MOST DAYS, the sports industrial complex is merely nauseating, with its overheated cliches of leadership and adversity, respect and disrespect; with its inappropriate war analogies routinely transforming both the English language and any sense of perspective into self-indulgent mush.
When Aaron Hernandez was charged with murder in June, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, the public faces of the New England Patriots, initially said nothing. Belichick was on vacation. Here was the player he scouted, drafted and rewarded with a $40 million contract being connected to two shootings and three murders, and apparently the coach didn't think it was important enough to return home.