Hernandez a fallen star
The late former New England Patriots star Aaron Fernandez was a troubled teenager when he arrived at the University of Florida.
Coming from a dysfunctional family, a football scholarship was his best chance to rise above his troubled childhood.
What he learned, however, was that he could get away with anything as long as he was a star on the field. Football fans who paid big legal fees to keep him out of jail and on the field enabled his bad behavior.
Well-meaning folks failed to teach him the right lessons about life and where it might have taken him.
The final failure? When prison authorities left Hernandez in a cell with implements for self-destruction.
Hanging-by-sheet is not an unknown phenomenon, so another failure ended his troubled, wasted life. Sad.
Jim Crowder, Miami
This story was originally published April 23, 2017 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Hernandez a fallen star."