Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
The startling revelation hit the media last night that award-winning Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o may have been suckering the Notre Dame family and Americans who have followed his inspirational rise to glory -- when he claimed earlier in the season to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend, a supposed Stanford student, to leukemia, at the same time that his grandmother died.
This girlfriend, it has come to light, never existed. A fictitious girlfriend whose fictional death shocked and grieved Notre Dame students, alumni, and fans so much that they swung leis around their heads at the football stadium to show their sympathetic support for the brave Hawaiian-born, Mormon star linebacker whose heart had, they thought (and may have), been broken twice in one day.
A detailed report by Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey at Deadspin lays out the strange, bizarre and quite shocking story of the hoax and how the sports media, the media in general, Notre Dame fans, football fans, and even those with just a passing interest in college football bought the hoax hook, line and sinker.
At this writing, wagons are circling to defend Manti Te'o, especially those associated with his football career at Notre Dame. But given everything that has been reported about Te'o and the mythical girlfriend, including his first face-to-face meeting (not an online meeting) with her at Stanford in November of 2009 (more than 3 years ago), one must ask: if the report wasn't true at the time it was released to the media, where was Manti Te'o's denial about it or vocal attempts to correct misleading information after it was reported?
What the repercussions of this will be on Mr. Te'o's career or his status at Notre Dame (I would imagine that a few of the Holy Cross fathers may be a tad upset) remain to be seen, but the football star's most recent public statement on the matter serves up more questions than answers, as he now claims to bethe victim of, and not a participant in, an elaborate hoax.
So very, very sad. In the end, the young man may need some help or a comeuppance.
Addendum: Manti Te'o will speak at a press conference tomorrow. The most obvious question will be who the source was of the very detailed account of the first face-to-face meeting with the fictional Lennay Kekua and Manti at the 2009 Stanford / Notre Dame game in Palo Alto; and why his father is quoted as saying that the two later met in Hawai'i and "became a couple".
NOTE: In the interest of fairness and an attempt to be accurate as information has been coming out, I've been editing this posting repeatedly.
Stay tuned.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
I don't have the time, nor the energy, to fall down this particular rabbit-hole. But thinking back to everything I read about Te'o during the season, and what I've been able to glean over the past day, here's what I think is probably close to the truth.
Te'o was probably in communication with a "girl" over the course of some time, a "girl" whose interactions with him were almost entirely a prank-- to the extent that the pranksters decided to have "her" "die" shortly after learning of Te'o's grandmother's death in September.
Te'o probably knew that the "girl"-- whom he thought was a real person rather than a concocted personality-- was not in any real sense his "girlfriend", and to the extent he allowed her to be referred to as such in the media reports in September, he can be considered culpable of perpetuating a hoax-- but only to the extent that that he knowingly allowed the relationship he thought he was having to be exaggerated in the public eye.
(Cont'd)
Edited on January 17, 2013 at 4:07pmJun '11
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
We blame everything on the internet these days.
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Really? You get Leukemia from Lennay Kekua? Really? · 0 minutes ago
Nope. Got it from your first sentence. · 17 minutes ago
Jun '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Really? You get Leukemia from Lennay Kekua? Really? · 0 minutes ago
Nope. Got it from your first sentence. · 25 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia..."
Yeah, right.
May '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
(Cont'd from above)
Meanwhile, he really did think that this "girl" died of leukemia. How do you respond to a reporter's question about her death by saying "She wasn't really my girlfriend?" without imagining that you come off as an enormous cad? Or, how do you explain that you're only having an internet dalliance, when the reporter wants to call her your girlfriend for the story he's writing? The stories about her death were going to be written no matter what. Why would you want to get into the weeds, in public, about a potentially embarrassing pseud0-relationship that you were probably trying to keep private to begin with? Especially when you imagine it would only drag a dead girl's name through the mud?
I don't think Te'o is without fault here. But I don't think he was in on the big hoax.
And I wish I could just root for my team in peace.
Edited on January 17, 2013 at 4:48pmJun '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
He doesn't get any credit for not sleeping around with psycho groupies?
Mar '11
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Brian Watt
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Really? You get Leukemia from Lennay Kekua? Really? · 0 minutes ago
Nope. Got it from your first sentence. · 25 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia..."
