Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, when asked on CNBC last week to sum up Hernandez in a single word, replied:

“Tragedy.”

Asked if Hernandez’s fate — at the time, life in prison — was also heartbreaking, Belichick responded: “Yes. That would be another word.”

The Patriots cut Hernandez from the roster shortly after his arrest and a spokesman for the team said Wednesday it would have no comment on his death.

Some fans found the twists of his life, and news of his death, shocking.

Dawn McCarthy, 53, a nurse who happened to be visiting Boston from her — and Hernandez’s — hometown of Bristol, wiped away a tear as she recalled watching Hernandez play in high school, admiring the “positive attributes he had before he took a sad turn.”

As a teenager, she said, “he influenced a lot of students and people hoping to be good football players.” McCarthy added that she had avoided media coverage of his murder trials. “It was just a painful thing to watch, read about.”

Mike Pouncey, a teammate of Hernandez’s at Florida who is now with the Miami Dolphins, wrote on Instagram: “To my friend my brother! Through thick and thin right or wrong we never left each other’s side. Today my heart hurts as I got the worse news I could have imagined.”

Throughout the many turns of Hernandez’s life — a story of success that was frequently tinged with attendant failure — there were only a few constants. One was that Hernandez seemed to live in two worlds. Whether he was leading Florida to a national championship or playing in the white-hot spotlight of the Super Bowl in 2012, his inner circle of friends included small-time ne’er-do-wells he knew from the old neighborhood.