The Truth About Aaron by Jonathan Hernandez

Author:Jonathan Hernandez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

SPRING 2012

A FEW WEEKS LATER, AS my wife and I were going through divorce proceedings, I was walking across Brown’s campus when my cell phone started to vibrate in my pocket. It was one of my former UConn teammates who was now a graduate assistant at the University of Miami. “The Miami coaches would like to meet with you,” he told me. “There’s an opening as an offensive graduate assistant on the staff. Would you be interested in flying down here for an interview?”

“Yes,” I replied.

After hanging up the phone, I immediately went into the office of my head coach to make him aware of the job opportunity at Miami.

Then I phoned Aaron, asking for his advice about interviewing with the Hurricanes.

“Follow your heart, D,” he said. “Plus, Miami is beautiful. You have to go look at it. Miami is big-time.”

Next, I called Coach Edsall at UConn. He thought I should stay at Brown. “There are too many guys jumping around from job to job,” he said. “If you do a good job at Brown, everything will work out.”

I phoned other coaches for their advice and got even more conflicting opinions.

I dialed Aaron again. “Some coaches are telling me to leave Brown if I’m offered the position and some are telling me to stay,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“D,” he said, laughing, “this is exactly how I felt when I was in high school trying to decide between UConn and Florida. I had so many people telling to me to stay at UConn and so many others saying it would be best for my career to go to Florida. It’s crazy how things work out. But if you accept the job, I have a place you can stay in. It’s right on the beach and it’s a penthouse. You could stay there for a few months until you find a place of your own.”

I decided to interview for the position, and I was offered the job. I went back to my head coach’s office, my wedding ring no longer on my finger, and told him I was heading to Miami. He was concerned that I was running away from my failed marriage.

Days later, as I packed my belongings into the back of a U-Haul for the twenty-eight-hour drive south, Aaron stopped by my apartment.

“You’re going to coach at the U! At the U!” he said. “You are going to do it, D. You’re going to be a big-time coach one day.”

I ARRIVED AT MY brother’s off-season rental in Hallandale, Florida. Easing into the parking lot in my Jetta, I spotted BMWs, Bentleys, Range Rovers, and Rolls-Royces. Then I looked up: the building stretched so high that it seemed like it was puncturing the clouds. There were fifty-one floors in the oceanfront property, and Aaron’s place was on the forty-eighth.

As I walked into the lobby, I must have looked like a wide-eyed tourist, the way I gazed in wonder at everything. I rode the elevator to the

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