Archive: Opinions

I was reading an article this morning about former NFL New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez.   Hernandez has been convicted of murdering a man who was dating his fiancée's sister.  He was sentenced to life in prison.  People who know me are probably scratching their heads, thinking, 'He actually read a sports article?'  What caught my attention was that a 25-year-old man with a promising career who had worked his way up to a $40 million dollar contract with a football team I would be rooting for if I understood the first thing about football (I grew up in New England) would do something that drastic to tank his own life when he had so much going for him.

While celebrities like Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber or Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears appear to be driving their sporty convertibles down the road to ruin, there is really no comparison.  They still control their fates.  Hernandez -- not any more.

One of my guilty secrets is that I loved watching Hannah Montana with my daughter when she was growing up.  I loved the wholesomeness of it and I loved that the show itself was a father-daughter endeavor and I loved watching my daughter laugh at it.  I was upset when Cyrus embraced the dark side, torpedoing an image millions of fans truly loved and reportedly destroying her relationship with her father.  But gaining infamy for wiggling your butt and making 'twerking' a thing isn't the same as destroying your life like Hernandez has done.

Odd how many Disney child stars think that being a grownup means being a jerk.  But being a jerk pales when compared to the Hernandez story, which is an American tragedy.

You don't get to be a $40 million NFL star without earning it, which means grueling hard work and determination.  While Cyrus is unquestionably talented you might argue that her fame was handed to her as the daughter of a celebrity.  Hernandez had to work for it.  You could argue that Cyrus doesn't understand the value of what she chooses to throw away, but my guess is that Hernandez does.

He worked his way up to a long-time girlfriend, a daughter, and a $1.3 million dollar home.  Hernandez played hard in high school and college, eventually signing a four-year contract with the New England Patriots in 2010.  He was the youngest active player in the NFL that year, a major accomplishment.  But by 2013 the Patriots had released him from his contract, and today he is looking at life in jail, if you call that living.  His murder conviction was only the last of several involvements in shootings.

So $1.3 million house, a family, respect and a promising professional football career.  Or life in a Massachusetts prison.  Which would you choose?  How hard is it not to murder someone?

This isn't a case like Judy Garland or John Belushi or Anna Nicole Smith who arguably couldn't control their lives no matter how great they were.  This is an OJ Simpson story.  Simpson was another NFL superstar who worked hard to rise from a troubled childhood to become an accomplished and respected celebrity.  He acted in a half dozen motion pictures and television shows and became a Monday Night Football commentator on NBC.  If anybody 'had it all' Simpson was the guy.  He traded it all for a 4 by 6 foot jail cell in Nevada.

Simpson was famously acquitted of killing his wife but later lost a civil suit in which he was held liable for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman.  Some people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at this point, but he managed to get into trouble until he was arrested and convicted of robbery and kidnapping case when he allegedly took sports memorabilia at gunpoint in Las Vegas.

The American Dream is one dream you aren't required to wake up from.  If ever there was a case of someone working hard to become a success and seemingly purposefully torpedoing himself, OJ is the poster boy.  And now Hernandez.  You may argue that they were stupid, that they thought they were invulnerable because of their fame and money.  I argue that you can't make it on the level they did and also be stupid.  Why did they turn the American Dream into the American Nightmare?   Why did they do that?

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