Yeah, right. · 0 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia, a supposed Stanford student ..."
Jul '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Plot twist! So the fake girlfriend may be real? They should call her Memorex.
Jun '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Really? You get Leukemia from Lennay Kekua? Really? · 0 minutes ago
Nope. Got it from your first sentence. · 25 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia..."
Yeah, right. · 0 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia, a supposed Stanford student ..." · 1 minute ago
OMG - I should have used a semi-colon or a long hyphen instead of a comma!
Jun '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Brian Watt
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Basil Fawlty
Brian Watt
Really? You get Leukemia from Lennay Kekua? Really? · 0 minutes ago
Nope. Got it from your first sentence. · 25 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia..."
Yeah, right. · 0 minutes ago
"...to have fallen in love with and then tragically lost his girlfriend to Leukemia, a supposed Stanford student ..." · 1 minute ago
OMG - I should have used a semi-colon or a long hyphen instead of a comma! · 1 minute ago
Now rewritten.
Jun '11
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Well, it is the ultimate in "safe sex" to have a hoax girlfriend. Plus he saved a lot of money on dinners & movies-- so yes, credit is due the young chap from Notre Dame.
Nov '11
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
I think there's a good chance Manti got punked, and then the sports press enhanced the tenderness of the story by injecting it with up to 75% artificial flavors and colors. I'm not a celeb, but have been interviewed or quoted a few times for both news and human interest-type stories. Never once have my words been quoted perfectly accurately and in some cases the facts themselves were massaged to fit better with the reporter's theme. It's conceivable to me how this story took on a "life of its own" (pun intended), and that by the time the truth began to dawn on Manti, he was too embarrassed to admit he'd been made a fool. The sad truth is, the more innocent a kid is, the easier it is to sucker him.
Jun '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Terry
Well, it is the ultimate in "safe sex" to have a hoax girlfriend. Plus he saved a lot of money on dinners & movies-- so yes, credit is due the young chap from Notre Dame. · 11 minutes ago
With Sandra Fluke and group running amok these days, can we blame him?
Jun '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Whiskey Sam
, that would raise serious character issues for a guy who is asking NFL teams to pay him millions. · 1 hour ago
Sounds like he could be a gifted democrat.
Nov '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Skyler:
I wonder if this story is why he seemed to not even be present during the Alabama game.
It looked like the entire team was pining for their dead, fictional, online girl friends.
Jun '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Percival
If the President can have an imaginary girlfriend, thenanybodycan!
It's the American Way! · 41 minutes ago
At least he showed up for work and it really wasn't sex!
Edited on January 17, 2013 at 4:47pmJun '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
This is disappointing, NFL becoming soap.
Jul '10
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Joan of Ark La Tex
This is disappointing, NFL becoming soap. · 19 minutes ago
The real question is what does Brent Musberger think of Te'o's girlfriend?
Nov '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Joan of Ark La Tex
This is disappointing, NFL becoming soap. · 25 minutes ago
Well, they've already got the Jets. What would you call them, low comedy?
Edited on January 17, 2013 at 5:21pmDec '12
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
Vald the Misspeller
Joan of Ark La Tex
This is disappointing, NFL becoming soap. · 25 minutes ago
Well, they've already got the Jets. What would you call them, low comedy? · 5 minutes ago
Edited 3 minutes ago
WWE
Mar '11
Re: Notre Dame Football Star Manti Te'o - Hoax Victim?
It seems everyone is missing the most important aspect of this sordid affair.
Brian Watt: The original and very detailed story of Te'o's first face-to-face meeting with the fictional Lennay Kekua published in theSouth Bend Tribune has been taken down...but is still available onDeseret News (of Salt Lake City) since they reprinted it. In the story Te'os father is quoted as saying:
Who is the source for all this detail?
Mr. Watt hints at it here. Where was the fact checking?
This entire fictitious relationship was reported by such organizations as CBS, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, etc... and yet a simple five minute phone call to Stanford could have easily revealed that this woman had never been a student or a quick check of police reports could have revealed the supposed car accident was also fictitious.
Not one reporter put in minimal research.