Absolutely! I truly believe that this is a big problem with sports nowadays, especially football, and it starts from high school! With events like the Opening and Nat'l Signing Day being broadcast like its the NFL draft these "kids" are put on a pedestal and enabled by their supposed mentors, coaches, as well as peers! This sense of invincibility is taught at an extremely crucial point in these kids development and only molds them to be the adults that they will become later in life. Now you have an attitude like they can do no wrong along with entitlement from money made in professional sports or the college program that they go to.... Basically leads to a ticking time bomb!

Actually these above the law attitudes have been around well before ESPN and other Media Outlets covered high school sports. But this has been an issue throughout sports for years. High School and College Players not being held responsible, Little League players being coveted like Professionals, and Professionals being able to pay their way out of bad situations.
This will only stop when people stop treating kids like Professional Athletes and start treating them like Student Athletes.

There are always going to be those who feel that they are above the law. Were all suceptible to becoming drunk off of money and power. There is no remedy. The real problem is that ESPN and other major news networks building their creditbility off of sensationalizing stories such as this, instead of reporting on events that are positve in the world of sports and the world in general. Way too much negativity. Theres no balance.

@AlreadyKnoJ. Very good insight and I agree!

The easy thing to do is look to deflect from the hard core truth.

The truth is that if your child, your nephew/niece, your cousin or whomever spends a lot of time with looks up to someone else as a role model, you must look in the mirror and ask, "where am I failing in this relationship"?

Often times we fail at being an example in many of the basic areas of life, while it's only natural for a person to look elsewhere for fulfillment in an area of their life.

These are people place in the path of our lives for a reason, yet because we do not see the value in ourselves because we struggle to be the "Best" that we can be, we often defer that responsibility to someone else.

If you don't see the value in yourself, how can you ask/expect another person to do the same.
Talk is cheap, so when I start to honor myself by being all that I've been created to be, big and small, then that person placed in your life will have no need to look up to another person/athlete/musician/actor etc..., but instead choose someone that is actually real in their lives.

A saying that is so true is, "your hedge is simply a reflection of you".

I bet that if it was just those two away from the eyes/ears of others, dealing with what ever situation there was, it would've been easy for EH to not take it to this level.

Having other eyes/ears around always seem to instigate us to respond in ways beyond what's needed.
(we often see this in some reply post here on OS).

Whatever everybody is responsible for there own actions plenty of people have had real difficult lives and make nice lives for themselves my wife is one of those such people. Aaron Hernandez wanted to be around the gang lifestyle. And this is what comes with it wasted life's. And for what too look like a bad *** do not feel sorry for " his " actions sorry! Must be tuff to live with 10 million dollars what a JERK.

I agree derektown. One of the biggest issues in this country today is people taking no ownership of the mistakes they make. I know what it's like to get a little special treatment having been a pretty decent athlete growing up but I know what's right and what's wrong and would never use that as an excuse for the mistakes I've made in life. So no, no sympathy for him whatsoever.