All-American Murder by James Patterson (4)

Football fans across Connecticut were stunned: three months after his father’s death, Aaron announced his intention to back out of the verbal agreement he’d made, as a sophomore, with Huskies coach Randy Edsall.

Although that commitment had been publicized, Aaron had never stopped getting calls—from Boston College, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Miami.

At first, Aaron had been firm about his commitment to Edsall.

“They’ve most all been sending stuff, but they’ve been calling more lately,” he told the Hartford Courant. “They call my coach and he tells me. I just tell him to tell them I’m going to UConn.

“It’s my dream to play with my brother in college,” Aaron said. “But it’s not a huge thing. I think I would still be going to UConn even if my brother wasn’t there. Since he’s there, it just makes it a better fit. Whether my brother is starting or not, he’s still going to push me and make me be better just being there. He’s a big motivator for me.

“Since my freshman year, UConn has been coming after me. They offered after my sophomore year. That was before anybody was going after me. So that makes me feel better.

“UConn is like family. They were there for me when my dad passed away. It’s tough, though. 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. My dad would have been able to help me out even more. But I’m pretty sure he would have wanted me to go to UConn. My family wants me to go to UConn and my heart’s at UConn.”

Then, the Florida Gators made their full-court press.

“We don’t typically recruit in Connecticut,” says Urban Meyer, who was the head coach in Florida at the time. “But I remember watching the videotape. I’m always looking for that hybrid player. We’re not looking for a big, slow tight end. We want a guy that can do a lot of things.”

At first, Meyer did not see anything special in Aaron. “That was more our staff,” he says. “I’m the ultimate decision maker, but I didn’t know enough about him. He looked like a very athletic guy. But to say that I saw something special—I did not.”

Nevertheless, in April, the Gators had flown Aaron down for a meeting. Aaron told his brother that he was only going down for a vacation. But down in Gainesville, the Gators’ freshman quarterback, Tim Tebow, showed Aaron around the campus and football stadium. Sitting beside Heisman Trophy candidate Chris Leak, Aaron took in a spring game. He met with the team’s other coaches, who had done their best to convince Urban Meyer that Aaron truly was special.

Aaron had spent his whole life in Central Connecticut. Florida might as well have been a different planet.

He made his intentions known then and there. In a video posted on the GatorCountry.com website, he said, “I’m going to be a Gator. This is what I want. They can compete for a national championship, and that’s what I want to be in.”

“It was hard,” Aaron said of his decision. “I was close with Coach Edsall, the coaches, and the UConn players. They’re a great building program. It was something I thought I wanted to be around. But then I became the number-one tight end in the country, so I wanted to play at a top school against the top kids. My dad always said to be the best you have to play against the best.”

DJ had become an integral part of Randy Edsall’s organization. He tried everything he could think of to get his brother to reconsider. “I think it’s still up in the air a little bit. He talks about Florida and everything, but it’s not over until it’s over,” he told the Hartford Courant. “I think when it comes down to crunch time he’s going to really think about the family and put everything in perspective and just really realize that maybe Florida is a little too far. We’re such a close family. If I put myself in his shoes, I know that would be really tough for me to do. I just see him doing the same, in the end finding it really difficult to go there.”

But Aaron felt that, short of winning a national championship, there was nothing UConn could do to get him to change his mind.

Aaron had grown up watching the Patriots quarterback, Drew Bledsoe. He had his sights set on the NFL.

Playing for the Gators would give him the opportunity.

“I really did always want to play with my brother,” he told the Courant. “But I also have to think about what’s best for me and my career, and what’s best for me I think is Florida.”

Down in Gainesville, Gators were treated like royalty wherever they went. Hernandez found that appealing. But there were also compelling reasons for him to move far away from Bristol.

According to a family friend, “Aaron started to get mad at the dumb things that Terri was doing.” The desire to get away from his mother is “what really drove the Florida decision. He wanted to get the fuck away from her. She’d been a problem for a long time. And a lot of people were very disappointed with how Terri carried herself after Dennis passed—even shortly before. Her affair with Jeff Cummings. People did not like the decisions that she was making at the time. They felt as though she had started to tarnish the Hernandez name. Even friends who were tight with the family got to a point where they wouldn’t invite her to things anymore, because of the things she was doing or what they had heard about her.”

If Terri had been more of a steadying influence—if Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow had been less persuasive—or if DJ had succeeded in changing his brother’s mind, everything might have turned out differently for Aaron. Like their father, who had done all he could to keep his sons on the right course, DJ wanted nothing more than to keep Aaron close and keep him safe.

But Aaron had settled on another path. Up in Bristol, he’d kept up his friendship with people like TL Singleton, Carlos “Charlie Boy” Ortiz, and Ernest “Bo” Wallace.

Down in Florida, he would begin to act like a thug.