Photo from Google Images
Here’s what I understand in the short story:
There was a four year internet relationship with Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o and Lennay Kekua. While “Lennay” and Manti never physically met in person, Manti told his father they had met in fear of people thinking he was a weirdo. (It was a little white lie at the time that anyone in his shoes would have told.) During their relationship “Lennay” was in a car accident and then died from leukemia. Ironically, “Lennay” died the same day as Manti’s grandmother, on September 12, 2012. The two losses for the Notre Dame Heisman front runner became a story the media widely reported and the heartbreak story was a script college football fans were buying into.
On December 6th Manti received a phone call from “Lennay” saying she was still alive. Confused, Manti thought someone was trying to prank him and hung up saying the “Lennay” he knew died September 12th. He continued to speak of “Lennay” in interviews. He then told his parents when he was home in Hawaii on Christmas day about the phone call from “Lennay”. Notre Dame was informed on December 26th 2012.
On January 7th Notre Dame played Alabama in the BCS National Championship game.
On January 16th Deadspin.com published the #Hoax
On January 24th Manti does his first on camera interview with Katie Couric.
My conclusion:
Notre Dame should really invest in better team doctors and counseling.
Let’s be honest. With the number of social media sites and the ability to connect to millions of strangers is easily just a click away. At some point I’m pretty confident that anyone on the World Wide Web will be contacted by a “stranger”. Sometimes it’s a scam, sometimes it’s a pick up line and sometimes it’s just to chat. Sure you can make friends online, but I can’t ever imagine a normal person having a committed boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with some that you have never met in person or even seen live online. (With webcams, facetime, skype, and the list goes on you can see others live without being able to touch them.)
I really think he was the victim.
He physically heard a feminine voice on other end of the phone for years. There are phone records and voice mails to confirm. No guy spends that much time on the phone to add texture to a hoax. Manti’s family had also talked to “Lennay” on the phone and they never questioned the relationship. They all believed she was real. “Lennay” is a real person that matches the photos that Manti had, but the voice pretending to be the picture and behind the phone calls was Ronaiah Tulasosopo, Manti thought Ronaiah was “Lennay’s” cousin.
What I question:
What I don’t understand is how a good looking guy, a rock star football player, and the BMOC (Big Man On Campus) doesn’t have a line of girls trying to get a Hawaiian Lei. Couric asked him about his sexual orientation and he didn’t hesitate to say “far from it, faaaarrrrrr from it”. I’ll believe him when at least two girls tell TMZ that they know about his Samoan roots. Until then, something something smells fishy… Playing for the other team is highly shunned in the Mormon religion and a Catholic school is the best place to cover up a sexual scandal… just saying…
Scam for the Heisman?
What annoyed me about the Katie Couric interview was that she continued to use the Heisman card. The Heisman is awarded to the most outstanding college football player, not to the most gullible story in college football. Notre Dame went undefeated; Te’o’s performance on the field during the regular season got him invited to the trophy presentation, not this story.
The NFL Draft:
Maybe it was just a cover up to draw less attention on the SEC beat down that Notre Dame took in the National Championship game against Alabama. Clearly his performance during the National Championship game was an illustration that his mind was somewhere else. A player who averages 8.4 tackles a game, had seven interceptions and only one missed tackle all season recorded zero sacks, zero interceptions, missed two tackles in the first half and the misses continued throughout the game.
A 14-42 embarrassment was a reminder to all of college football that you have to “Play Like an (SEC) Champion Today” to win a National Championship. That game will hurt his draft stock more than #Catfish.