The Rolling Stone article on Aaron Hernandez had plenty of revelations about his past and his recent life in the NFL and it also had plenty of information on his family, including the relationship between his mother Terri and his father Dennis, who tied when Hernandez was a teenager.
According to the article "The Gangster in the Huddle", the death of Dennis put Hernandez in a tough situation and sent him on the path that eventually led him to commit murder. The article details Dennis's early life when him and his twin brother were athletes and criminals, as they were the "only Puerto Ricans in an Irish-Italian town," and he had issues with assault and robbery and eventually turned things around and married Terri.
Dennis put his kids, Aaron and DJ, to the test as athletes and helped them along with a gym in the basement and more as they got older. Aaron was one of the best athletes in the family, racking up 1,800 yards and 24 touchdowns in high school and it looked as if he was ready for the big time, but the turning point for Hernandez happened when Terri started cheating on Dennis with a violent drug dealer names Jeffery Cummings, who was married to Dennis' niece, Tanya, who is in jail for not appearing in the grand jury against Hernandez.
At one point, Terri and Tanya had an incident at a UConn football game where brother DJ was playing and later Dennis had issues with a hernia operation and died, sending Hernandez into a tailspin. The death of Dennis put Aaron on a tough path and he started hanging out with the wrong crowd and eventually he went to Florida, where his lack of a father figure may have led to him getting involved in some bad incidents, including a bar fight and a shooting.
