Deadspin: Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend story was a hoax

In fact, I believe one of the latter two scenarios much more than I believe that he was in on it from the beginning. Regardless, he lied along the way to perpetuate it and I have no reason to believe he's not lying now to cover his ass.

 

I agree in that there's way too much stenography going on in the media. And it's been that way for a very long time, and not just in sports.

Still, he owes the public an apology for lying. The first time a reporter wrote the wrong thing, he had a moral obligation to contact that reporter and correct the story. He chose not only to not do that, but to continue the lie. He's a public figure. He has chosen to give out information on his personal life. He owes it to the people he wants to know about his personal life to give out accurate information.

He could have easily kept the whole thing private. He never had to disclose that he had a relationship with anyone.

 

Didn't he kind of do this last night? He admitted that he "tailored" details of the relationship to spare himself embarrassment.

 

Fine that he did that. He's a public figure. Say it in public, instead of hiding behind the cameras on a Friday night.

 

He doesn't owe anyone anything. If he has an intelligent people advising him, they should tell him to come clean and be as public as possible as his future just isn't about playing football. He has to realize future endorsement deals are in jeopardy.

 

I'm not ruling anything out in terms of what he may have known, but some of you have clearly forgotten what you (and the relationships you wanted) were like at age 20.

 

None of us were college football stars who ruled a campus like Notre Dame, so none of us can really walk in his shoes.

Although, to compare the two situations, he says in the ESPN piece that before the "car accident" he was talking to "a lot" of girls, including Lennay, so it wasn't like he was just some sheltered Mormon kid obsessing over an online girlfriend.

It goes along with the theory that I think I'm leaning toward which is that he was initially (or completely) duped, but dramatically sensationalized the relationship for some sort of personal gain.

 

I think this is plausible. Probable perhaps. He apparently is an emotional kid, so it is also plausible that he romanticized, sincerely, the relationship after the fact.

 

I'm sure he prayed on it and Heavenly Father told him that lying was acceptable.

 

Richard Dawkins writes in "The God Delusion" a lot about how religious people get special dispensation from the mass media. They don't get questioned or challenged once they invoke religion. It's a talisman.

An it's fair to wonder if that's some of what happened here. Once Te'o invoked his "Heavenly Father," it may have felt - subconsciously even - taboo to exercise skepticism.

 

Oh my God, I was thinking the same thing this morning.

20? Pfffft. Try 22, 23... A hot mess, I was.

 

In conversations about this, a couple people have said, "he could have had any girl! Why would he need to perpetuate a fake one?!"

Because actual relationships take effort. They take work. Why should he bother with trifles like that?

Conniving?

Mastermind?

How about "young dork who had a buddy create this thing, then happily went along with it, adding details here and there."

Conniving?

Not with how slapdash this was.