It was November 23, 2006, and Aaron Hernandez’s high school football team—the Rams—was suiting up for the Battle for the Bell.
Played annually on Thanksgiving mornings, the Battle was a grudge match between Aaron’s school, Bristol Central, and its crosstown rival, Bristol Eastern.
Bristol, Connecticut, is a working-class town—football country in the middle of a state where soccer and crew are the suburban sports—and the Battle drew thousands of people to Muzzy Field, an ancient, minor-league baseball stadium that had hosted Babe Ruth at one time, and had been scouted as a film location for The Natural.
Every year, going all the way back to 1959, bragging rights had been at stake: Would the Rams get to lord it over the Lancers for twelve more months?
This year, the stakes were especially high. If the Rams won, they’d advance—for the first time in nineteen years—to the state championship. If they lost or tied, it would be the end of their season, and the end of Aaron Hernandez’s high school football career.
The Rams were confident as they ran out onto the field in their red-and-white uniforms. They had good reason to be. With Aaron Hernandez as their team captain, the Rams had won all but one of their games. Everyone favored them over the Lancers, who had bigger players on their team but had lost four of their games that season. Everyone knew that, on this day, a win by the Rams would push them into the playoffs.
Once again, all eyes were on Aaron Hernandez.
Aaron was a quadruple-threat athlete. He ran track, and was the best player on the school’s basketball team. He had speed, dexterity, good reach, great hands. When he played baseball, he was the pitcher. On the basketball court, his dunks were legendary. And on the football field, he ducked, dodged, and stutter-stepped like a basketball star.
At 6′1″ and 245 pounds, Aaron already had the body of an NFL player. Big and fast, he was the kind of tight end who’d always be the offense’s primary option.
He was the best athlete that Bristol Central had ever produced.
“Bristol Central had become the powerhouse of the state,” says Armando Candelaria, who was coaching high school football nearby in New Britain. “And Aaron Hernandez was the big name in Connecticut football. New Britain is a bigger city than Bristol. Our rivalry goes back to 2001, when Aaron’s brother, DJ, was on Bristol Central’s team. Our rivalry went from there to Aaron’s own rise in football. In 2005, I remember game planning for Aaron. Planning just for him.
“He was like something you’d see on ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. A man among boys, even as a junior. When we played him the second game of his junior year, he caught four balls for a hundred and eighty yards—on a losing effort. In college, he could have played tight end or defensive end—it didn’t matter. You knew who the best player was when he walked onto the field. He was. Definitely.
“I was the defensive coordinator, the secondary coach. It was my responsibility to stop Aaron. But he was very, very hard to block. He’d run away from the whole game. There was nothing you could do about it. From the coaching point of view, his numbers were unbelievable. As a senior, on both sides of the ball, he was dominating. His junior year as a tight end put him on the map. He would give you two hundred yards receiving as a tight end. I remember one game: DJ was a senior. Aaron was a freshman, but he didn’t look like a fourteen-year-old kid. He ran a shallow cross, coming across the middle, and turned it up against seniors. To do that at fourteen against varsity kids speaks volumes.
“In his junior year, we started calling him ‘The Big Guy.’ We started to play a tough man underneath him—whoever got at his feet—and then we’d have a man eight yards on top of him, in case he got free of the first guy. Double coverage the whole time. That was easier said than done because my staff and I did not anticipate how physical he was. He was a lot faster in person than he was on film, and he would get free from the first defender and get open in front of the second defender. That made the game plan difficult during his junior year. We still got the win, but he made it known that you weren’t going to double him.
“Everyone talked about his size. No one talked about his feet. He had really good basketball feet. His athleticism and speed took over. His footwork and balance. When you saw it live you understood, the kid was a born athlete.”
“The thing that stood out to me,” says Ian Rapoport, who covered football for the Boston Herald, “was the first time I saw a guy fall down. He was the first football player who played like a basketball player, making defensive backs fall down. The kind of player who made the press box go, ‘Wow!’ An incredible, freakish athlete, with unbelievable versatility and talent. The first time I saw him, I thought, This guy’s got game. He could start and stop on a dime. It was amazing.”