Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football

[Ilsa]

Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax

http://m.deadspin.com/5976517/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-heartbreaking-and-inspirational-story-of-the-college-football-season-is-a-hoax

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te'o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.

Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI's Pete Thamel described how Te'o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Thamel wrote.

Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te'o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te'o would appear on ESPN's College GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple's fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

The University of Notre Dame is sticking by Tèo, trying to spin this that he is the victim. Looks to me like he smelled a Heisman nomination, which he received, and he wasn't their best linebacker.

[Loudly]

1. Is this like winning one for the Gipper?

[GObamaGO]

2. This story makes me sick

Not sure if there are any legal charges that can be brought against Manti Te'o and his friends for this, but the behavior is despicable.

[d_r]

3. if pete thamel says it

It is probably wrong.

[FreeJoe]

4. Even Te'o isn't denying the hoax

It appears to be accepted that she never existed. The main point of contention remaining is whether he was a victim or participant in the hoax. As much as I'd like to believe his claim that he's an innocent victim, the answer leaves a lot of things unexplained.

There were press accounts of their initial meeting after a game. If she didn't exist, who did he meet? There were press accounts of frequent phone calls. His father said that they got together when she visited Hawaii. He claims to have spoken to her family members. The perpetrator was a friend of his.

So we are left to choose between two scenarios. One in which a football player perpetrated a publicity stunt and got caught. The other in which he was duped over a long period of time by an elaborate plot. Occam's razor is not his friend here.

[Ilsa]

6. I agree with your analysis. U of ND is on TV right now

in total denial about Manti Tèo's involvement and participation in this hoax on NCAA fans and the Heisman committee. UND needs to be investigating whether MT broke their ethics code (I assume they have one). There's money involved, too, as funds were raised for leukemia, etc.

I wonder if the friend and MT were lovers, broke up, and then the jilted lover played the hoax. Maybe MT was trying to hide another secret that would not be well tolerated by his team, university, and church.

[d_r]

11. Thamel was reporter quoted in op

Talking bout the relfationship - he has a histor of believing in imaginary things.

[Ilsa]

14. It doesn't matter that Thamel printed

anything when Te'o said almost the same thing in front of an espn camera on Oct 2, 2012, after a 2-3 year relationship. He's in for a penny, in for a pound.

[d_r]

16. oh yeah i agree

[jorno67]

5. wow! Being mormon has been tough the last few months

Also...did he just "Catfish" the entire country?

[alp227]

18. I hope Teo NEVER seeks political office unlike that other Mormon who ran for president last year.

[Demo_Chris]

7. Did you read the updates to this news story?

[Ilsa]

8. I'm following it on ESPN right now.

What updates are you talking about? Source?

[FreeJoe]

9. At this point...

It looks like he is either one of the most dishonest people outside the Republican leadership or one of the dumbest, most gullible people around. He's claiming to be the latter. I suspect that he's some combination of the two.

If we are going to restrict gun ownership by crazy people, he'd be a good place to start.

[Ilsa]

13. I can't believe the University of Notre Dame is

Sticking with him on this. Their attitude is that it doesn't matter if it wasn't true, because Te'o believed it was true and overcame all of that adversity to play sort-of-okay.

[FreeJoe]

15. Yeah...who would have thought they'd be so stupid

Then again, they are affiliated with the same church that thought that moving child molesting priests to new parishes was a reasonable way to deal with that problem.

[bama_blue_dot]

10. His story changes every minute..

He has said that he met her, in person, and now he says that he never met her..

[alp227]

19. Exactly, I first heard about this on the Damon Bruce Show,

where Damon was skimming the dead spin article, which referred to how Teo allegedly met whats-her-name at Stanford, but then Teo just now claimed this was an online relationship. W.T.F.

[fishwax]

12. Wow. That's quite a story unraveling.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

17. Reminds me of the Mike Yanagita character from Fargo.

Down to her supposedly having Leukemia.