Coach Belichick to use him as a combination tight end, running back, and wide receiver. And if Gronk’s size—his brawn and his arm span—made him tremendously hard to defend, Hernandez’s explosive speed made him fiendishly difficult to tackle. Opposing teams could cover one tight end or the other. But seldom were they able to cover both, and double-teaming either was almost impossible.

  “Rob takes a lot off me,” Aaron told the Boston Globe. “He’s so dynamic that a lot of people have to worry about him and forget about me. Sometimes they forget about him and have to worry about me, so it’s a great combination.”

  “He’s a beast,” Gronkowski said. “Great teammate to have, a great tight end. Dude gets out there and gets open. He helps in the running game and everything. It’s great to have each other and push each other.”