Most Heartbreaking & Inspirational Story Of College Football Season Was A Hoax

[ulmont]

The embarassing part for him is that he never met her face-to-face, so he made up a story about how they met.

...and then made up a story about how they used to hang out in Hawaii all the time...

[jimmy olsen]

He was the victim of a hoax.

No, he wasn't.  There are articles where Te'o and his family claimed that the two people had met in person:

Lennay Kekua was a Stanford student and Cardinal football fan when the two exchanged glances, handshakes and phone numbers that fateful weekend three seasons ago.

She was gifted in music, multi-lingual, had dreams grounded in reality and the talent to catch up to them.

The plan was for Kekua to spend extensive time with the whole Te'o family when upwards of 40 of them came to South Bend in mid-November for ND's Senior Day date with Wake Forest.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Gsq3BkqY4-oJ:articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-10-12/sports/34419536_1_brian-and-ottilia-manti-te-o-irish-head-coach+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

If it was a hoax, Te'o was in on it.

There are three possibilities, all in which Te'o lied.

1. He's dumb as a sack of hammers and incredibly naive.

The most generous interpretation where Te'o got tricked is that he was embarrassed by "having" an internet girlfriend and embellished things, then when he finally figured out he'd been fooled he was too embarrassed to tell the truth.

2. The gf was a story he told his parents to cover up being gay which slowly spiraled out of control in sitcom like fashion.

3. He's a sociopath who invented the whole thing for more publicity.

[merithyn]

There are three possibilities, all in which Te'o lied.

1. He's dumb as a sack of hammers and incredibly naive.

The most generous interpretation where Te'o got tricked is that he was embarrassed by "having" an internet girlfriend and embellished things, then when he finally figured out he'd been fooled he was too embarrassed to tell the truth.

2. The gf was a story he told his parents to cover up being gay which slowly spiraled out of control in sitcom like fashion.

3. He's a sociopath who invented the whole thing for more publicity.

I choose to believe #1 until proven otherwise. 

[derspiess]

I choose to believe #1 until proven otherwise. 

Of course you do, Toots.

[merithyn]

I choose to believe #1 until proven otherwise. 

Of course you do, Toots.

[lustindarkness]

Next Meri will tell us women go to computer programming classes. 

[sbr]

Next Meri will tell us women go to computer programming classes. 

Instead of taking the class she should just be the professor's aide.  She can be social and help keep him organized.

[derspiess]

Next Meri will tell us women go to computer programming classes. 

Meh, if I can't provoke her today, nobody can.  Except for Berkut, I guess

[Eddie Teach]

That certainly seems a lot more likely than he was in on some kind of hoax that could potentially ruin his career.

I don't think the missed tackles have anything to do with this.

[Neil]

The worst part of it is that they're talking about it on channels that I actually watch.  I want to hear about how doomed Tom Brady is, not about some shit with some dumbass kid who may or may not have tricked the media.

[Scipio]

It was a hoax, but played ON him not BY him.

Star linebacker Manti Te'o, whose relationship with a deceased girlfriend was central to the narrative of his Heisman Trophy campaign and Notre Dame's unbeaten regular season, was the victim of an elaborate hoax, the school said Wednesday after a Deadspin story alleged the woman never existed.

In a statement provided by Creative Artists Agency, which signed him as a client last week, Te'o said he had developed an emotional relationship a woman he had met online and was "the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke."

According to a Notre Dame statement, Te'o and his parents informed the school's coaching staff on Dec. 26 – nearly two weeks before the Fighting Irish lost to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game – that he had been the victim of a "sad and very cruel deception."

Te'o had talked openly during the season about his supposed relationship with a former Stanford student named Lennay Kekua, whom he claimed in a South Bend Tribune article to have met in 2009 after a football game. Kekua was said to have lost her battle with leukemia on Sept. 12, just hours after Te'o learned that his 72-year old grandmother had passed away.

The story of how Te'o dealt with massive personal tragedy became front and center in his rise to national consciousness. In interviews with Sports Illustrated and on the Jim Rome radio show, Te'o described talking to her by phone through the night as she dealt with the pain of chemotherapy treatments.

"That has to be the hardest thing that I've had to do so far; to be able to operate, and to be able to try to continue with my daily routine, but knowing that I just lost two women that I truly loved," Te'o said at a news conference on Oct. 4. "That was the hardest thing. And the other hardest thing was my girlfriend's service was the day of Michigan's game. And I remember when I found out I knew when they were going to close the casket and all that stuff, and it was during walk thru."

Deadspin's report, however, showed that there were no records of Kekua's death, nor any records that she was a student at Stanford. According to Deadspin, the photos on Kekua's Twitter account belonged to another woman, who was not named.

Te'o's statement contradicted the suggestion by Deadspin that he may have been in on the hoax along with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a friend of Teo's who had allegedly provided the picture of the woman.

At minimum, Te'o acknowledged Wednesday that he had never met Kekua in person.

"We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," Te'o said. "To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

Te'o played poorly in Notre Dame's 42-14 loss to Alabama, uncharacteristically missing several tackles. He is currently preparing for the NFL Draft but will not participate at next week's Senior Bowl.

"We know it's a hoax... The only question out there is exactly what Manti knew about it," Timothy Burke, one of the authors of the piece on Deadspin, said during an appearance Wednesday on CBS Radio.

If Notre Dame wants to make another BCS run in 2013 it will need to so without All-American linebacker Manti Te'o.(Photo: Matt Cashore, USA TODAY Sports)

Deadspin traces back the first national mention of Kekua to an article in the Nov. 28, 2009 edition of the South Bend Tribune.

The article quotes a friend of Tuiasosopo's as saying he was "80 percent sure" that Te'o was "in on it," and that "the two perpetrated Lennay Kekua's death with publicity in mind."

"Mostly, though," the articles continues, "the friend simply couldn't believe that Te'o would be stupid enough – or Ronaiah Tuiasosopo clever enough – to sustain the relationship for nearly a year."

Allow me to retort:

http://jezebel.com/5976718/notre-dame-says-manti-teo-is-a-victim-thats-rich-considering-their-history-of-ignoring-actual-victims?tag=manti-te.o

[Scipio]

And if he is a victim of a hoax, he is still a liar. He was ashamed to having a internet girlfriend and lied about her, embellished the story, still lying. Liar, not honest, not good, not good Christian...

Mormons aren't Christians.  They're Masons.

[Valmy]

Yeah I figured people would eventually start revisiting that terrible rape case...or maybe just Jezebel.

[CountDeMoney]

His punishment is coming. The rumor is the Bills will take him with the 8th pick! 

Funny, a lot of the mock drafts I've seen have him dropping right on top of the Steelers.

[Ed Anger]

Since it appears the main attackers of this kid are the lefty New York hipster faggits and angry women of gawker, I have thrown my entire support around Fergus McFakey.